George Soros is a success story. The great and terrible George Soros - biography, quotes, sayings


George Soros (Soros) real name (Gyorgy Shoros) was born in Budapest on August 12, 1930 into a middle-class Jewish family. George's father was a lawyer and publisher (he 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 times of repression, thanks to false documents prepared 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 in three years. 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. George then became a traveling salesman, driving around in a cheap Ford and selling goods to various merchants in the seaside resorts of Wales. At the same time as working as a traveling salesman, Soros tried to get a job in all the trading banks in London. But everywhere he was refused due to his nationality and the lack of a protégé. It was only in 1953 that he received a position at Singer and Friedlander from his fellow Hungarian. The work and at the same time the internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock exchange. Its leader traded shares of gold mining companies. But the boring work did not inspire George Soros, and three years later he found a way to move to America.

IN THE 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. His career in the United States began with international arbitrage, 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 new method trading, calling it internal arbitrage (selling separately combined securities of stocks, bonds and warrants before they could be officially separated from each other). Before Kennedy introduced an additional tax on foreign investment, this type of activity brought in good income. After this, Soros' business was destroyed overnight.

Soros returned to philosophy. From 1963 to 1966, he tried to rewrite the dissertation on which he began working 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, because he believed that he was simply conveying the thoughts of his great teacher . This ended the philosopher's career 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. Having received significant profits over three years of work, in 1969 Soros became the director and co-owner of a fund called Double Eagle, which later grew into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative transactions with securities, which brought him millions of dollars in profit. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was $10 billion. Today, every dollar invested in this fund has turned into 5.5 thousand US dollars. A significant day was September 15, 1992, when, thanks to the operations undertaken by Soros related to the sharp fall of the British pound, his fortune increased by another $1 billion. After this day, Soros began to be called “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.”

In 1997, George Soros launched a successful attack against the national currencies of a number of countries in the Asia-Pacific region - Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, which ended in a deep economic crisis in these countries, set back in their development 10-15 years ago. The next target of its influence was China, but local specialists managed to prevent the attack.

Losses

But Since 1997, Soros has had a “dark streak”. Almost all investments brought huge losses. In 1997, he and Potanin created the offshore Mustcom, which paid $1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest OJSC, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price fell by more than half. Soros angrily called this purchase “the worst investment of his entire life.” After many attempts, in 2004 he sold the shares of Svyazinvest OJSC for $625 million to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who was also a shareholder of 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 his stake in KMB Bank (Small Business Lending Bank) to the Italian banking group Intesa, which has more than 50 branches in all major cities of Russia and serves more than 35 thousand clients. In 1999, Soros' investment fund (not to be confused with a charity) acquired 47 percent of the bank's shares, which was then called the Russian Project Finance Bank. At that time, the controlling stake belonged to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). At the time of the current deal, the EBRD and Soros each had approximately 37 percent of the bank's shares, with another 26 percent in the hands of German and Dutch investors.

All shareholders, except the EBRD, completely sold their shares in KMB. The total amount of the transaction is estimated at $90 million. This transaction is notable because, according to the Kommersant newspaper, the stake in this bank was Soros’s last financial asset in Russia. Having decided to retire, he became closely involved in programs for financing science and art.

Strategy: how George Soros got rich

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

George Soros made his fortune through gaming downgrade (“bearish” tactics), during which he used his “theory of stock market reflexivity.” According to this theory, decisions on purchases and sales of securities are made based on expectations of prices in the future, and since expectations are a psychological category, they can be the object of informational influence. An attack on the currency of a country consists of successive information attacks through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators that undermine the financial market.

There are two main points of view regarding Soros' financial success. According to the first point of view, Soros owes his successes to the gift of financial foresight. Another says that in acceptance important decisions George Soros uses insider information provided by senior political, financial and intelligence officials largest countries world[source?]. Moreover, it is assumed that Soros is a hired manager carrying out financial projects of 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 notorious American billionaire Marc Rich, Shaul Eisenberg, Rafi Eitan and others.

In 2002, a Paris 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 from shares of the French bank Societe Generale

Charity

George Soros is known not only as a financier, but also as a philanthropist and social thinker, author of a number of books and articles, for whom 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. He is also an honorary doctorate from the New School. social research(New York), Oxford and Yale universities. In addition to numerous articles by George Soros wrote books"The Alchemy of Finance" (1987), "Discovering Soviet system" (1990), "Maintaining Democracy" (1991).

