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Billionaire George Soros: how he achieved success and became richer than some states. The Rise and Fall of Billionaire George Soros in a Brief Biography of Soros' Wife


George Soros (Soros) real name (Gyorgy Shorosh) was born in Budapest on August 12, 1930 in a Jewish family of average income. George's father was a lawyer and publisher (tried to publish a magazine in Esperanto). In 1914, he volunteered for the front, was captured by the Russians and was exiled to Siberia, from where he fled back to his native Budapest. During the time of repression, thanks to false documents made by his father, the Soros family escaped persecution by the Nazis and in 1947 safely emigrated to the UK. At this time, Soros was already 17 years old. Here Soros entered London School of Economics and successfully graduated three years later. He was lectured by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who later became his mentor.

George's life goal was Karl Popper's idea of ​​creating a so-called open society on earth. In this regard, he organized numerous charitable organizations around the world.

Career

In England, George Soros found work in a haberdashery factory. The position was called assistant manager, but in fact he worked as a salesman. Then George turned into a traveling salesman, driving around in a cheap Ford and selling goods to various merchants on seaside resorts Wales. Simultaneously with the work of a traveling salesman, Soros tried to get into all merchant banks London. But everywhere he was refused due to his nationality and the lack of a protégé. Only in 1953 did he get a job in the company "Singer and Friedlander", from his compatriot Hungarian. Work and at the same time an internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock exchange. Its leader traded shares of gold mining companies. But boring work did not inspire George Soros, and three years later he found a way to move to America.

IN USA in 1956 he arrived at the invitation of the father of his London friend, a certain Mayer, who had his own small brokerage firm on Wall Street. A career in the United States began with international arbitration, that is, buying securities in one country and selling them in another. After the Suet crisis, this type of business did not go as well as Soros wanted and he created a new method of trading, calling it internal arbitrage (selling separately combined securities of stocks, bonds and warrants before they could be officially separated from each other). Prior to Kennedy's introduction of a surcharge on foreign investment, this type of activity brought in a good income. After that, Soros' business was destroyed overnight.

Soros returned to philosophy. From 1963 to 1966, he tries to rewrite the dissertation, which he began working on after business school and returned to writing his treatise "The Heavy Burden of Consciousness", but the demanding George Soros was not satisfied with his brainchild, as he believed that he was simply conveying the thoughts of his great teacher . At this, the career of the philosopher was terminated and in 1966 he returned to business.

From the company's capital of 100 thousand dollars, Soros created investment fund with a capital of 4 million dollars. Having received significant profits in three years of work, in 1969 Soros became the head and co-owner of a fund called Double Eagle and later developed into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative transactions with securities that brought him millions of dollars in profit. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was $10 billion. To date, every dollar invested in this fund has turned into 5.5 thousand US dollars. A significant day on September 15, 1992, when, thanks to the operations undertaken by Soros associated with a sharp fall in the British pound, his fortune increased by another 1 billion dollars. After that day, Soros became known as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England."

In 1997, George Soros launched a successful attack against national currencies a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region - Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, culminating in a deep economic crisis in these countries, thrown back in their development by 10-15 years ago. China became its next target, but local experts managed to prevent the attack.

Losses

But since 1997, Soros has had a "black streak". Almost all investments brought huge losses. In 1997, together with Potanin, he created Mustcom offshore, which paid $1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price fell by more than half. Soros angrily called this purchase "the worst investment of money in my life." After much trying, in 2004 he sold Svyazinvest shares for $625 million to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who is also a shareholder in TNK-BP. At the end of 2006, Blavatnik sold a blocking stake for $1.3 billion to Comstar-UTS, part of AFK Sistema.

In 2005, Soros sold to the Italian banking group Intesa his stake in KMB Bank (Small Business Loan Bank), which has more than 50 branches in all major cities Russia and serves more than 35 thousand customers. In 1999, the Soros investment fund (not to be confused with a charitable one) acquired a 47 percent stake in the bank, which was then called the Russian Project Finance Bank. At that time, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) held a controlling stake. At the time of the current deal, the EBRD and Soros each had about 37 percent of the bank's shares, with another 26 percent in the hands of German and Dutch investors.

All shareholders, except for the EBRD, have completely sold their shares in KMB. The total amount of the deal is estimated at $90 million. This transaction is notable because, according to the Kommersant newspaper, the stake in this bank was Soros' last financial asset in Russia. Deciding to retire, he came to grips with the funding programs for science and the arts.

