Contents

§ Early life [ edit ]

Soros was born in Budapest, Hungary. to a non-observant Jewish family. His mother Elizabeth (also known as Erzsebet) came from a family that owned a thriving silk shop. His father Tivadar (also known as Teodoro) was a lawyer [ 15 ] and had been a prisoner of war during and after World War I until he escaped from Russia and rejoined his family in Budapest. [ 16 ] [ 17 ] The two married in 1924. Tivadar was an Esperantist writer and taught Soros to speak Esperanto in his childhood. [ 18 ] Soros later said that he grew up in a Jewish home and that his parents were cautious with their religious roots. [ 19 ] In 1936 his father changed family name from Schwartz (black in German) into Soros (a successor in Hungarian or will soar in Esperanto).

Soros was thirteen years old in March 1944 when Nazi Germany occupied Hungary. [ 20 ] When Jewish children were barred from attending school by the Nazis, Soros and the other schoolchildren were made to report to the Jewish Council. which had been established during the occupation. Soros later described this time to writer Michael Lewis :

The Jewish Council asked the little kids to hand out the deportation notices. I was told to go to the Jewish Council. And there I was given these small slips of paper . It said report to the rabbi seminary at 9 am . And I was given this list of names. I took this piece of paper to my father. He instantly recognized it. This was a list of Hungarian Jewish lawyers. He said, You deliver the slips of paper and tell the people that if they report they will be deported. [ 21 ]

Soros did not return to that job, but instead went into hiding the next day. Later that year, at age 14, Soros lived with and posed as the godson of an employee of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture. The official was at one point ordered to inventory the remaining contents of the estate of a wealthy Jewish family that had fled the country; rather than leave the young Soros alone in the city, the official brought him along. [ 22 ] The next year, 1945, Soros survived the Battle of Budapest. in which Soviet and German forces fought house-to-house through the city.

Soros emigrated to England in 1947 and became an impoverished student at the London School of Economics. [ 23 ] While a student of the philosopher Karl Popper. Soros worked as a railway porter and as a waiter. A university tutor requested aid for Soros, and he received £40 from a Religious Society of Friends (Quaker) charity. [ 24 ] In a discussion at the Los Angeles World Affairs Council in 2006, Alvin Shuster, former foreign editor of the Los Angeles Times. asked Soros, How does one go from an immigrant to a financier? . When did you realize that you knew how to make money? Soros replied, Well, I had a variety of jobs and I ended up selling fancy goods on the sea side, souvenir shops, and I thought, that’s really not what I was cut out to do. So, I wrote to every managing director in every merchant bank in London, got just one or two replies, and eventually that’s how I got a job in a merchant bank. [ 25 ] That job was an entry-level position in Singer & Friedlander .

In 1951, Soros earned a BSc in philosophy and a PhD in philosophy in 1954, both from the London School of Economics. [ 26 ]

§ Career [ edit ]

In 1956, Soros moved to New York City where he worked as an arbitrage trader for F. M. Mayer (1956–59) and as an analyst for Wertheim & Co. (1959–63). He planned to stay for five years, enough time to save $500,000, after which he intended to return to England to study philosophy. [ 27 ] During this period, Soros developed the theory of reflexivity based on the ideas of Karl Popper. Reflexivity posited that the valuation of any market produces a procyclical virtuous or vicious circle that further affects the market. [ 28 ]

Soros’ experience from 1963 to 1973 as a vice-president at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder resulted in little enthusiasm for the job and a desire to assert himself as an investor to make reflexivity profitable. In 1967, First Eagle Funds created an opportunity for Soros to run an offshore investment fund as well as the Double Eagle hedge fund in 1969. [ 28 ]

In 1970, Soros founded Soros Fund Management and became its chairman. Among those who held senior positions there at various times were Jim Rogers, Stanley Druckenmiller, Mark Schwartz, Keith Anderson, and Soros’ two sons. [ 29 ] [ 30 ] [ 31 ]

In 1973, due to regulatory restrictions limiting his ability to run the funds, Soros resigned from his First Eagle funds. He then established the Quantum Fund. [ 28 ]

Soros announced in July 2011 that he had returned funds from outside investors’ money (valued at $1 billion) and instead invested funds from his $24.5 billion family fortune due to U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure rules. [ 32 ]

In 2013 the Quantum fund made $5.5 billion, making it again the most successful hedge fund in history. The fund has generated $40 billion since its inception in 1973.

§ Currency speculation [ edit ]

Soros had been building a huge position in pounds sterling for months leading up to September 1992. Soros recognized the unfavorable position at which the United Kingdom joined the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. For Soros, the rate at which the United Kingdom was brought into the European Exchange Rate Mechanism was too high, their inflation was also much too high (triple the German rate), and British interest rates were hurting their asset prices. [ 33 ]

On September 16, 1992, Black Wednesday. Soros’ fund sold short more than $10 billion in pounds. [ 29 ] profiting from the UK government’s reluctance to either raise its interest rates to levels comparable to those of other European Exchange Rate Mechanism countries or to float its currency.

Finally, the UK withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, devaluing the pound. Soros’s profit on the bet was estimated at over $1 billion. [ 34 ] He was dubbed the man who broke the Bank of England. [ 35 ] In 1997, the UK Treasury estimated the cost of Black Wednesday at £3.4 billion.

On Monday, October 26, 1992, The Times quoted Soros as saying: Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion. We planned to sell more than that. In fact, when Norman Lamont said just before the devaluation that he would borrow nearly $15 billion to defend sterling, we were amused because that was about how much we wanted to sell.

