George Soros (Schwartz) is a famous American trader, investor, financier and philanthropist. Founder of the Soros Foundation network of charitable organizations. In 2016, Soros's fortune was $ 24.9 billion. Many consider him a speculator and the man who ruined the Bank of England.

George Soros is a controversial person: for some he is a financial guru, founder of charitable foundations in 25 countries, an influential investor and loving father five children, for others - "great and terrible." He is called the master of market speculation, the stock speculator who "collapsed" the English bank. He is a supporter of the legalization of marijuana, etc.

George Soros Principles

George Soros was born in 1930 in, in the city of Budapest, to a Jewish family with an average income. His father, Tivadar Schwartz, was a lawyer and one of the main leaders of the Jewish community. In 1936, for security reasons, he forged documents: he changed his surname to Hungarian - Shoorosh. This is how Gjord Shorosh - the future George Soros - appeared.

They say that "what does not kill us makes us stronger." These words also apply to George Soros. Life gave him good lessons, thanks to which he became the way we see him now. One of them: “The lesson I learned during the war is that sometimes you can even lose own life if you don't risk it. "

Thanks to the difficulties that befell the family, he formed the main life principles:

  • "My principle is to first of all strive to survive, and only then make money."
  • “I did not accept the rules proposed by others. If I did that, I would no longer live. "

In London

In 1947 the family moved to. Subsequently, Soros will write: "I was lucky that my father was one of those who did not act as people usually do."

Soros enters the UK to study at London school economics and political science, the motto of which is "Know the cause of things." Many influential people in society graduated from this school, including John F. Kennedy.

At the London School, John Soros met the Austrian lecturer Karl Popper, a sociologist and philosopher, whose idea of ​​an open society influenced the rest of Soros's life. The essence of this idea is that people in an open society should rely on their own intelligence and critical thinking when making decisions, and not on the system of prohibitions that is characteristic of a closed society. That is, a person should think with his own head, and not be a cog in society.

Three years later, Soros successfully graduated from high school. It would seem that at the end of such a prestigious educational institution a direct road to big business... But he first works at a haberdashery factory as an assistant manager, then as a traveling salesman he travels to English seaside resorts. In 1953 he got a job in the arbitration department from London companies, but the routine work quickly bored him.

Once he had to earn extra money as a porter at the station, and as a waiter and even an apple picker, so it cannot be said that he shied away from work. But it would be strange to think that a person with high intelligence, knowledge, prestigious education and ambition would be satisfied with the position of a traveling salesman. He is attracted by the financial sphere, but when he tries to get a job at the bank, he is everywhere rejected. And one of the main reasons is his nationality.

Start of financial activities

A friend of Soros's father, who owns a small brokerage firm, invites him to his place, and in 1956 George Soros crosses Atlantic Ocean and ends up in New York. From that time on, his financial activities began. In a brokerage office, he comprehends the secrets of buying and selling securities. On the so-called external arbitration - buying shares in one country and selling them in another - he manages to make good money. In addition, George is adventurous and comes up with his own way of trading securities, which he calls internal arbitrage: he sells the combined securities separately before they can be officially separated from each other.

And here he follows another of his life principles: "I do not play within this set of rules, I strive to change the rules of the game."

However, changes in legislation, in particular the fees imposed by the government, made this business unprofitable, and Soros for three years - from 1963 to 1966 - went to write a dissertation and a philosophical treatise "The Heavy Burden of Consciousness." Over time, he realizes that business attracts him more than philosophy.

Establishment of the Quantum Fund

Since 1966, the investment activity of George Soros begins. The capital of the company he founded is initially $ 100,000. For three years of work, he makes a significant profit and becomes a co-owner and head of the Double Eagle Foundation, which later grew into (which received this name in honor of the creator of quantum mechanics).

Quantum is a hedge fund, which is a private investment fund that is not accessible to the general public and is managed by a professional investment manager. Due to the lack of a clear regulation hedge funds are free to use various financial instruments and choose strategies when investing money in any markets. The result of the work of such funds can be not only profits, but also losses - so Quantum had to experience not only ups, but also downs.

Nonetheless, Quantum provided its investors with over 30% of the return on shares annually, and in total they made $ 32 billion - the largest return ever for a hedge fund. And by 1990, Quantum's capital was already $ 10 billion.

"White Wednesday"

However, Soros became known to the world not at all for this, but because in one day he earned $ 1 billion, having played on the decline of the British pound against the German mark. September 16, 1992, which became "black environment" for British banks, became, in his words, "white environment" for Soros. He himself gained a reputation as the man who broke the Bank of England.