Strategy: how George Soros got rich

George Soros' fortune is estimated at $7.2 billion. According to estimates Business magazine Week, he has donated more than $5 billion to charitable causes throughout his life, with one billion of those five going to Russia. All of Soros' major speculations in the global financial markets were carried out through his secret offshore company Quantum Fund NV, registered on the Netherlands-owned Caribbean island Curacao. It is the largest fund within the Soros-controlled Quantum Group of Funds.

George Soros made his fortune playing games on downgrade ("bearish" tactics), during which he used his "reflexivity theory of stock markets". According to this theory, decisions about buying and selling securities are made on the basis of price expectations in the future, and since expectations are a psychological category, they can be the object of information impact. An attack on the currency of a country consists of successive information strikes through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators, shaking the financial market.

There are two main points of view regarding the financial success of Soros. According to the first point of view, Soros owes his successes to the gift of financial foresight. Another says that in making important decisions, George Soros uses insider information provided by high-ranking officials from the political, financial and intelligence circles of the world's largest countries [source?]. Moreover, it is assumed that Soros is a hired manager, carrying out financial projects for a group of powerful international financiers who prefer to keep a low profile and are based mainly in the UK, Switzerland and the USA.

The core of this group is believed to be the famous Rothschild family, but in addition to the Rothschilds, the organization represented by Soros includes the infamous American billionaire Mark Rich, Shaul Eisenberg, Rafi Eitan and others.

In 2002, a Parisian court even found George Soros guilty of obtaining confidential information for profit and sentenced him to a fine of 2.2 million euros. According to the court, thanks to this information, the millionaire earned about $ 2 million on the shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

Charity

George Soros is known not only as a financier, but also as philanthropist and social thinker, author of a number of books and articles, for which the fundamental value and central idea is the formation of an open society in the post-communist world. In 1990, on the initiative of Soros, the Central European University was founded in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw. And he is also an honorary doctor of the New School for Social Research (New York), Oxford and Yale Universities. In addition to numerous articles George Soros wrote books"Alchemy of Finance" (1987), "Discovering the Soviet System" (1990), "Supporting Democracy" (1991).

The Open Society Fund was the start of Soros' philanthropic career. Now he has established charitable foundations in more than 25 countries. Back in 1988, Soros organized the Cultural Initiative Foundation in the USSR to support science, culture, and education. But the "Cultural Initiative" fund was closed, as the money was not used for its intended purpose, but was used for personal purposes by certain individuals. In 1995, the decision was made to start over in Russia, and a new fund"Open Society". George Soros is the first in Russia since 1996. finances the project "Internet University Centers". The aim of the project was to open and maintain for five years the functioning of centers in 32 Russian universities open access to the global information computer network Internet. This project was financed together with the government of the Russian Federation. Soros' contribution was $100 million, and the contribution Russian government 30 million. It is believed that this is the only obligation that the government has fulfilled in full and on time. George Soros is called nothing less than a living legend of the financial market or a financial genius. Back in 1994, investments in a network of charitable foundations and other institutions reached $300 million, in 1995 and 1996 - $350 million each.

We continue to publish articles about the success stories of famous people. George Soros- no doubt a well-known financier and investor. At the time of this article's publication, he has also become involved in philanthropy. George Soros is known not only as an investor (like), but also as a speculator. George Soros is treated ambiguously all over the world. But everyone agrees that this is an extraordinary and interesting person.

George Soros was born on August 12, 1930 to a Jewish family in Budapest. Father Tivadar Soros (Shorosh) was a lawyer and tried to engage in the publishing business. Soros' father fought in World War I against Russia and was captured by the Russians, eventually spending three years in the camps. This is probably the reason why his son George Soros dislikes Russia and Russians. This follows from numerous media publications.

George Soros was a talented child and learned not only his native Hungarian, but also German, English and French. Also, Soros was fond of sports in childhood and played Capital (this is a variation on the theme of the Monopoly game). Classmates remembered George Soros as a man with a tough, aggressive and domineering character.

During the Second World War, Soros's father was engaged in forging documents, which saved many Jews from death. Those who did nothing were at greater risk than those who risked forging documents. Soros Jr. learned this life lesson. As he says: sometimes you can lose everything including own life if you don't take risks.

After the Second World War, George Soros moved to England, where he worked as a waiter. It also happened that he finished eating food for the guests, because. was completely broke. How many post-war years George Soros spent in poverty and doing odd jobs. For example, he worked at picking apples, and also painted something there.

1949 George enters the London School of Economics, where he listened to lectures by very talented teachers. As a result, Soros not only became interested in economics, but also in philosophy. In particular, he was interested in the book The Open Society and Its Enemies. According to the future billionaire, philosophy, however paradoxical it may sound, can really help make money.