Stanley Druckenmiller. who traded under Soros, originally saw the weakness in the pound. Soros’ contribution was pushing him to take a gigantic position. [ 36 ] [ 37 ]

In 1997, during the Asian financial crisis. the Prime Minister of Malaysia Mahathir bin Mohamad accused Soros of using the wealth under his control to punish the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for welcoming Myanmar as a member. Following on a history of antisemitic remarks, Mahathir made specific reference to Soros’ Jewish background (It is a Jew who triggered the currency plunge [ 38 ] ) and implied Soros was orchestrating the crash as part of a larger Jewish conspiracy. Nine years later, in 2006, Mahathir met with Soros and afterwards stated that he accepted that Soros had not been responsible for the crisis. [ 39 ] In 1998’s The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows:

The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997 was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity. . By the beginning of 1997, it was clear to Soros Fund Management that the discrepancy between the trade account and the capital account was becoming untenable. We sold short the Thai baht and the Malaysian ringgit early in 1997 with maturities ranging from six months to a year. (That is, we entered into contracts to deliver at future dates Thai Baht and Malaysian ringgit that we did not currently hold.) Subsequently Prime Minister Mahathir of Malaysia accused me of causing the crisis, a wholly unfounded accusation. We were not sellers of the currency during or several months before the crisis; on the contrary, we were buyers when the currencies began to decline – we were purchasing ringgits to realize the profits on our earlier speculation. (Much too soon, as it turned out. We left most of the potential gain on the table because we were afraid that Mahathir would impose capital controls. He did so, but much later.) [ 40 ]

The nominal U.S. dollar GDP of the ASEAN fell by $9.2 billion in 1997 and $218.2 billion (31.7%) in 1998.

Economist Paul Krugman is critical of Soros’ effect on financial markets.

[N]obody who has read a business magazine in the last few years can be unaware that these days there really are investors who not only move money in anticipation of a currency crisis, but actually do their best to trigger that crisis for fun and profit. These new actors on the scene do not yet have a standard name; my proposed term is ‘Soroi’. [ 41 ]

§ Public predictions [ edit ]

Soros’ book, The New Paradigm for Financial Markets (May 2008), described a superbubble that had built up over the past 25 years and was ready to collapse. This was the third in a series of books he has written that have predicted disaster. As he states:

I have a record of crying wolf . I did it first in The Alchemy of Finance (in 1987), then in The Crisis of Global Capitalism (in 1998) and now in this book. So it’s three books predicting disaster. (After) the boy cried wolf three times . the wolf really came. [ 42 ]

He ascribes his own success to being able to recognize when his predictions are wrong.

I’m only rich because I know when I’m wrong . I basically have survived by recognizing my mistakes. I very often used to get backaches due to the fact that I was wrong. Whenever you are wrong you have to fight or [take] flight. When [I] make the decision, the backache goes away. [ 42 ]

In February 2009, Soros said the world financial system had effectively disintegrated, adding that there was no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis. [ 43 ] We witnessed the collapse of the financial system . It was placed on life support, and it’s still on life support. There’s no sign that we are anywhere near a bottom.

§ Insider trading conviction [ edit ]

In 1988, Soros was interested in purchasing shares in French companies. The Socialist party had lost its majority of seats in the Assembly, and the new government under Jacques Chirac had instituted an aggressive privatization program. Many people considered shares in the newly privatized companies undervalued. During this period, a French financier named Georges Pébereau contacted one of Soros’ advisors in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large number of shares in Société Générale. a leading French bank that was part of the program. The advisor reported to Soros that Pébereau’s plan was ambiguous and included an implausible takeover plan, which later failed. On that advice, and without ever having met the financier, Soros decided against participating. [ 44 ]

Soros did, however, move forward with his strategy of accumulating shares in four French companies: Société Générale, as well as Suez, Paribas and the Compagnie Générale d’Électricité. In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros’ transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading. Soros had received no information from the Société Générale, and had no insider knowledge of the business, but he did possess knowledge that a group of investors was planning a takeover attempt. The COB concluded that the statutes, regulations and case law relating to insider trading did not clearly establish that a crime had occurred, and that no charges should be brought against Soros. [ 45 ]

Several years later, a Paris-based prosecutor reopened the case against Soros and two other French businessmen, disregarding the COB’s findings. This resulted in Soros’ 2005 conviction for insider trading by the Court of Appeals (he was the only one of the three to receive a conviction). The French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, but reduced the penalty to €940,000. [ 46 ]

Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing, saying news of the takeover was public knowledge [ 47 ] and it was documented that his intent to acquire shares of the company predated his own awareness of the takeover. [ 46 ]

His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006. [ 46 ] In December 2006, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on various grounds including that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing. [ 48 ] On the basis of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights. stating that no person may be punished for an act that was not a criminal offense at the time that it was committed, the Court agreed to hear the appeal. [ 49 ] In October 2011, the court rejected his appeal in a 4–3 decision, saying that Soros had been aware of the risk of breaking insider trading laws. [ 50 ]

§ Sports [ edit ]

In 2005, Soros was a minority partner in a group that tried to buy the Washington Nationals. a Major League baseball team. Some Republican lawmakers suggested that they might move to revoke baseball’s antitrust exemption if Soros bought the team. [ 51 ]

In 2008, Soros’ name was associated with AS Roma. an Italian association football team, but the club was not sold. Soros was also a financial backer of Washington Soccer L.P. the group that owned the operating rights to Major League Soccer club D.C. United when the league was founded in 1995, but the group lost these rights in 2000. [ 52 ]

On August 21, 2012, the BBC reported SEC filings showing Soros acquired a roughly 1.9% stake in English football club Manchester United through the purchase of 3.1 million of the club’s Class-A shares. [ 53 ]

§ Philanthropy [ edit ]