But Mr. Einhorn — one of a handful of hedge fund managers followed by investors looking for the next smart play — insists that he spends far more time trolling through the bargain bin, looking for companies with potential that others have dismissed, then betting on their long-term revival.
On Thursday, in announcing that he has entered into exclusive negotiations to spend $200 million for a noncontrolling stake in the Mets, Mr. Einhorn, 42, may be making one of his most intriguing long-term bets yet.
The Mets, as their principal owner said in comments published this week, are lousy, snakebitten and bleeding cash, having lost $50 million last year alone. Attendance has plummeted at Citi Field. Perhaps most daunting, the trustee for the victims of Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme has sued the team’s owners for $1 billion.
Mr. Einhorn did his best Thursday to sound like a friendly investor in a team very much in need of friends. He spoke fondly of dressing on Halloween as Dave Kingman, the face of the Mets during lean years three decades ago. He coaches his daughter’s Little League team. He said that he had, while growing up in Milwaukee, hit home runs into the backyard of the baseball commissioner, Bud Selig.
Mr. Einhorn emphasized that his investment in the Mets was not related to any of the $8 billion or so he manages at Greenlight Capital, his hedge fund. He sent an e-mail to investors to clarify the distinction and acknowledged that he understood that rehabilitating a troubled franchise would not be swift or easy.
“Baseball is a tough sport, and everyone wants to win more games,” said Mr. Einhorn, who would become one of a handful of financial moguls to own a professional sports team. “Over time, there is going to be losing seasons and tough seasons and winning seasons and hopefully championship seasons. I hope to experience all of those.”
Forbes magazine values the Mets at $747 million, 13 percent less than last year. The true value of the team, though, will not be known until it is clear what percentage of the club Einhorn will get for his $200 million.
Mr. Einhorn’s proposed stake in the Mets — which must be completed with the team and approved by Major League Baseball — fits a pattern. He enjoys making money, and seems to enjoy almost as much crowing about how right his often blunt, often controversial investment analysis typically proves to be.
Indeed, he wrote a book detailing his prescience and some of the ills of the financial industry. It was titled, “Fooling Some of the People All of the Time.”
Mr. Einhorn does not seem to have the makeup of a hard-charging hedge fund manager. Mild-mannered, he speaks deliberately and softly. He was born in Demarest, N.J., and his family moved to Milwaukee when he was 7. He graduated from Cornell with a degree in government, not economics or business.
While many fund managers work well into the night, Mr. Einhorn is known to leave the office early enough to get home for his daughter’s Little League games. He is active in several charities and, with his wife, Cheryl, set up a trust whose mission is to help people get along better.
But Mr. Einhorn also grew up in a financially minded home. His father is a banker who helps facilitate mergers and acquisitions. Mr. Einhorn helped found his hedge fund in 1996, when he was in his late 20s — a young age by industry standards — with less than a million dollars, much of which came from his parents.
He is a believer in so-called value investing, a strategy made famous by the likes of Warren E. Buffett (he once paid $250,000 to have lunch with the legendary investor), which holds that the best investments are made in good companies that are cheap. He will spend months reviewing a company’s financial information, searching for hidden value. He can then bet big, sometimes on the order of hundreds of millions.
Mr. Einhorn is fond of quoting Ken Griffey Jr. when talking about his investment style: “I don’t consider myself a home run hitter. But when I’m seeing the ball and hitting it hard, it will go out of the park.”
Peter Lattman contributed reporting.