Bridgewater spent $1 million renovating a 45-foot ‘Rockstar Bus’ to shuttle employees between the office, bars, and casinos, book says

• Ray Dalio’s Bridgewater spent nearly $1 million turning a coach bus into an employee limo, a new book says.
• Rob Copeland’s “The Fund” says the limo would pull up at Bridgewater HQ at the end of the day.
• In a statement, Bridgewater said the book’s claims about the bus were “untrue or misleading.”

Bridgewater Associates spent $1 million turning a coach bus into a limousine to shuttle employees around to after-work entertainment, according to a new book about Ray Dalio and his hedge fund.

Rob Copeland, a New York Times reporter, said he spoke to hundreds of people in and around Bridgewater for his book “The Fund: Ray Dalio, Bridgewater Associates and the Unraveling of a Wall Street Legend.”

It includes one anecdote recounted by a consultant who started advising Bridgewater’s management committee in 2009.

The book said he learned the firm had bought its own coach bus that was 45 feet long, and that Bridgewater had spent “in the range of $1 million” renovating it into a limousine.

The bus, internally called the “Rockstar Bus,” transported employees from Bridgewater’s Connecticut headquarters to bars, restaurants, and casinos, according to Copeland’s book.

Among Dalio’s different haunts, the book surmises that his favorite venue could be a colonial estate called The Lookout around the corner from Bridgewater’s headquarters, which was owned by the firm.

In response to a request for comment sent by Insider, Bridgewater quoted a letter its lawyers sent to the book’s publisher, St. Martin’s Press, calling the claims about the bus “untrue and misleading.”

“Between 2006 and 2010, Bridgewater purchased five coach buses in connection with its employee benefits program, as a service for employees who lived in New York City to commute to Bridgewater’s Westport offices,” the letter continued.

“Four of the buses are standard coach commuter buses, and one of the buses was upfitted as a limousine bus. In addition to using the limousine bus to help employees commute from the city, Bridgewater also used it for community and team-building events. The buses were not used in the way described. None of the buses cost $950,000.”

In a lengthy LinkedIn post, Dalio questioned the accuracy of the book, saying it “should be taken for what it is, which is another one of those sensational and inaccurate tabloid books written to sell books to people who like gossip.”