In the age of Rockefeller, Carnegie and Morgan, a young man named Hotze “Harry” Koch struck out for America to seek his fortune in the nation’s free-wheeling markets.
The year was 1888 -- a figure that is now taking on new significance for Koch’s billionaire grandsons, Charles and David.
With little fanfare, the Kochs are building an operation called 1888 Management LLC to manage part of their personal wealth. Initially tucked inside the private Koch Industries Inc., 1888 has been quietly scouting for personal investments for the Kochs, whose money and influence have helped shape the modern conservative movement in the U.S.
Harry Koch, a newspaper publisher in Texas with a libertarian bent, laid the foundations of what is now one of the nation’s most influential families. Today, with interests ranging from oil to ranching, Charles Koch, 80, and David Koch, 75, are worth about $100 billion combined, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
It’s unclear how much the family office is managing. A person familiar with 1888 put the current figure at more than $2 billion, although regulatory filings show less than $100 million is in publicly traded stocks. Originally operated out of the treasury division of Koch Industries, 1888 incorporated in Delaware in 2014 and has since registered to do business in California, Florida and the Koch’s base of Kansas.
Direct Investments
The man behind 1888 is Trent May, who joined the Kochs in 2011 from the $6 billion Wyoming Retirement System. In Wyoming, one of the most politically conservative states in the nation, May helped steer public pension money toward hedge funds, allocating millions of dollars to firms like Raymond Dalio’s Bridgewater Associates and Louis Bacon’s Moore Capital Management.
At 1888, May is focusing in part on making direct investments in companies in which the Kochs can take a sizable stake, according to people with knowledge of the operation. Among 1888’s other investments is a stake in a telecommunications company called X5 OpCo LLC, which provides voice and data services to businesses and governments. A family investment company of Pierre Omidyar, a billionaire founder of EBay Inc., has also disclosed an interest in the Seattle-based company.
A spokesman for the Kochs declined to comment on 1888. A representative for Omidyar’s Ohana Holdings LLC also declined to comment.
Family offices like 1888 are used for any number of purposes, from handling taxes to estate planning.