He did this using the Global Macro strategy: the fund manager, based on an assessment of the macroeconomic situation occupied by different regions and countries of these regions, makes a conclusion about which classes of assets will go down and which ones - up.

For several years Soros bought British currency in small lots. In addition, he turned with his idea for financial support from the largest American investment banks. With the appropriate capital, Soros began to play for the fall of the British pound - short. Selling 5 billion British pounds at once allowed the pound to drop to a critical minimum, and buying back the pounds that had fallen in price made it possible to make a profit of 1 billion.

Failures

Of course, gambling is associated with risks and failures. They did not bypass Soros either. Your worst investment and main mistake in real life, he called the purchase in 1997 of a controlling stake in the Russian telecommunications company Svyazinvest, in which he lost almost $ 2 billion: due to the 1998 crisis, the share price more than halved, and he was able to sell them only after numerous attempts in 2004 for $ 625 million.

In the future, he had other failures, albeit on a smaller scale, so he decided to start financing scientific and cultural projects.

Charity

George Soros invests a lot of money in charity. He founded several charitable foundations with branches in other countries: in Africa, Latin America, Central and Eastern Europe, Asia and the United States of America. These are the Open Society Institute, Stefan Batory Foundation, Soros Foundation, which support the creative intelligentsia, help scientists and opposition in countries where there is no democratic regime. In total, over the past 30 years, Soros has spent over $ 5 billion on charity. It is said that he spends about $ 300 million a year on non-profit projects. And in 2010, he donated $ 332 million to his open society charitable foundation, earning the title of America's most generous billionaire.

Soros profit strategy

It is known that Soros managed to earn a significant profit using the so-called "bearish" tactics (playing down).

He adhered to the theory of the reflexivity of stock markets, according to which decisions to buy and sell securities are made based on prices expected in the future. And expectation is a psychological category. Since the stock exchange is also people (investors, traders, etc.), they can be influenced by information through financial and analytical publications, mass media, currency speculators. “Spells can influence the decisions of people who shape the course of events,” he says.

It is believed that George Soros may owe his success in making a profit both to his own gift of financial foresight and to the skillful use of insider information that people who have weight in the economic and political spheres world leading countries.

For example, in 2002, a Paris court found him guilty of using confidential information for profit, which earned him $ 2 million on shares in a large French bank, and sentenced him to a corresponding fine.

Soros shares his thoughts and ideas in articles and books. Entrepreneurs and financiers will be interested in such as "Alchemy of Finance", "Soros about Soros. Ahead of change "," A new paradigm for financial markets: Credit crisis 2008 and its significance ”. In addition, George Soros is an Honorary Doctor of the New York New School social research, Oxford and Yale University.

On his initiative, in 1990, the Central European University was opened in Prague, Budapest and Warsaw.

Currently, George Soros lives in a penthouse in one of the skyscrapers in New York. He is undemanding in everyday life and at the same time says: "I always felt like an exceptional person."

We continue to publish articles on success stories famous people. George Soros- undoubtedly a well-known financier and investor. At the time of this publication, he is also engaged in charity work. George Soros is known not only as an investor (like), but also as a speculator. George Soros is controversial around the world. But everyone agrees that this is an extraordinary and interesting person.

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

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

In the second world war Soros's father was engaged in forging documents, which saved many Jews from death. Those who did nothing were in greater danger than those who went for the risky forgery of documents. Soros the Younger learned this life lesson. As he says: sometimes you can lose everything, including your own life, if you don't take the risk.

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

1949 George enters the London School of Economics, where he attended 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, as paradoxical as it sounds, can really help make money.

At 22, Soros received a degree in economics and this did not help him much in his advancement in career ladder... Nevertheless, he sent his resume to a number of investment companies, and in one of them Soros was offered an internship. It was there that Soros got his 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 went to work for Arnold & Blackchroder, a leading American overseas insetization firm. It was precisely the knowledge of G. Soros that came in handy in several European languages ​​and communications in the Old World.

Previously, it was believed that economic phenomena are objective character... However, according to George Soros, if we consider economics 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 to do with what actually happens there.

Soon, George Soros, with the support of Arnold & Blackhroder, will establish an offshore investment fund and entrust the management of this fund to Soros. He realized that she was much better at investing than working in senior management. Subsequently, Soros invested both his personal money and the money of many of his clients through offshore companies. Offshore funds allowed tax evasion.

