James Dinan Net Worth 2025

James Gerard Dinan (born 1959)^[1] is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He founded York Capital Management in 1991.

James Gerard Dinan was born to a Roman Catholic family in 1959 in Baltimore, Maryland, one of five children of Robert and Jeannette Dinan.^[2] His father was a textile engineer and his mother a homemaker.^[2] In 1969, the family moved to Paxton, Massachusetts.^[2] In 1977, Dinan graduated from the private Bancroft School.^[3] He then went on to earn a B.S. from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in economics^[2] in 1981.^[4] While at the University of Pennsylvania, Dinan joined Alpha Chi Rho, a northeastern fraternity.^[2] In 1981, he took a job with stock research firm, Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette (DLJ).^[2] In 1985,^[5] Dinan earned a M.B.A. from Harvard University.^[6]

In 1985, he took a job at the merger arbitrage firm Kellner DiLeo & Company.^[2] In 1987, the market crashed and he lost his entire $600,000 in savings.^[2] In 1991, he was able to raise $3.6 million from his former DLJ colleagues and started his own hedge fund named York Capital (named after the street he was then living on, York Avenue).^[2] In 1993, his fund earned credibility with a 33.8 percent return and by 2000, the fund had over $610 million in assets.^[2] In 2010, he sold 33% of York to Credit Suisse for $425 million.^[6] In 2011, he made a $1 million donation to the Museum of the City of New York.^[7] In July 2014, Dinan gained partial ownership of the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks.^[8] In June 2017, he named two eventual successors to lead York Capital in the future.^[9] In 2018, York Capital Management had $20.5 billion assets under management.

In 2024 after a large donation by Dinan to the University of Pennsylvania, his alma mater, Henry T. Vance Hall or simply Vance Hall, a major building within the Wharton Business School campus footprint was renamed Dinan Hall. ^[10][11]

Dinan is married to Elizabeth R. Miller,^[12][13] and they have three children together, including racing driver Michael Dinan.^[6] Dinan lives in Manhattan and also owns homes in Westchester County, New York; Nantucket, Massachusetts; West Palm Beach, Florida and on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy.^[14]

• Welling, Kate; Gabelli, Mario (2018). Merger Masters: Tales of Arbitrage. New York: Columbia University Press. pp. 178–189. ISBN 978-0-231-19042-8.

• TABB TV Replay: "Charlie Rose Interviews James Dinan" November 8, 2012