At 22, Soros received a degree in economics and this did not help him much in moving forward. career ladder. Nevertheless, he sent his resume to a number of investment companies, and in one of them Soros was offered a trainee position. It was there that Soros got a taste for stock trading. Subsequently, the young investment banker moved to New York, where he got a job in an investment firm and began to engage in foreign exchange trading.

In 1963, Soros got a job at Arnold & Blackhreder, America's leading foreign injection firm. That's what came in handy knowledge of George Soros several European languages ​​and connections in the Old World.

Previously, it was believed that economic phenomena are objective character. However, according to George Soros, if we consider economics to be a science, then we must be objective. So the participants in economic processes (people, households and firms - they all do not always behave rationally. Therefore, Soros understood that our opinion about stock markets and financial markets have little in common with what is actually happening there.

Soon, George Soros, with the support of Arnold and Blackhreder, will establish an offshore investment fund and entrust the management of this fund to Soros. He understood that she was much better able to invest than to work among the top management. Subsequently, Soros invested both personal money and the money of many of his clients through offshore companies. Offshore funds allowed tax evasion.

In the early seventies, many of the wolves on Wall Street were not doing well. At the same time, George Soros was an exception to the rule, and his investments grew in price sometimes by tens of percent a year. George Soros bought up shares of companies from Europe and Asia and tried to buy real pearls of business for a penny. Soros also became famous for collapsing the British pound sterling. It is unclear what was the cause and what was the effect. In any case, we know for sure that Soros sold the British pounds on the eve of the collapse of this currency. Together with the talented financier, his investors also grew rich rapidly. By 1980, the Soros Foundation had never closed a year with a loss for 12 consecutive years without exception, and in 1980, his fund showed a growth rate of 102% per annum. But later were and bad years. In the 80s, Soros became more actively involved in speculation, influencing the dynamics of the markets, as well as the exchange rates of entire states, because. the amount of managed funds has already become significant. On these fluctuations in stocks and currencies, Soros earned a lot of money.

Soros' talent is hard to deny. For example, there was a publication in the press that in 1993 alone, George Soros earned more money than McDonald's, which at the time had 169,000 employees. Financial World writes that Soros made the most money on Wall Street that year.

George Soros' Secret of Success

Analysts believe that one of the main reasons for the success of George Soros was his excellent and sharp mind. He sees cause and effect relationships well and is therefore able to make forecasts in the markets and use this knowledge.

Another important quality of George Soros is the ability to make tough decisions quickly. Active risk management in a dynamic environment requires decisiveness and does not tolerate much thought. Wherein work in progress with huge sums. According to many financiers, in order to work with such huge money, you need to have iron balls.

At the same time, Soros's temperament is such that in case of a mistake he does not lose his mind, but remains in his sober mind, knows how to admit his mistake and exit the game in time, fixing losses.

Those who worked for Soros say that he has a very developed intuition. I think that this intuition has developed with experience in the market for decades. Also, many say that George Soros is characterized by self-discipline, as well as an understanding that both objective and subjective factors act on the markets.

Perhaps also one of the reasons for the success of a talented investor was his circle of friends - the leaders of states, who could provide valuable information for investment when communicating.

In 1997, Soros made a mistake with the Russian stock market. Investments in Russia's Svyazinvest on the eve of the financial collapse in Russia amounting to almost two billion dollars were a serious mistake. Then there were serious miscalculations regarding the dot-com bubble. Ultimately, Soros decided he had lost his senses and moved away from actively managing big deals.

George Soros and Philanthropy

Soros is known as a person who is actively involved in charity work. And the first charitable foundation back in 1979. long time Soros was also involved in charity work, including in Russia. Some people believe that charitable activities in Russia are a cover for some kind of espionage business, or that the opposition used to be funded in this way. There are similar opinions about Soros funds and from residents of other countries.

Is George Soros an enemy of Russia?

Soros is also accused that, under the guise of charitable activities, scientific developments created during the USSR were exported to Russia, helping the so-called brain drain. Soros himself does not deny that he purposefully financed the forces directed against the Soviet state. For some reason, Soros is against the current political system in Russia. Perhaps the reason is that his father was a prisoner in Russia for several years or maybe he really believes in an "open society".

Bottom line, Soros is a talented financier and investor, but his activities in relation to Russia raise big questions.

George Soros is an American financier, trader and investor, also famous for his philanthropic activities. Soros' life path gives rise to many doubts and is regarded ambiguously: someone speaks of him as a noble creator of a network of charitable institutions, others call him a speculator who is also guilty of currency crises.

George Soros was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest. His real name is Gyorgy Shorosh. The future financier was born into a middle-class family of Jewish origin. Father Tivadar Shorosh worked in the legal industry and also tried to publish his own magazine in the less popular Esperanto. Tivadar participated in the First World War and managed to return to his native Budapest only after three years of captivity in Siberia.