The Open Society Fund marked the beginning of Soros's charitable career. Now he has created charitable foundations in more than 25 countries. Back in 1988, in the USSR, Soros organized the Cultural Initiative Foundation in support of science, culture, and education. But the Cultural Initiative fund was closed because the money was not used for its intended purpose, but was used for the personal purposes of certain individuals. In 1995, it was decided to start over in Russia, and was organized new fund"Open Society". George Soros is the first in Russia since 1996. finances the project "University Internet Centers". The goal 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 jointly with the Russian government. Soros' contribution was $100 million, and the Russian government's contribution was $30 million. It is believed that this is the only commitment 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 the network charitable foundations and other institutions reached $300 million, in 1995 and 1996 - $350 million each.

On the night of August 12, 2012, George Soros celebrated his 82nd birthday with 40-year-old Tamiko Bolton. The fiancee of a prominent investor, who previously sold nutritional supplements online, now owns a company offering online yoga classes.

American financier, founder and head of charitable foundations George Soros (real name Gyorgy Shoros) was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest (Hungary) into a middle-income Jewish family. George's father was a lawyer and publisher. 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 World War II, thanks to false documents prepared by his father, the Soros family escaped persecution by the Nazis and emigrated to Great Britain in 1947. At this time, George Soros was already 17 years old. He entered the London School of Economics and successfully graduated after three years. During his studies he was particularly influenced by the philosophy of Karl Popper and economic theory John Maynard Keynes.

In England, he found work in a haberdashery factory, where he began working as a salesman. Then he got a job as a traveling salesman, offering goods to various merchants at the seaside resorts of Wales. In 1953, Soros received a position at Singer and Friedlander. The work and at the same time the internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock exchange. Its leader traded shares of gold mining companies.

In 1956, Soros arrived in the United States at the invitation of the father of his London friend, who had his own small brokerage firm on Wall Street. Soros' career in the United States began with international arbitrage, that is, buying securities in one country and selling them in another. After the Suez 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). friend). Before President Kennedy introduced an additional tax on foreign investment, this type of activity brought Soros a good income. But after that everything went downhill, so he also had to leave this type of business.

From 1963 to 1966, Soros tried to rewrite the dissertation he began working on after business school, and returned to writing his treatise, The Heavy Burden of Consciousness, but was not satisfied with the result. This ended the career of Soros as a philosopher, and he returned to business.

In 1966, Soros created his first investment fund with a total capital of $4 million. Over the three years of the investment fund's existence, George Soros received significant profits. In 1969, Soros became the head of the Double Eagle Foundation, which later grew into the Quantum Group. By the mid-1990s, the fund's capital was already $10 billion.

On September 15, 1992, a day that went down in history as “Black Wednesday,” George Soros earned about a billion dollars. He undertook a number of operations that were associated with the rapid fall of the English pound. It was after this fraud that the nickname “The Man Who Collapsed the Bank of England” firmly stuck to Soros.

George Soros made all his money by short-selling. Soros' main tactic is the theory of reflexivity of stock markets. According to this tactic, all trading decisions are made by the speculator based on expectations of future prices.

Some experts believe that Soros owes his success to the gift of financial foresight. According to another version, Soros receives insider information from high-ranking intelligence, political and financial circles of the largest countries in the world. In 2002, he was found guilty by a Paris court of receiving confidential information and sentenced to a fine of 2.2 million euros. The court found that due to the fact that Soros owned confidential information, he was able to earn more than $2 million from shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

In 1979, George Soros became active in philanthropy. In New York, he founded his first foundation, the Open Society Foundation. That same year, he set up a fund to support black students at the University of Cape Town in apartheid-ridden South Africa. Soros's first Eastern European foundation was founded in Hungary in 1984.

In 1987, he launched an initiative to help open society in Russia. In addition to the foundations he founded throughout the former Soviet Union Soros created the International Science Foundation (ISF) in 1992 to help scientists in Russia and the former Soviet bloc survive the difficulties of the transition period without stopping their research or emigrating to other countries. By distributing more than $115 million through the ISF, Soros played a significant role in reducing brain drain and preventing Russia's intellectual and scientific resources from being used for destructive purposes.

In 1990, on the initiative of Soros, the Central European University was founded in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw.

