Mr. No Comment represents hedge funds in media dealings

Elon Green of Institutional Investor profiles Jonathan Gasthalter, a public relations professional known as “Mr. No Comment” who represents hedge funds in dealing with the business news media.

Green writes, “As a veteran reporter tells Institutional Investor, ‘He is determined to control the message.’

“And he’s done exactly that: first at Sard Verbinnen, the powerhouse firm whose hedge fund practice he built more or less from scratch. Since 2016, Gasthalter has also done it under his own name, propelling Gasthalter & Co. to the top of the Absolute Return hedge fund PR ranking for the second consecutive year. And he’s done it while representing clients that can be charitably characterized as difficult — Cohen, of course, but also Renaissance Technologies, whose former co-CEO, Robert Mercer, bankrolled former presidential strategist Stephen Bannon.

“Profiling such PR prominences as Gasthalter is not easy. They of course will instinctively resist cooperating. The job of PR is to be effective, but not overtly so. Likewise: Most reporters, who are key to such a story, will not want to be party to it for fear of repercussions in the form of peers’ scorn or diminished access to sources. So emails for comment will be ignored or politely waved away. If they do talk, it will be on background. Maybe they’ll offer to send an antiseptic statement, and then ‘forget’ to write it.”

Read more here. Stay for the kicker.