Articles and News

New York, NY—Daniel Shak, a small hedge fund CEO with a huge chunk of gold futures, managed to send a wave of terror through the precious metals market early this year. Now he’s holding his ex-wife’s designer shoe collection hostage as the two battle through a bitter divorce. According to this article in the Philadelphia Daily News, he’s not suing for custody of their three kids, he’s suing for her shoes—over $1 million worth of Christian Louboutin, Alexander McQueen, Jimmy Choo, and other tony stilettos. Size seven, by the way.

First, the gold: according to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Shak’s gold contracts amounted to about $850 million worth, more than 10% of the main U.S. futures market, and equivalent to South Africa’s annual gold production. Somehow, thanks to the magic of futures, it was held by a $10 million hedge fund, a tiny player in hedge fund terms.

But Shak also is a world-class star poker player who told an Australian newspaper he’s willing to make a market in any spread transaction. He even beat card king Phil Ivey, but according to Business Insider, when the gold market started sliding in the beginning of the year, he decided to fold ‘em while he’d lost only 70% of the value of his contracts, rather than 100% or more. So he liquidated and returned the money to clients, and in the process freaked out the global gold-trading market by dropping 81,000 gold contracts when the typical daily move is between 3,000 and 5,000 contracts. As if the market didn’t have enough volatility due to worrying over little things like the collapse of several large European economies. (At press time, gold was trading at $1575.)

Shak’s ex-wife, Beth, meanwhile, also is a star poker player who came in second in the World Series championship five years ago. She’s been able to do what most shoe-crazy women only dream of: built a collection of more than 1,200 pairs of designer shoes, about 700 of which are Christian Louboutin, the coveted brand with the famous red sole.

Shak claims his ex deceived him about the number of shoes she owned and hid them in a “secret room” in their New York condo. (Is there such a thing as a secret room in a New York condo?) He claims he never knew the extent of her collection, but she stepped neatly on that argument, having discussed it on numerous talk shows and even in a documentary film called “God Save My Shoes.”

Beth Shak in her lavish closet. Photo: Akira Suwa, Philadelphia Daily News. Daniel Shak photo, Card Player

He’s going to have a tough time making a case before a judge. According to the Philadelphia paper (Beth Shak lives in Bryn Mawr, PA), the lawsuit may yet kick him where it hurts. Possibly nothing else in the world but an ex-husband’s public vitriol could turn the Imelda of the Main Line—a one percenter with a body like Pamela Anderson and a shoe collection that even Nordstrom would envy—into a sympathetic figure.

As Nancy Sinatra famously sang, “These boots are made for walkin and that’s just what I’ll do. One of these days these boots are gonna walk all over you.”