In the early seventies, many Wall Street wolves weren't doing very well. At the same time, George Soros was an exception to the rule and his investments rose in price at times by tens of percent per year. George Soros bought shares of companies from Europe and Asia and tried to acquire real business pearls for a penny. Soros also became famous for the collapse of the British pound sterling. It is not clear here what was the cause and what was the effect. In any case, we know for sure that Soros sold British pounds on the eve of the collapse of this currency. Together with the talented financier, his investors also grew rapidly richer. By 1980, the Soros Fund for 12 years in a row, without exception, never closed a year with losses, and in 1980, his fund showed a growth rate of 102% per annum. But later there were also bad years. In the 80s, Soros began to engage in speculation more actively, influencing the dynamics of markets, as well as the exchange rates of entire countries, since the size of the funds managed has already become significant. Soros made a lot of money from these fluctuations in stock prices and currencies.

Soros' talent is hard to deny. For example, in the press there was a publication 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's secret of success

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

Another important quality of George Soros is the ability to quickly make tough decisions. Proactive risk management in a dynamically changing environment requires decisiveness and does not tolerate much thought. At the same time, the work is going on with huge sums. According to many financiers, in order to work with such a huge amount of money, you need to have iron eggs.

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

Those who worked at Soros say that he has a very developed intuition. I think that this intuition has evolved from experience in the market over the 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 one of the reasons for the success of the talented investor was his social circle - the leaders of states, who could provide valuable information for investment in communication.

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

George Soros and charity

Soros is known as a person who is actively involved in charity work. And the first charitable foundation back in 1979. For a long time, Soros was also involved in charity work, including in Russia. Some people believe that charity work in Russia is a cover for some kind of espionage business or that the opposition was previously funded in this way. There are similar opinions regarding Soros foundations and on the part of residents of other countries.

Is George Soros an enemy of Russia?

Soros is also accused that under the guise of charitable activities in Russia, scientific developments created during the USSR were exported, helped 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 Russia. Perhaps the reason is that his father was in captivity in Russia for several years, or maybe he really believes in an "open society".

In the end, Soros is a talented financier and investor, but his activities in relation to Russia raise big questions.


George Soros (Soros) real name (Gyordy Shoorosh) 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 repression, thanks to fake documents prepared by his father, the Soros family escaped Nazi persecution and in 1947 successfully emigrated to Great Britain. At this time, Soros was already 17 years old. Here Soros entered the London School of Economics and successfully graduated three years later. He was lectured by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, who later became his mentor.

The goal of George's life 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 at a haberdashery factory. The position was called assistant manager, but in fact he worked as a salesman. George then turned into a traveling salesman, driving around in a cheap Ford and offering merchandise to various dealers in seaside resorts Wales. Simultaneously with the work of a traveling salesman, Soros tried to get a job in all the commercial banks in London. But everywhere he was refused due to his nationality and the absence of a protégé. Only in 1953 did he get a job with Singer & Friedlander, a Hungarian compatriot. Work and at the same time internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the exchange. Its leader traded in shares of gold mining companies. But boring work did not inspire George Soros, and after three years 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 kind 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 the additional levy on foreign investment, this type of activity was generating good returns. After that, Soros's business was destroyed overnight.

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

From the capital of the company in 100 thousand dollars, Soros created investment fund with a capital of $ 4 million. Having received significant profits for three years of work, in 1969 Soros became the head and co-owner of a fund called Double Eagle, which later grew into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative transactions in securities that brought him millions of dollars in profits. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was US $ 10 billion. Today, every dollar invested in this fund has turned into 5.5 thousand US dollars. The significant day is September 15, 1992, when, thanks to the operations undertaken by Soros, connected with the sharp fall of the British pound, his fortune increased by another 1 billion dollars. After that 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 of these countries, which were thrown back in their development 10-15 years ago. The next target of his influence was China, but local experts managed to prevent the attack.

Losses

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

In 2005, Soros sold to the Italian banking group Intesa his stake in KMB Bank (Bank for Small Business Lending), which has more than 50 branches in all large cities Russia and serves over 35 thousand clients. In 1999, Soros's investment fund (not to be confused with a charitable one) acquired 47 percent of the bank's shares, which was then called the Russian Bank for Project Finance. 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 had approximately 37 percent of the bank's shares each, and another 26 percent were in the hands of German and Dutch investors.

All shareholders, except the EBRD, have fully sold their stakes in KMB. total amount the deal is valued at $ 90 million. This transaction is notable for the fact that, according to the Kommersant newspaper, the stake in this bank was Soros's last financial asset in Russia. Deciding to retire, he came to grips with funding programs for science and art.

