Mother-son duo conquer Wall Street trend — from Sarasota

Betsy Cohen and her son Daniel, despite living 1,200 miles from Wall Street, are SPAC leaders.

By Mark Gordon
| 11:10 a.m. June 17, 2021
| 0 Free Articles Remaining!

Eve Edelheit. Betsy Cohen, 79, oversees multiple blank check companies, mostly from her family home on Casey Key.

Finance

A mother-son financial services duo, mostly from a beachfront compound in Sarasota, have become some of the most sought-after dealmakers in one of Wall Street’s hottest tickets: blank check companies.

Home town

Betsy Cohen fell for the Sarasota area in 1980 — two years before the Skyway Bridge was built.

Cohen and her husband Ed Cohen, both Philadelphia attorneys, were in Hillsborough County for a week visiting a client back then. “On the weekend we decided we would take a day off and go look at real estate, just because that was the thing to do,” says Betsy Cohen, noting that without the Skyway Bridge they took U.S. U.S. 19. “And when we got to Casey Key we fell in love.”

The Cohens bought a home on Casey Key, designed in 1957. It’s since become both a work headquarters and vacation and holiday compound for the large extended Cohen family. And the family remains in love with the region four decades later. “We’ve been in awe of the growth of Sarasota over the last several years,” Cohen says. “Not only among people who want to retire, but people who want to come for a good quality of life.”