Alberto Vilar

Alberto Vilar , a.k.a., Albert Vilar, (born 4 October 1940) is a Cuban-American investor and philanthropist from West Orange, NJ, particularly known as a patron of opera. He is set to go on trial in September, 2008 for money laundering, investment advisor fraud, securities fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud. The prosecution claims that some of the money allegedly stolen from his clients was used to meet philanthropic commitments that he had made.

Background

Vilar earned an economics degree from Washington and Jefferson College, a liberal arts college in Washington, PA. He then earned a master's degree in economics at Iona College in New Rochelle, New York. In 1979, along with Gary Tanaka, he founded Amerindo Investment Advisers, an investment advisory firm based in San Francisco and New York, with offices in London. In 1981, Vilar made his first $1 million. Amerindo's main investment activities were in technology funds, and that sector was the most severely affected by the stock market crash of 2000.

Vilar’s donations to opera companies and other organizations

Vilar became known globally as a generous donor to opera companies, performing arts organizations, and educational institutions in several parts of the world. Norman Lebrecht [Norman Lebrecht, "La Scena Musicale", see below] states that, as of August 2002, the total of his "actual plus pledged" contributions stood at $250 million. By 2000 Vilar was claiming to be "the largest supporter of classical music, opera, and ballet in the world". [ Quoted from an interview in "The Times" (London) by James Stewart ] In 2002, the Americans for the Arts organization gave him their National Arts Award, for “Corporate Citizenship in the Arts”. Many of his pledges, however, were in the event never paid.

Among the beneficiaries of his generosity have been:
* Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in central London, where the Floral Hall, one of the major foyers of the redeveloped house, was named the “Vilar Floral Hall” in recognition of a 1999 pledge of £10 million. The ROH changed the name of its atrium to the Floral Hall in September 2005 after Vilar paid only a fraction of the £10 million donation he pledged. [ [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6638245.stm BBC NEWS | Entertainment | £10m pledged to Royal Opera House ] ] Subsequently he pledged money for the “Young Artists Programme”, several opera production sponsorships, and for the installation of seat back titles in the main auditorium.
* The Salzburg Music Festival received its largest donation in its 81-year history from Vilar. He in turn received a full-page color photo of himself in every program book.
* Metropolitan Opera was pledged amounts thought to total $45 million. With $12 million actually given to the company, he remains as its third largest donor.
* The Kirov Opera located in the Mariinsky Theatre in Saint Petersburg, Russia, under Valery Gergiev, the charismatic conductor and artistic director, has been another major beneficiary of Vilar’s support, which is said to have been around $14 million and was focused primarily on supporting the summer "White Nights Festival".
* Washington DC’s Kennedy Center, under its President, Michael Kaiser who had developed a relationship with Vilar when the former was at the Royal Opera House, received donations to create an arts-management program, the "Vilar Institute for Arts Management" plus pledges for a program to bring the Kirov Opera to the Center on an annual basis. In 2001 Vilar pledged $50 million toward the Center's activities. Again, actual payments fell short, and the Center has had to seek alternative sources of financial support.
* The Washington Opera and the Los Angeles Opera both received support from Vilar due to his connection to Plácido Domingo, who is General and Artistic Director of both companies. $10 million was pledged to each company.
* Maazel/Vilar Conductors' Competition.
* New York University has the "Alberto Vilar Global Fellows in the Performing Arts" program, which began in 2002 with a $23.4 million donation to attract and bring young performing artists to study in New York for two years. It has been described by NYU as a Rhodes Scholars-style program .
* Beaver Creek, Colorado has the "Vilar Center for the Arts" and the Ford Amphitheater/Vilar Pavilion in Vail, Colorado.
* Washington & Jefferson College began construction of a new technology building, which was to be named "The Vilar Technology Center," based on a multi-million dollar pledge by Vilar. With the pledge failing to fully materialize, funds were diverted from elsewhere, allowing for the scaled back building, along with its scaled back name of the "Technology Center" to be completed.

As noted in a New Yorker profile of Vilar by James Stewart, at some point in 2002, Vilar was hospitalized for a series of operations on his back, and he claims to have nearly died as the result of complications: "they were ready to give me the last rites". [In James Stewart, "The Opera Lover"] There was speculation that he might have missed some planned donations as the result of his illness.

