MacIntyre Partnering Billionaire Banker In His AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Debut

9 months ago by Comments Off on MacIntyre Partnering Billionaire Banker In His AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am Debut

Top Scottish golfer Robert MacIntyre will make his debut in this week’s AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am partnering a 74-year-old billionaire American banker and the father of eight children.

Not that this will be any issue for MacIntyre but it’s really interesting, and after a little research, to learn the history of some of the amateurs who get to tee-up in this PGA Tour event.

Of course, we know the tournament has long been an event for movie stars and sporting legends but there’s so many more amateurs no-one has really never heard of and who get to tee-up on two of the best and also least accessible golf courses in the US.

MacIntyre with be joined by American-born Richard Dana Fairbank in the $20m ‘Signature Series’ event being played on both the Pebble Beach and Spyglass Hill courses laid out along the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

Fairbank is reputed to be worth $1.4 billion, making his wealth in co-founding Capital One with Nigel Morris in 1988.  Fairbank was on the board of directors of MasterCard International from 2004 to 2006. He is also a member of the Stanford Business School advisory council, the Financial Services Roundtable, and the board of directors of the BITS Technology Forum.

Fairbank has been awarded “Business Leader of the Year” by Washingtonian, and placed on lists including Worth’s list of the top 10 CEOs and “50 Best CEOs.”

“Don’t take a job because it would look great on your resume,” said Fairbank when receiving the Business School’s 2006 Excellence in Leadership Award. “The resume that really matters is the one between your two ears.”

In 2017 Fairbank became the fourth U.S. bank CEO to be identified as a billionaire by the Bloomberg index, joining JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Jamie Dimon, Goldman Sachs Group Inc.’s Lloyd Blankfein and M&T Bancorp’s Bob Wilmers, who passed away in late 2017.  He is currently ranked No. 9 wealthiest.

Fairbank’s Capital One company has been involved in golf for some time.

There was the original ‘The Match’ backed by Capital One in late 2018 when it was Tiger vs. Phil in a head-to-head match play golf challenge at the Shadow Creek Golf Course in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The purse for the unofficial PGA Tour event was $9 million, with the winner taking the entire amount. Mickelson won the match after 22 holes, including four playoff holes.

After the success of the event, it became the first in an irregular series of events under the brand of The Match, with both Mickelson and Woods participating in the rematch (Champions for Charity), and Mickelson also participating in the two editions after that.

In November, 2020 Capital One also sponsored the third edition of ‘The Match’ at the Stone Canyon Golf Club in Oro Valley, Arizona. The match, benefitting historically black colleges and universities, was played using an American foursomes format.  Mickelson partnered NBA hall-of-famer Charles Barkley, who played from a forward set of tees, to defeat NFL legend Peyton Manning and NBA star Stephen Curry, 4 and 3.

However there was the not so good news for Fairbank when in 2021 the US Federal Trade Commission announced that the CEO of Capital One Financial Corp had to pay a $637,950 civil penalty to settle charges that his acquisition of Capital One Financial stock violated the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act.

Fairbank’s recent multi-million dollar compensation package included over 100,000 Capital One Financial shares in 2018, which increased his holdings to $168 million. The complaint alleges that Fairbank failed to report his sizable stock windfall to federal antitrust authorities and illegally finalized the acquisition before the agencies could investigate. While Fairbank is a repeat filing offender with wrongdoing spanning two decades, today’s FTC order is the first time he has been penalized.

“As the CEO of one of America’s largest banks, Richard Fairbank repeatedly broke the law,” said Holly Vedova, Acting Director of the Bureau of Competition. “There is no exemption for Wall Street bankers and powerful CEOs when it comes to complying with our country’s antitrust laws.”

In 2022, Fairbank was one of the investors of EP Golf Ventures, a golf investment vehicle launched by Elysian Park Ventures and the PGA of America. Elysian and the PGA have both invested in the first fund, as have Topgolf Callaway Brands and Gametime Capital, the family office of Capital One.

As well, Fairbank is one of about a dozen minority owners of Monumental Sports & Entertainment, the group that owns five sports teams including the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals, the Washington Wizards of the National Basketball Association, as well as the Capital One Arena, where both teams play.

Fairway will tee-up playing off a handicap of 14

 

 



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