THEIR company names were conspicuously absent from their nametags, but that is how these hedge fund managers and analysts -- members of a field known for secrecy -- preferred it. They filled the party space at the W Hotel on Lexington Avenue in late October, mostly men in their 30s. Balancing drinks on easels adorned with students' colorful drawings, they juggled PDA's and business cards, before sitting down to poker tables to raise money for New York City charter schools.
Working the room, the evening's hosts, John Petry and Joel Greenblatt, who are partners in the hedge fund Gotham Capital, had an agenda: to identify new candidates to join their Success Charter Network, a cause they embrace with all the fervor of social reformers.
"He's already in," Mr. Petry said as he passed John Sabat, who manages a hedge fund for one of the industry's big stars. (Like Voldemort in the Harry Potter novels, no one in the group would name him aloud.)
"I wasn't hard to turn," said Mr. Sabat, 36, whom Mr. Petry drafted last year to be a member of the board of Harlem Success Academy 4, on East 120th Street, the latest in its network of school in some of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Boards agree to donate or raise $1.3 million to subsidize their school for the first three years. "You can't talk to Petry without taking about charters," Mr. Sabat added. "You get the reli
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