Warren Kanders

Warren Beatty Kanders (born 1957 or 1958) is an American businessman and investor. From 1996 to 2007, he was chairman of Armor Holdings, a company involved in the defense and law enforcement industries. He has been chairman and CEO of Cadre Holdings since 2012.

An arts patron, Kanders joined the board of the Whitney Museum, in New York, in 2006. He resigned as vice chair in 2019 following protests over sales of tear gas by Safariland, a subsidiary of Cadre Holdings.

Early life Warren Beatty Kanders was born in 1957 or 1958 to Jeanne and Ralph Kanders. He studied at the Choate School, a prestigious boarding school in Connecticut, and earned a bachelor's degree at Brown University in Rhode Island. Since 1990, he is the owner and president of a Connecticut-based investment firm, Kanders & Company.

Retail Kanders was one of two bankers who created Benson Eyecare in 1992 from the merger of shell public company Ehrlich Bober, an optical retail chain and Benson Optical, which was acquired from the pension fund of General Electric for $2.3 million. Benson Eyecare relisted from the American Stock Exchange to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), and Martin E. Franklin served as its CEO, making Franklin the youngest CEO of a corporation listed on the NYSE. Through a series of acquisitions and organic growth, Benson Eyecare grew from $40 million in annualized revenue in 1992 to $150 million in 1996, when the company was sold to Essilor for $300 million, creating a 23-fold return for early investors. Forbes estimated that Kanders received more than $30 million from the transaction. Armor initially focused on customers in municipal governments and the private sector.

Kanders began an effort in 2008 to become CEO of the Federal Signal Corporation after announcing he held a 5.7% stake in the company. He also criticized the company for the sale of a subsidiary and later publicly alleged that its chairman of "may have been involved in a coverup of insider trading". In response to the allegation, the company said that it was "nothing more than another desperate attempt to undermine the credibility of the company's highly qualified board of directors". Also in 2008, Kanders bought outdoor equipment manufacturer Gregory Mountain Products, which was part of Armor Holdings when it was purchased by BAE Systems. Kanders returned to Safariland as its chairman and CEO after its purchase from BAE Systems for $124 million in 2012.

Arts patronage and protests Kanders joined the board of the Whitney Museum in New York in 2006. Kanders and his wife, Allison, redesigned their house in Greenwich, Connecticut, in 2013 to incorporate their collection of contemporary art; they owned works by John Baldessari, Jeff Koons, Gerhard Richter, and Cindy Sherman. They were major donors to the Aspen Art Museum for 2017 to 2018, and his wife was a board member in 2018.

Whitney Museum protests Kanders was listed as a "significant contributor" to the Whitney Museum's retrospective exhibition on Andy Warhol on November 12, 2018. In response to the article, around 100 museum employees signed an open letter asking the museum to request Kanders's resignation as they did not feel as though they could work at the museum while a defense contractor was on its board. In response to plans for the 2019 Whitney Biennial, Decolonize This Place launched a series of nine weekly protests from March 22 to May 17, calling for his removal from the board, and around two-thirds of the 75 Biennial participants signed a letter authored by various art critics, academics, and other figures that called for the same goal. The New York Times reported that the protests had "reached a climax" during the opening of the Biennial, when a large tear gas sculpture was installed close to the entrance and protestors marched to Kanders's house in Greenwich Village.

Kanders announced in 2020 that Safariland planned to divest itself of divisions producing "crowd-control solutions, including chemical agents, munitions and batons, to law enforcement and military agencies"—specifically Defense Technology and Monadnock Lifetime Products—amid criticism that tear gas sold by one of its divisions was used by police in protests over the murder of George Floyd. Despite earlier announcing that he would leave the industry, The Intercept reported in 2022 that Kanders was still profiting from his company's sales of tear gas. Defense Technology and Safariland reportedly remained registered as subsidiaries of Kanders' company Cadre Holdings.

Brown University protests An op-ed in The Brown Daily Herald authored by four fellow Brown University alumni in February 2018 criticized the Institute at Brown for Environment and Society (IBES) for allowing Kanders on its advisory council as they alleged Safariland's products had been used to "suppress protests, maim or kill activists and intimidate social movements." Kanders defended Safariland's products in a letter to the editor.

Personal life Family Kanders married to Sarah Phillips in 1982. Following a divorce, he married Allison Smith in 1998. The New York and Connecticut homes were the sites of demonstrations in 2020 due to Safariland's past sales of tear gas; the Connecticut protest had some protestors affiliated with the Service Employees International Union.

They purchased the Palm Beach, Florida home of singer Jimmy Buffett and Buffett's wife for $6.9 million in 2020. A limited liability company (LLC) connected to Kanders purchased the Palm Beach home of businesswoman Adrien Arpel for $25.38 million in 2021. It was sold for $39.9 million the following year, in June 2022, after the town did not approve the plan of a new house that Kanders and his wife sought to build on the property. Later in June, Kanders's LLC purchased the Palm Beach home of Eugene Applebaum, founder of the Arbor Drugs drug stores, and Applebaum's wife for $56 million.

Kanders and his brother, Alan, an investor and hotel owner, became owners of the Mayflower Inn & Spa in Washington, Connecticut, with the property's foreclosure in 2010. Grace Hotels became a majority owner in 2013. In 2011, he was reported to be part owner of the Hotel Saint-Barths Isle de France on the Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy.