Henry Helmut Arnhold

Background

Henry Arnhold was a German Jew whose family were prominent, multi-generational bankers in Dresden, Germany. When the Nazis took power, their business was seized and the family fled Germany. Arnhold was captured in Norway and imprisoned in a concentration camp but later escaped to Sweden and then the United States. He joined a special military unit called the Ritchie Boys that leveraged refugees’ language skills for espionage and interrogation. After the war, he joined his relatives in running their New York-based firm, Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder, and became chairman in 1960. ²

Henry Arnhold hired George Soros as an analyst in 1963,¹ and Soros worked there for ten years. They co-founded an offshore investment fund called the First Eagle Fund NV. Arnhold funded it, while Soros managed it for several years until he left to start his own fund. ² They maintained a relationship whereby Arnhold’s business was the prime broker for Soros’ billions in assets. ²

Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder was sold for over $100 million in 2002, and the Arnhold focused on First Eagle Investment Management, which was responsible for over $100 billion in assets. Corsair Capital and Blackstone acquired First Eagle in 2015 for about $4 billion. ¹

Arnhold died in 2018 at the age of 96, leaving a son and two grandchildren. ²

Political Advocacy

Arnhold’s investments of time and money went to groups in the arts, healthcare, education, as well as to political organizations. He was president and founder of the Arnhold Foundation, valued at $375 million in 2014,³ which funded the carbon-tax advocacy group Climate Leadership Council (CLC). CLC is funded by other left-of-center groups such as Conservation International⁵ and Arnold Ventures, part of a Democratic mega-funder called the Laura and John Arnold Foundation. ⁶ Arnhold’s foundation also funded pro-abortion groups such as the National Institute of Reproductive Health and Planned Parenthood. ⁴

Arnhold personally donated $7 million to the Zolberg Institute on Migration and Mobility to understand the political ramifications of human cross-border migration, drive policy debate, and challenge labels that portray immigrants as security threats or victims. ⁷

Arnhold invested in the International Rescue Committee and was posthumously awarded its Freedom Award for supporting immigrants. ⁸ Other major donors to the International Rescue Committee include left-of-center foundations like George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, the Tides Foundation, and Novo Foundation. ⁹

Arnhold sat on the board of Conservation International⁴ and directed his foundation to donate $47 million to the group. ³ Conservation International is an environmental activist organization that draws fiscal support from left-of-center environmentalist funders like the Rockefeller Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation. ⁵