Therefore, his father taught George, first of all, the art of survival. Mother Elizabeth, who did not know such horrors of war, looked at the world in a positive way and introduced her son to art. Most of all, the young Soros liked painting and drawing. In addition, he made great strides in the study foreign languages: In addition to his native Hungarian, he spoke English, German and French. Also, the guy was fond of sailing, swimming, tennis. And from a young age, he always beat his friends in Monopoly.

Classmates recall that at school the future financier behaved boldly and defiantly, loved to participate in fights. At the same time, his tongue is perfectly suspended, and what he believed in, Soros defended almost at the cost of his life. George was an average student, sometimes demonstrating results, sometimes sliding down to the level of a C student.


Soros was less than 10 years old when the brutal and merciless Second World War. The one million community of Jews in Hungary began to live in fear that they would suffer the fate of their compatriots from other countries who were destroyed. European countries. The lifestyle of the Soros family has become a constant desire to hide. For weeks they huddled in basements, and in best case- in the basement floors and attics of the houses of acquaintances who agreed to receive them for a few days.

Tivadar Shorosh in those days was engaged in forging documents. Thanks to this, the man saved the lives of his family members and other Jews, although he was threatened with execution for this. In the autumn of 1945, when the danger was finally over, George Soros again went to school. But life in constant fear of destruction by the Nazis left its mark on him: the guy longed to go to the West, to leave his native Hungary. He began to implement this plan in 1947, when he was seventeen years old, alone. However, Soros was helped financially by his father, as well as by his aunt, who moved to Florida.


First, George visited Bern, Switzerland, then went to London. There he periodically found ways to earn a living: either he got a job as a waiter in a restaurant, or he picked apples on a farm, or he learned the profession of a house painter. And in 1949 he entered the London School of Economics, graduating in an accelerated format in two years. Soros was formally listed as a student of the school for another year and received a diploma only in 1953.

A diploma in economics did not at all guarantee George a job, and he again had to do odd jobs. However, then future millionaire already understood that in order to receive large incomes, it is necessary to “join” the investment business. His first job in finance was as an intern at Singer & Friedlander. And in 1956, the novice investor realized that it was time to move to New York.

Business

George began his career in New York by buying securities in one state and selling them in another (this is called international arbitration). When a surcharge on foreign investment was introduced in the United States in 1963, the financier considered this business not profitable enough and closed it.

A few years later, Soros worked as head of research at the Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder brokerage company, and a couple of years later he was appointed manager of the Double Eagle fund, which the company founded. In 1973, Soros left his employers and founded his own foundation called Quantum. Jim Rogers became the junior partner in this business, and the assets of Double Eagle investors were taken as the basis for organizing the fund.


The Quantum Fund specialized in speculation in currencies, securities, and commodities. By the end of the 1980s, George Soros' fortune had already exceeded one hundred million dollars. Over the long term, the Soros and Rogers fund has been successful, but it has also had bad periods. For example, during Black Monday in 1987, when one of the largest stock market crashes in the history of mankind occurred, George ordered to close existing positions and go into cash. Prior to this decision, the fund's annual profit rate reached 60%, but after that, Quantum not only lost profitability, but also went negative: in annual terms, the loss ratio was 10%.

Soon Soros decided to involve the fund's titled asset manager - Stanley Druckenmiller, with the help of which the financier managed to increase his fortune even more. Stanley worked at Quantum until 2000.

An important date for George was September 16, 1992, when the pound sterling collapsed. On this event, the businessman earned over a billion dollars, and Soros is often called one of the culprits of this collapse.


In the late 1990s, the billionaire spoke warmly about Russia and even decided to do business with an entrepreneur. Together with him, he acquired a quarter of the shares of OJSC Svyazinvest, which depreciated twice after the 1998 crisis broke out. Subsequently, George Soros called this acquisition the worst investment.

With age, the financier is less interested in investments, trading on the stock exchange and spends more time on charity. In 2011, he announced that his investment fund was shutting down. Since then, Soros has been involved in financial transactions only to increase equity and the growth of the well-being of their own family.

Fund

The George Soros hedge fund called Open Society was founded in 1979. The billionaire's funds have been created in several dozen countries. Including his organization (the Soviet-American Foundation "Cultural Initiative") worked in the USSR. It was formed to support culture, science and education, but was closed due to high level corruption.


At the end of the 20th century, the Soros Foundation spent about a hundred million dollars on the Russian project "University Internet Centers", thanks to which 33 universities had high-tech Internet centers for that time. Over the years, the Open Society Institute has provided grants to members of the cultural and scientific community, but these payments ceased in 2004.