The network of philanthropic organizations founded by Soros operates in more than 50 countries around the world. Located mainly in Central and Eastern Europe and the countries of the former Soviet Union, as well as in Africa, Latin America, Asia and the United States, these funds are intended to create and maintain the infrastructure and institutions of an open society.
Every year, George Soros's network of foundations spends hundreds of millions of dollars to support certain categories of citizens and even entire states.

George Soros is the President and Chairman of Soros Fund Management LLC, a private investment management firm, and the general advisor to the Quantum Group of Funds, a number of international investment companies. In July 2000, Soros merged his flagship Quantum Fund with the Quantum Emerging Growth Fund to form the Quantum Endowment Fund.

Soros is known not only as a financier and philanthropist, but also as a social thinker, for whom the establishment of an open society in the post-communist world is a fundamental value and central idea.

In addition to numerous articles, he wrote a number of books, including “The Alchemy of Finance” (1987), “Discovering the Soviet System” (1990), “Supporting Democracy” (1991), “Guaranteeing Democracy” (1991), “Soros on Soros” ( 1995, Russian translation, 1997), "George Soros on globalization" (2002); "The Bubble of American Supremacy" (2005); "A New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The 2008 Credit Crisis and Its Implications" (2009); "Financial Crisis in Europe and the United States" (2012).

His articles and essays on politics, society and economics are regularly published in national press and magazines around the world.
Soros actively interferes in politics. In addition to participating in public life USA, he supported the opposition in Georgia, Ukraine and a number of other countries.

George Soros received honorary degrees from New school Social Research, Oxford University, University of Economics in Budapest, Yale University. In 1995, the University of Bologna awarded Soros its highest honor, the Laurea Honoris Causa, in recognition of his efforts to support open societies around the world.

George Soros has been married twice. He divorced his first wife, Annalize Witshak, in 1983 after 23 years of marriage. That same year, he married Susan Weber, an art critic from New York who was 25 years younger than the businessman. The couple spent 22 years together. George Soros has five children from two marriages. In 2011, his second son Jonathan left his father's investment fund and opened his own company.

For more than five years, the financier's companion was the Brazilian TV star Adriana Ferreira.

In August 2011, she sued the billionaire. She accused Soros of breaking promises and violence.

The material was prepared based on information from open sources

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 creator of several hedge funds and an international charitable organization"Open Society".

 

Brief information:

  • FULL NAME: George Soros (Schwartz)
  • Date of Birth: 08/12/1930
  • Education: higher education
  • Date of start of business/age: 1963/33 years
  • Type of activity at 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 his successful high-risk investments.

Brief biography of George Soros

An American financier of Jewish origin was born in the capital of Hungary on August 12, 1930. The real name of George Soros (György Soros) is Schwartz. He was brought up in a middle-income family.

His parents taught important life lessons and played an important role in short biography George Soros:

  • Mother Elizabeth taught her son to be creative and awakened his love for music and drawing. Thanks to his out-of-the-box thinking, George (Gyorgy in Hungarian) achieved success: he knew how to see, take advantage of new opportunities;
  • Tivadar's father was a lawyer who was exiled 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. The life lesson I learned during the war is that sometimes you can lose everything, even your own life, if you don’t take risks.

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

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

For most of World War II, he hid in basements, attics and other nooks and crannies to avoid being found by Nazi soldiers. At that time, the largest Jewish community in Eastern Europe lived in Hungary, and the German occupation forces were especially eager to look for people of this nationality here.

Through the efforts of his father, George emigrated to the UK in 1944. A year later, after the victory of the USSR and allies in the war, he returned back and even resumed school. But even then the idea of ​​settling in the West and reaching 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 his father gave him ran out. The future billionaire had to get by with temporary and odd jobs: as a waiter in a high-status restaurant, an apple picker on a farm, and even a painter.

In 1949 he entered the London School of Economics and graduated in two years. At the same time, I became acquainted with the philosophical book “The Open Society and Its Enemies”, became imbued with the ideas and wanted to put them into practice and make capital on it. 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 dealt with stocks various companies, in particular gold mining. George made money by buying and reselling securities. He really enjoyed working in the money markets, even though he was not very successful at first.

In 1956, having earned some money, he went to the United States, determined to achieve success 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 became involved in currency arbitrage.

Having gained experience and made acquaintances, in 1963 he moved to the large company “Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder”, engaged in investing in foreign markets. Given good experience, acquaintances in Old Europe and knowledge foreign languages, George was hired as a priority.

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

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

In the 60s there was no Internet and 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 on valuable information.