A lasting effect, however, clearly came from the severe decline in his personal fortune due to the crash in technology stocks around 2000. It is documented that Vilar still continued to make pledges even as his personal and his company's fortunes continued to plunge. Among the pledges were $5 million for money for voice loss research after meeting Julie Andrews and $30 million to a Berlin opera company: "Asking Alberto for money was like offering an alcoholic a drink". [A close friend quoted in James Stewart, "The Opera Lover"]

Fraud charges in 2005

Alberto Vilar and Gary Tanaka were arrested on May 26, 2005, on charges of securities fraud. [http://www.playbillarts.com/news/article/2162.html] [http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/27/news/newsmakers/Vilar_investor/index.htm?cnn=yes] The government claimed that the two appropriated as much as $5 million of an Amerindo client's money for personal use; it was alleged that Vilar used the money to pay for some home repairs and to make good on previously-promised charitable contributions. It was also alleged that Tanaka used money to purchase thoroughbred race horses. The SEC also filed a civil suit (see [http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2005/06/alberto_vilar_s.html] ).

According to Stewart’s article in "The New Yorker", an extensive analysis of Vilar’s rise and fall, “Vilar maintains that when he was arrested he was on the brink of a financial comeback. "Everything I predicted about the Internet has come true.... I'm ready to go back to work and make money." Stewart continues that, “if convicted, Vilar and Tanaka face fines of more than ten million dollars and prison terms of up to a hundred and fifty-five years. But Vilar says, "We'll sort this out. I'll get beyond this. I will always try to help others.... I still love opera and classical music.... The Met is not going to get my money, but it will not kill my love of music." As of late-2007, Vilar and Tanaka remained on bail and ordered to remain in New York City.

The charges did not allege wrongdoing at Amerindo's mutual funds, and when the firm was wound up there were no missing funds. But Morningstar, a fund analysis company, advised investors to withdraw their money in any case, because the funds had been performing very poorly. In fact, as with many other funds investing in internet companies, investors had already been pulling out for some time, reducing assets and causing expense ratios to increase. Extensive seizures of records and computers in the course of the investigation compelled Amerindo's board to merge the fund with Munder Capital Management's fund, "Munder NetNet", later renamed "Munder Internet". The seizures were ruled excessive by a federal judge in early 2007.

Vilar's lawyer, until recently, was Ivan Fisher, one of the most-respected attorneys in New York. Mr. Fisher gained fame for his successful defense in the "Pizza Connection" case. A trial date has been set for September 22, 2008.

Consequences of his failures to pay promised donations

Many of the organizations to which Vilar had pledged donations gradually began to remove his name from parts of their institutions where it was placed prominently.

In July 2005 the Royal Opera House announced that, following Vilar’s failure to maintain the agreed payment schedule, his name would be removed from the building. Later his name was removed from the young artists program when a new donor stepped forward. However, since his total donation to the ROH since 1999 is approximately £4.4million, he remains listed on the Donor and Benefactors Board. [http://info.royaloperahouse.org/News/Index.cfm?ccs=892] . Vilar's name, which appeared on the “Vilar Grand Tier” at the Metropolitan Opera, has since been removed. The Washington Opera’s young artists program has also been renamed (after additional support was found) as the “Domingo-Cafritz Young Artist Program”, and the Kennedy Center’s “Arts Management Fellowship” program has similarly dropped the Vilar name.

References

*Stewart, James B., “The Opera Lover: How Alberto Vilar's Passion for Philanthropy Landed Him in Jail”, "The New Yorker", 13th & 20 February 2006
* [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/22/arts/22vila.html Watkin, Daniel J., "As His Fraud Trial Begins, Fallen Arts Patron Decries His Prosecution", "The New York Times", Sept. 21, 2008] .

External links

* [http://www.scena.org/columns/lebrecht/010523-NL-vilar.html Norman Lebrecht, "A New Future for Opera?", "La Scena Musicale", 23 May 2001, an account of Vilar’s philanthropy]
* [http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_27/b3890119_mz063.htm Steve Hamm, "This Opera Lover Is Singing Again", "Business Week", 5 July 2004 article on his “comeback”]
* [http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/27/news/newsmakers/Vilar_investor/ "Once a billionaire, now a prisoner", 30 May 2005, CNN.com article]
* [http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/whitecollarcrime_blog/2005/06/alberto_vilar_s.html "Alberto Vilar Spends More Time in Jail While His Amerindo Investment Advisers Teeters on the Brink", an account of the charges against Vilar]
* [http://news.morningstar.com/article/article.asp?id=135588&_QSBPA=Y Russel Kinnel and Dieter Owen Bardy, "Amerindo Founders Jailed on Fraud Charges", 3 June 2005, a "Morningstar" account of the situation]
* [http://www.vilarcenter.org/html/patron.html Vilar Center for the Arts at Beaver Creek website]