In 2015, the Soros Foundation was placed on the list of undesirable non-profit organizations for the Russian Federation, which is why now his work in the country is impossible. However, a number of charitable and non-profit foundations created in Russia with the support of this organization are still working today.

State

In 2017, the fortune of George Soros is estimated at $25.2 billion. Some investors believe that he is endowed with an incredible gift of financial foresight, others see the reasons for his success in the use of classified insider information.


The billionaire himself developed the theory of the reflexivity of stock markets, which explains the impressive growth of his wealth. He wrote books about his views on financial reality: The Alchemy of Finance, The Crisis of World Capitalism, The Soap Bubble of American Supremacy, and others.

Personal life

The first wife of George Soros is Annalise Whitshak, with whom the financier lived for 23 years. His second wife is Susan Weber, whom he married in the same 1983. She was a quarter of a century younger than her new husband and studied art in New York. This family has existed for 22 years.


After his divorce from Susan, the billionaire dated Adriana Ferreira, a popular Brazilian television star. However, Soros still did not marry the Latin American beauty, and after parting, she sued him. The woman demanded that the investor pay her $ 50 million as compensation for harassment, moral damage and beatings.

On the modern photos George Soros, you can see that this man, despite old age still ready to lead an active life. The story of his new marriage: In 2013, George tied the knot with 42-year-old nutritional saleswoman and yoga specialist Tamiko Bolton. The wedding took place at the Karamur Music and Art Center, 500 people were invited to it.


From his first two marriages, the billionaire has five children: sons Alexander, Jonathan, Gregory and Robert, as well as daughter Andrea. Some children followed in the footsteps of their financial father: Jonathan first worked in his investment fund and later founded his own firm.

George Soros now

The biography of George Soros has become the ground for gossip and gossip many times. For example, in the fall of 2016, a rumor swept that the billionaire had died. In the same year, Ukraine reported about the secret visit of the financier: Soros allegedly intends to use the country to destabilize the Russian economy. Such "facts" exist at the level of speculation, since no serious evidence has been presented in their favor.

Greetings! Who is George Soros? On the one hand, the famous philanthropist, politician, investor and even philosopher. On the other hand, he is a ruthless speculator, a supporter of the legalization of soft drugs and a sponsor of the opposition in various countries.

Getting acquainted? George Soros: The biography of the man who brought down the Bank of England.

George Soros is not the real name of the billionaire. At birth, he was named Gyorgy Schwarz. The legendary investor was unlucky three times: he was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in the mid-1930s.

During the Nazi occupation, the family survived only thanks to George's father, a lawyer and Esperanto specialist. He forged documents for the whole family, changing the Jewish surname to a Hungarian one.

In 1947, Soros ended up in the UK, where he successfully graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. His idol was the Austrian lecturer, philosopher and anti-communist Karl Popper with his concept of an "open society". The main message of the theory: in an open society, people make decisions using intelligence and critical thinking.

After graduation, the future billionaire “looks for himself” for some time. In his youth, he manages to work as a salesman, a waiter in a restaurant, an apple picker, a station porter and an assistant manager at a haberdashery factory.

Unfortunately, it was almost impossible to get a job in the financial sector without patrons (and even a Jew) at that time.

The beginning of a financial career

In 1956, a friend of his father invited Soros to move to the United States. There, young George learns the secrets of buying and selling securities at a Wall Street brokerage.

Even then, Soros did not like to work according to the knurled pattern. He comes up with new way trade - internal arbitration. The bottom line: to sell separately securities from a package of bonds, powers of attorney and shares before they are officially divided.

Around the same time, George creates his own theory: “market reflection”, which he later describes more than once in his books. The main idea: the future price of any asset depends not only on political and economic changes, but also on the psychology of the crowd.

The day when any currency "dies" can be organized artificially. You just need to correctly use the world's media and put pressure on analysts and traders. Looking ahead, I will say that Soros subsequently applied the theory of "market reflection" in practice. The financial crises caused by it destroyed the lives of thousands of people and seriously affected the economies of individual countries.

In 1970, the legendary hedge fund Quantum was born. George Soros co-founded it with Jim Rogers. What does the foundation do? It attracts funds from a narrow circle of people and invests them in high-yield assets.

The history of Quantum resembles a cardiogram with sharp ups and downs. But in general, the results of the fund's work are impressive. Quantum investors earned about $32 billion from investments in the fund. By the way, this is a confident first place in terms of profit in the entire history of hedge funds.

The legend of the "black environment"

I'll start from afar. In October 1990, Soros met Stanley Druckenmiller, a Wall Street fund manager. Despite the fact that the age difference is 30 years, the financiers have become friends. Two years later, 32-year-old Stanley Druckenmiller headed the legendary Quantum Fund.