Creation of offshore funds

In 1967, a successful investor convinced his company's management 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 thousand of his own funds.

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

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

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

  • for 5 years until 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 13% at this time.

In 1979, the fund changed its name from Double Eagle to Quantum. At the same time, he was able to earn $100 million from the fall of the English pound sterling. English state the bonds were in great demand, Soros bought them for $1 billion and then suddenly sold them. And very soon the pound exchange rate seriously collapsed.

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

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

The businessman, sensitive to change, realized that the company needed changes. He replaced himself with 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 gave me the opportunity to do other things and travel abroad around the world.

White and black stripe

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

Quantum continued to develop, and 1985 became a time of victory for it and its founder.

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

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

For the following currency speculation, the talented investor was called “the man who brought down the Bank of England.”

In 1992, Soros opened a position on the British pound sterling on the stock exchange for more than $10 billion. The bold step and further actions brought him a fantastic profit - $1.1 billion. This led to a chain of events: intervention by the Central Bank of Great Britain, 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, it had more capital than 42 countries that are members of the UN.

The losing streak began in 1997. In collaboration with Vladimir Potanin, he invested in Russia and bought shares in one of the companies. As a result of a series of operations and the 1998 crisis, Soros lost most of his investments and was forced to sell an unprofitable investment, but did so unsuccessfully. If the businessman had waited a little, he could have sold the asset at twice the price, which could have repaid the costs.

In 1999, his main fund, Quantum, lost $1 billion as a result of unprofitable investments. Other funds also lost significant funds: in total they amounted to $500 million. In business circles they began to say that George had lost his instincts, had lost the tail of luck from his hands. Businessmen started in urgently withdraw their capital from Soros organizations.

But the entrepreneur did not want to give up: he attracted new investors, businessmen saw that some of the funds’ assets 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 of big deals” was over, and closed his largest fund, deciding to engage in charitable activities and writing books.

Controversial philanthropist and philosopher

Back in 1979, the entrepreneur created the first charitable foundation, the Open Society Foundation, which is still active today; annual funding from the creator is about $300 million. The organization has more than 30 representative offices in different countries. The Foundation finances a number of projects in the fields of education, medicine, civil society, etc.

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

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

  • computer equipment was donated to educational institutions;
  • $100 million allocated to support Russian science and scientists;
  • scientific equipment and reagents were purchased and provided;
  • trips to scientific conferences;
  • in 1996-2001, as part of the implementation of the “University Internet Centers” program, 33 Internet centers, etc., were opened.

With money from the Open Society, a number of educational institutions, funds for the study of economics, sociology, culture, support for publishing, development of information technology, etc.

Despite the seemingly plausible goals and objectives, many questions arose about the Soros Foundation. There are cases when real and potential scientists were taken abroad and began to work for the interests of Western countries(the so-called “brain drain”).

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

Interesting fact! The Russian and foreign public is well aware of George Soros's negative attitude towards Russia. He repeatedly called her “enemy No. 1.”

After the collapse of the USSR, the entrepreneur began creating and distributing textbooks for 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 of Russian culture and statehood, and 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 impact on the collective conscious and unconscious.

The activities of the Soros Foundation are being questioned by many countries. According to latest news:

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

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

It is believed that Open Society took a direct part in organizing revolutions in Georgia, Central Asia, Ukraine and other countries. The foundation's institutions widely supported Hillary Clinton 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 European Union.

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

The entrepreneur is among 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 just recently his fortune was $23 billion. Soros donated just over $17 billion for the activities of his foundation “ Open Society".

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

Editor's response

American financier George Soros, speaking on June 20 in London at an event of the Open Russia movement Mikhail Khodorkovsky,

According to Soros, the current situation is reminiscent of the dawn of the European Union during the collapse of the USSR. The financier noted that during his speech he felt “more than ever” that the fate of the EU depends on the future of Ukraine.

AiF.ru talks about what is known about the American financier George Soros.

Dossier

George Soros (real name Schwartz) was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest (Hungary) into a middle-income Jewish family. His father, Tivadar Schwartz, was a lawyer, a prominent figure in the city's Jewish community, an Esperanto specialist, and an Esperantist writer. Older brother - engineer, entrepreneur and philanthropist Paul Soros (1926-2013).

In 1947, Soros moved to England, where he entered the London School of Economics and Political Science and successfully graduated three years later. He was lectured by an Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who had a great influence on him, whose ideological follower he became.