How did Soros and his friend collapse the pound? In the early 90s, both of them bought government bonds and British currency a little bit. In the fall of 1992, the pound was steadily declining throughout the week. Friends-speculators decided to make money on it. Soros added a personal capital of £5bn to the fund's money. And put a short position for a total amount of more than 10 billion pounds.

The British currency immediately collapsed to a minimum. Having bought the pound at the lowest price, Soros earned more than one billion on the deal! An impressive premium for the collapse of the currency of the largest European country.

By his speculation, George forced the Bank of England to make a large injection of foreign exchange from government reserves. And he took the pound out of the European currency regulation mechanism.

In 1993, Soros again became famous throughout the world. He was recognized as the most successful investor in the investment market. In a year, Soros earned an amount equal to the GDP of 43 states or the income of the largest McDonald's corporation.

In 1997, Soros decided to repeat the "British collapse" in South Asia, attacking the currencies of Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore. The financial panic in Asian markets provoked a deep economic crisis. The Prime Minister of Malaysia directly accused Soros of destabilizing the country. As a result of the attack, the Malaysian economy was thrown back 15 years and barely recovered from the blow.

For my financial career George Soros pulled off a lot of dubious deals. For example, he bought MGM shares with a limit of $1.35 million. Before reaching a certain price, the deal was closed automatically. Soros bought shares 60 days before carnage at the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas.

Speculator's catastrophic mistakes

George Soros' biggest financial failure has to do with Russia. In 1997, together with Russian oligarch Potanin, he creates an offshore Mustcom and buys a 25% stake in Svyazinvest through it.

And in 1998, a default struck in Russia. All prices have tripled. On the purchase and sale of Svyazinvest, the legendary speculator lost $1.25 billion.

The "Russian failure" was Soros' first major failure. Others followed. In 1999, George confidently predicted a fall in the assets of Internet companies - and lost $ 700 million on this. A little later, the speculator mistakenly bet on the growth of the euro - and became poorer by another $ 300 million.

The total loss of Soros for 1999 exceeded $1.5 billion. Clients began to massively withdraw their investments from funds. For so many years, this was the most crushing blow to the reputation of the legendary speculator. But Soros managed to stop the process. He was even able to attract new investors by investing in the same internet companies, this time bullish. By 2000, Quantum Fund's turnover had grown to $10.5 billion.

However, unexpectedly for everyone, the NASDAQ index fell seriously. In April 2000, the Soros Foundation lost $5 billion, 2.5 times more than in 1999. In 2004, the billionaire liquidates the fund. And in 2011, he officially “retires”, having completed 40 years of work in the field of hedge fund management. From that moment on, the legendary speculator and philanthropist is engaged only in personal projects and manages exclusively family capital.

Nevertheless, according to the results of 2012, Soros ranks 30th in the list. the richest people world (with a fortune of $19.2 billion)

P.S. My favorite quote from George Soros: "Success requires leisure - time that belongs entirely to you."

Billionaire George Soros is known as a successful investor, philanthropist and writer. He is one of the most famous financial speculators of the 20th century, the founder of several hedge funds and an international charitable organization"Open Society".

 

Short info:

  • FULL NAME: George Soros (Schwartz)
  • Date of Birth: 08/12/1930
  • Education: higher education
  • Business Start Date/Age: 1963 / 33 years old
  • Type of activity at the start: investor
  • Current activity: charity
  • Current status:$8 billion (according to Forbes magazine)

George Soros is one of the most famous financiers, speculators and political lobbyists of our time. During his work, he influenced the development of international political processes, founded a business and several funds operating around the world, became famous for successful high-risk investments.

Short biography of George Soros

The American financier of Jewish nationality was born in the capital of Hungary on August 12, 1930. Real surname George Soros (György Soros) - Schwartz (Schwartz). He was brought up in a middle-class family.

His parents gave important life lessons and played last role in a brief biography of George Soros:

  • mother Elizabeth taught her son to be creative, awakened a love for music and drawing. Thanks to his out-of-the-box thinking, George (György in the Hungarian dialect) achieved success: he was able to see, use new opportunities;
  • Father Tivadar was a lawyer who went into exile in Siberia during the First World War. When Hungary was under Nazi occupation, he was engaged in forging documents, thus saving members of the Jewish diaspora in Budapest.

Statement. My father was not afraid to take risks. A life lesson that I learned during the war is that sometimes you can lose everything, even your own life, if you do not take risks.

It was this idea that became the key to the success story of George Soros as a fantastically successful investor.

A sharp mind and the ability to think outside the box allowed him to learn 4 languages: English, German, French and, of course, Hungarian.

For most of World War II, he hid in basements, attics and other nooks and crannies so that Nazi soldiers would not find him. At that time, the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe lived in Hungary, and the occupying German troops were especially zealous in looking for people of this nationality here.

Through the efforts of his father in 1944, George emigrated to the UK. A year later, after the victory of the USSR and the allies in the war, he returned back, even recovered at school. But even then, the idea matured in him to be based in the West and achieve great success.

In 1947, at the age of 17, Soros left his native Hungary alone. First he stopped in Switzerland, then in the capital of England, London. Here the money that his father gave him ended. The future billionaire had to survive with temporary and casual jobs: as a waiter in a status restaurant, an apple picker on a farm, and even a house painter.

In 1949 he entered the London School of Economics and graduated in two years. At the same time, I got acquainted with the philosophical book "The Open Society and Its Enemies", imbued with ideas and wanted to put them into practice, to make capital on this. Soros was very attracted to the investment business.

In the early 50s, he got a job as an intern at the Singer and Friedlander bank, where he worked in stocks. various companies especially gold mining. George made money by buying and reselling securities. He really liked working in the money markets, even despite the fact that at first he could not achieve much success.

In 1956, having earned some money, he went to the United States, determined to succeed in the investment business.

Work in New York

Soros was helped to find a job in the business center of the United States by one of his colleagues from London, who recommended him to the investment firm of F. Mayer. Soon the young businessman took up currency arbitrage.

Having gained experience and made acquaintances, in 1963 he moved to the large company Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder, which is engaged in investing in foreign markets. Considering good experience, acquaintances in Old Europe and knowledge of foreign languages, George was admitted to the state as a priority.

The investor was of the opinion that the economy, despite clear laws, is essentially subjective, as people with their own characteristics stand behind it.

Quote. Facts and opinions do not exist independently of each other. And opinions change facts.

In the 1960s, there was no internet and no such rapid exchange of information and news. The entrepreneur admits that sometimes for subsequent calculations he set the indicators he needed - no one could check whether they were true.

All businessmen try to take into account future events, risks and opportunities. Soros played on this, speculating with valuable information.

Creation of offshore funds

In 1967, a successful investor convinced the management of his company to create several independent funds and provide the opportunity to manage their activities. As a result, by 1969, Soros had two funds under his control: First Eagle, Double Eagle, and $250,000 of his own funds.

Figure 1. George Soros, photo session.
Source: rinf.com

Through his acquaintances, he was able to attract another $6 million, and a little later - funds from wealthy Arabs and Latin Americans. No taxes were levied on the capital raised, as the funds were registered offshore.

George invested skillfully, buying shares in companies in Canada, France, Holland and Japan. In the 1970s, during the structural economic crisis, unlike many other players, the entrepreneur only benefited:

  • for 5 years to 1974, the securities of the Double Eagle fund tripled to $ 18 million;
  • in 1976-77, the value of the fund increased by almost 100%. For comparison, the Dow Jones index fell by 13% at that time.

In 1979, the fund changed its name from Double Eagle to Quantum. Then he was able to earn $ 100 million on the fall of the British pound sterling. English state. bonds were in great demand, Soros bought them for $1 billion, and then unexpectedly sold them. And very soon the pound fell seriously.

By the early 1980s, looking back over 10 years, the value of the Quantum (Double Eagle) hedge fund had grown by almost 103%. This brought the investor not only universal respect and recognition, but also solid wealth - at the end of 1980, his fortune was estimated at $ 100 million.

In 1981, for the first time, the unprecedented happened - the fund's securities fell by almost 23%, and the year ended without a profit. This led to the fact that a third of the investors withdrew their money from Quantum. However, the very next year, the shares rose by 57%.

The businessman, sensitive to change, realized that the company needed change. To replace him, he found a talented manager from Minneapolis, Jim Marquez, who began work in 1983. According to its results, the fund's assets in value increased by 24.9% to $385.5 million.

From now on, Soros managed only half of all investments. This made it possible to do other things, foreign trips around the world.

White and black stripe

Figure 2. George Soros at the WEF.
Source: www.qoshe.com

Quantum continued to develop, and 1985 was a time of victory for him and his founder.

  1. The growth in the value of the fund amounted to 122.2%, in monetary terms - from $449 million to $1 billion.
  2. Soros earned a total of $93.5 million.

Interesting fact ! Particularly noteworthy is the story of the Japanese yen. On September 22, 1985, the businessman bought several million Japanese government bonds. But the very next day, the dollar fell 4.3% against the yen, which George took advantage of, earning $40 million overnight.

For the next currency speculation, a talented investor was called "the man who brought down the Bank of England."