In England, he found work in a haberdashery factory, and then became a traveling salesman, but did not give up his search for work in a bank. In 1953 he received a position at Singer and Friedlander. The work and at the same time the internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock exchange.

Soros's career as a financier dates back to 1956. He arrived in New York at the invitation of the father of his London friend, a certain Mayer, who had his own small brokerage firm on Wall Street.

His career in the United States began with international arbitrage, that is, buying securities in one country and selling them in another. Soros 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.

In 1963 Kennedy introduced an additional tax on foreign investment, and Soros closed his business. By 1967, he was head of research at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, a well-known brokerage firm specializing in European stock markets.

In 1969, Soros became the manager of the Double Eagle fund, founded by Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder. In 1973, he left Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder and, together with Jim Rogers, based on the assets of investors in the Double Eagle fund, he founded a fund that later became known as Quantum (a term from the field of quantum mechanics). Soros was the senior partner, Rogers was the junior until he retired in 1980. The fund carried out speculative operations with securities, currencies, and commodities and achieved great success; during their collaboration from 1970 to 1980, Soros and Rogers never suffered losses; by the end of 1980, Soros’s personal fortune was estimated at $100 million, in June In 1981, Institutional Investor magazine named Soros the world's greatest fund manager.

Despite the fund's success over the long term, it had some bad years - while in 1980 the profit was 100%, then the next year the fund lost 23%. Soros' decision on Black Monday in 1987 to close all positions and go into cash was one of the biggest failures of his career. If before “Black Monday” the annual profitability of Quantum was 60%, then a week later the fund became unprofitable, with losses of 10% in annual terms.

In 1988, Soros invited him to work for his foundation. Stanley Druckenmiller playing an important role in subsequent investment decisions until 2000, when he left Quantum. It is believed that the sharp fall of the British pound against German mark On September 16, 1992, Soros earned more than a billion dollars in a day. Soros began calling this day, known as “Black Wednesday,” “White Wednesday,” and he himself is celebrated as “the man who broke the Bank of England.”

In charity

Gradually, Soros is moving away from financial speculation and declaring charitable activities, including in the field of education and scientific research. Makes statements about the need and usefulness of restrictions in financial sector, including to reduce the investment opportunities of large financial institutions.

Now he has created charitable foundations in more than 25 countries. In September 1987, on his initiative, the Soviet-American Cultural Initiative Foundation was created in the USSR in support of science, culture and education, but the foundation was later closed.

In 1995, it was decided to organize a new Open Society Foundation in Russia. From 1996 to 2001, the Soros Foundation invested about $100 million in the University Internet Centers project, as a result of which 33 Internet centers appeared in Russia.

In 1995-2001, according to the International Soros Education Program in the field of exact sciences(ISSEP) published the monthly Soros Educational Journal (SOJ). Publications of SOZh had a natural science direction; target group: high school students. The magazine was distributed free of charge to schools (more than 30 thousand copies), municipal and university libraries (3.5 thousand copies).

At the end of 2003, Soros officially curtailed financial support for his charitable activities in Russia, and in 2004, the Open Society Institute stopped issuing grants. But the structures created with the assistance of the Soros Foundation now operate without its direct participation: the Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSHSEN, created in 1995 with a grant from the Soros Foundation, the Foundation for Culture and Art, the PRO ARTE Institute, the International Charitable Foundation named after D. S. Likhacheva, non-profit foundation for the support of book publishing, education and new information technologies “Pushkin Library”.

State

As of November 2009, George Soros's fortune was estimated at 11 billion dollars, as of September 2012 - 19 billion. Business Week magazine estimates that he donated more than $5 billion to charities throughout his life, with one billion of those five billion going to Russia.

Family

In September 2013, he married for the third time, his chosen one was 42-year-old Tamiko Bolton, they met five years ago and announced their engagement in August.

Political activism and lobbying

Crisis in Ukraine

At the beginning of January 2015, Soros called for urgent assistance to Ukraine. financial assistance in the amount of 20 billion euros to support the “belligerent side”.

November 12, 2015 President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko awarded George Soros the Order of Freedom. Poroshenko noted the significant role of the international foundation “Vidrozhennya”, founded by Soros, in the development of the Ukrainian state and the establishment of democracy. In addition, Poroshenko expressed gratitude for the efforts of Soros and his long-term comprehensive plan to support Ukraine, as well as for professional advice on public finance issues.