In 1992, Soros opened a position on the British pound sterling for more than $ 10 billion on the stock exchange. A bold step and further actions brought him a fantastic profit - $ 1.1 billion. This led to a chain of events: intervention by the British Central Bank, the withdrawal of the British pound from the European exchange rate mechanism (ERM), a significant drop in its exchange rate.

All this made the entrepreneur one of the richest people in the world, richer than some states. In 1993, he had more capital than the 42 countries that are members of the UN.

The losing streak began in 1997. In cooperation with Vladimir Potanin, he invested in Russia, bought shares in one of the companies. As a result of a series of operations, the 1998 crisis, Soros lost most investment, was forced to sell an unprofitable investment, but did it unsuccessfully. If the businessman waited a little, he could sell the asset for twice the price, which could recoup the costs.

In 1999, his core fund, Quantum, lost $1 billion in a bad investment. Other funds also lost significant funds: in total they amounted to $ 500 million. In business circles, they began to say that George lost his flair, missed the tail of luck from his hands. Businessmen began to urgently withdraw their capital from Soros organizations.

But the entrepreneur did not want to give up: he attracted new investors, businessmen saw that some assets of the funds continued to grow. At the turn of the millennium, George invested heavily in the internet.

At first, things went well: the total value of Quantum exceeded $10 billion, but in the early 2000s, the so-called “dot-com crisis” occurred. The fund's forecasters did not take into account a number of processes that caused the collapse of the NASDAQ index. As a result, losses exceeded $5 billion.

Soros realized that "the time for big deals" was over, and closed his largest foundation, deciding to turn to charitable work, writing books.

Controversial philanthropist and philosopher

Back in 1979, the entrepreneur created the first charitable foundation "Open Society", which is actively working to this day; annual funding from the creator is about $ 300 million. The organization has more than 30 representative offices in different states. The Fund finances a number of projects in the field of education, medicine, civil society, etc.

Interesting fact! In Russia, the Open Society appeared in 1995, actively issued grants for 8 years, in 2015 it was banned and recognized as an undesirable organization.

Speaking about activities in the Russian Federation, the following results can be distinguished:

  • donated to educational institutions computer technology;
  • $100 million allocated for support Russian science and scientists;
  • purchased and provided scientific equipment, reagents;
  • funded trips to scientific conferences;
  • in 1996-2001, within the framework of the program "University Internet Centers", 33 Internet centers were opened, etc.

With the money of the Open Society, a number of educational institutions, funds for the study of economics, sociology, culture, support for publishing, the development of information technologies, etc. have been created.

Despite outwardly plausible goals and objectives, many questions arose about the Soros Foundation. There are cases when real and potential scientists were taken abroad and started working for the interests of Western countries (the so-called "brain drain").

In particular, in Russia, the philanthropist is accused of being a guise under which scientific developments are collected, society is divided, false propaganda and disinformation are spread.

Interesting fact! The Russian and foreign public is well aware negative attitude George Soros to Russia. He repeatedly called her "enemy number 1."

After the collapse of the USSR, the entrepreneur took up the creation and distribution of textbooks for the lower and higher education in Russia. The quality of these publications was very low, they presented information in such a way as to belittle the contribution and importance Russian culture and statehood, disseminated information that did not correspond to reality.

According to experts and historians, the purpose of such actions was to create a "guilt complex" among the Russian people, a destructive effect on the collective conscious and unconscious.

The activity of the Soros Foundation is called into question by many countries. According to the latest news:

  • in the homeland of the financier, in Hungary, the work of his charitable organization are created serious problems;
  • in Turkey, a large-scale operation is being carried out against all institutions of the fund;
  • Austria gave 28 days to close the office.

George Soros is criticized by many politicians. One of the leaders of Croatia believes that the businessman supports traitors, promotes dangerous ideas in society. The President of Romania accused the investor of subversive, malicious activities.

It is believed that the "Open Society" took a direct part in organizing revolutions in Georgia, countries Central Asia, in Ukraine and in other states. The foundation's institutions supported Hillary Clinton extensively during the last US presidential election in 2016.

Soros is one of the only ones who profited well from the Brexit procedure - the withdrawal of Great Britain from the composition European Union.

You can learn more about what “Brexit” is in the article: “Brexit: what is it, analysis of results and consequences”.

The entrepreneur is one of the richest people in the world. In 2009, his fortune was estimated at $ 11 billion, in 2012 - already $ 19 billion. Now, according to Forbes magazine, he has $ 8 billion, although more recently his fortune was $ 23 billion. Soros transferred a little more than $ 17 billion to the activities of his fund " Open Society".

The 87-year-old businessman is in his third marriage, he has 5 children in total.