Essays

Soros J. Soros about Soros. - M.: Infra-M, 1996. - 336 p. — ISBN 5-86225-305-X.

Soros J. Alchemy of Finance. - M.: Infra-M, 2001. - 208 p. — ISBN 5-86225-166-9.

Soros George. The bubble of American superiority. Where should American power be directed? / translated from English - M.: Alpina Business Books, 2004, 192 pp., ISBN 5-9614-0042-5 (Russian), ISBN 1-58648-217-3 (English), dash. 10000 copies

Soros J. Open Society. Reforming global capitalism. Per. from English - M.: Non-profit foundation "Support for culture, education and new information technologies", 2001. - 458 pp., ISBN 5-94072-001-3, ref. 10000 copies

Soros J. On globalization. - M.: Eksmo, 2004. - 224 p. — ISBN 5-699-07924-6.

We are talking about the new Dodd-Frank Act, known by the name of its developers - Congressmen Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, which imposes a number of significant restrictions on hedge funds: until March 2012, all hedge funds operating in the country must register with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and hedge funds are required to disclose all information about their investors, assets, investment policies, and possible conflicts of interest.

State: ▲ $8.5 billion. Children: 5 Website: www.georgesoros.com

George Soros (Gyorgy Shoros)(English) George Soros, Hung. Soros György, bore the surname until 1936 Schwartz; R. listen)) is an American financier, investor and philanthropist. A supporter of the theory of an open society and an opponent of “market fundamentalism”. Follower of the ideas of Karl Popper. His activities are controversial different countries and various circles of society. He is often called a financial speculator. Considered "the man who broke the Bank of England".

Biography. Business career

  • August 12 - born in Budapest, into a middle-income Jewish family. George's father, Tivadar Schwartz, was a lawyer, a prominent figure in the city's Jewish community, an Esperanto specialist and an Esperantist writer.
  • g. - the family changed their surname to the Hungarian version Shoros ( Soros).
  • - fleeing repression, the Soros family emigrated to the UK thanks to false documents. Soros entered the London School of Economics and successfully graduated three years later. He was lectured by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, whose ideological follower Soros became. In England, George Soros found work in a haberdashery factory, and then became a traveling salesman, but did not give up his search for work in a bank.
  • - received a position at Singer and Friedlander. The work and at the same time the internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock exchange.
  • g. - The beginning of Soros’s career as a financier. He arrived in the United States 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 arbitrage, that is, buying securities in one country and selling them in another. Soros 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).
  • g. - Kennedy introduced an additional tax on foreign investment, and Soros closed his business.
  • - Soros becomes the leader and co-owner of the Double Eagle Foundation, which later grew into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative transactions with securities, which brought it millions of dollars in profit. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was $10 billion. Today, every dollar invested in this fund has turned into 5.5 thousand US dollars.
  • September 16, 1992 - “Black Wednesday”. Thanks to the operations undertaken by Soros related to the sharp fall of the English pound (by 12%), he earned more than a billion dollars in a day. After this day, Soros began to be called “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England.” Soros began to call this environment “white.”

After this it began black line"in the life of Soros. In 2009, he and Potanin created the offshore Mustcom, which paid $1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest OJSC, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price fell by more than half. Soros angrily called this purchase “the worst investment of his entire life.” After many attempts, in 2004 he sold the shares of OJSC Svyazinvest for $625 million to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who was also a shareholder of TNK-BP. At the end of 2006, Blavatnik sold a blocking stake for $1.3 billion to Comstar-UTS, part of AFK Sistema.

Soros is moving away from financial speculation and devoting himself to charitable activities.

Financial activities

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

George Soros made his fortune through short-selling (“bearish” tactics), during which he used his “theory of stock market reflexivity.” According to this theory, decisions on purchases and sales of securities are made based on expectations of prices in the future, and since expectations are a psychological category, they can be the object of informational influence. An attack on the currency of a country consists of successive information attacks through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators that undermine the financial market.

There are two main points of view regarding Soros' financial success. 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 inside information provided by high-ranking officials from the political, financial and intelligence circles of the largest countries in the world. Moreover, it is assumed that Soros is a hired manager carrying out financial projects of 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 notorious American billionaire Marc Rich, Shaul Eisenberg, Rafi Eitan and others.

In 2002, a Paris 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 from shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

Charity

see also

Notes

Links

  • George Soros (English)
  • Hedge Funds and the Asian Currency Crisis of 1997, Studie
  • (English)

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