Strategy: How George Soros Got Rich

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

George Soros made his fortune by playing downturn (bearish tactics), during which he used his "theory of the reflexivity 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, it can be an object of informational influence. An attack on the currency of any country consists of successive information strikes through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators who are shaking the financial market.

There are two main points of view regarding Soros's financial success. According to the first point of view, Soros owes his luck to gift of financial foresight... Another says that in making important decisions, George Soros uses inside information provided by high-ranking officials from political, financial and intelligence circles largest countries of the 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 stay in the background and are based mainly in the UK, Switzerland and the United States.

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 Paris court even found George Soros guilty of obtaining confidential information in order to extract 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 shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

Charity

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

The Open Society Fund was the beginning of Soros's charitable career. Now in more than 25 countries he has created charitable foundations. Back in 1988, in the USSR, Soros organized the Cultural Initiative Foundation in support of science, culture, and education. But the Cultural Initiative Foundation was closed, as 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 all over again in Russia, and a new Open Society Foundation was organized. 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 operation of centers of open access to the global information computer network Internet in 32 universities of Russia. This project was funded together with the Russian government. Soros's contribution amounted to $ 100 million, and the contribution The Russian government 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 a network of charitable foundations and other institutions reached $ 300 million, in 1995 and 1996 - $ 350 million each.

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

George Soros (Gyorgy Shoorosh)(eng. George soros, Hung. Soros György, bore the surname until 1936 Schwartz; R. ) is an American financier, investor and philanthropist. Supporter of open society theory and opponent of "market fundamentalism". Follower of Karl Popper's ideas. His activities are controversial in 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 Esperanto writer.
  • city ​​- the family changed their last name to the Hungarian version of Shorosh ( Soros).
  • - fleeing repression, the Soros family emigrated to the UK thanks to fake 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 was Soros. In England, George Soros found work in a haberdashery factory, and then turned into a salesman, but did not abandon his search for work in a bank.
  • - got a job at Singer & Friedlander. Work and at the same time internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the exchange.
  • - 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 arbitration, 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).
  • - Kennedy introduced an additional levy on foreign investment, and Soros closed his business.
  • - Soros becomes the head and co-owner of the Double Eagle Foundation, which later grew into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative transactions in securities, which brought him millions of dollars in profit. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was US $ 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, connected with the sharp fall of the British pound (by 12%), he earned more than a billion dollars per day. After that day, Soros began to be called "The Man Who Broke the Bank of England." Soros began to call this environment "white".

After that, a "black streak" began in the life of Soros. In the year, together with Potanin, he created the offshore Mustcom, which paid $ 1.875 billion for 25% of Svyazinvest's shares, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price more than doubled. Soros in his hearts called this purchase "the worst investment of money in his entire life." After long attempts, in 2004 he sold shares of OJSC Svyazinvest for 625 million dollars to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who is also a shareholder of TNK-BP. At the end of 2006, Blavatnik sold a blocking stake for $ 1.3 billion to Comstar-UTS, a subsidiary of AFK Sistema.

Soros moves away from financial speculation and devotes himself to charity work.

Financial activities

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

George Soros made his fortune with bearish play, during which he used his "theory of stock market reflexivity." 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, it can be an object of informational influence. An attack on the currency of any country consists of successive information strikes through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators who are shaking the financial market.

There are two main points of view regarding Soros's financial success. According to the first point of view, Soros owes his luck 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 of 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 stay in the background and are based mainly in the UK, Switzerland and the United States.

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 Paris court even found George Soros guilty of obtaining confidential information in order to extract 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 shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

Charity

see also

Notes (edit)

Links

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

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George Soros (English George Soros, Hungarian Soros György), real surname- Schwartz. Born August 12, 1930 in Budapest. American financier, investor. Supporter of the theory of open society and opponent of "market fundamentalism" (in this direction he is close to the social ideas of Karl Popper). Creator of a network of charitable organizations known as the Soros Foundation. Member of the Executive Committee of the International Crisis Group.

His activities are controversial in different countries and different circles of society. Often referred to as a financial speculator, he is also a proponent of legalizing marijuana for medical use. Considered “the man who ruined the Bank of England”, the scientific term “soros” was coined on his behalf to denote large speculators who launch currency crises for “profit and pleasure” (Paul Krugman, 1996).

Born 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. In 1936, the family changed their surname to the Hungarian version of Soros. The elder brother is an 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 the 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 turned into a salesman, but did not leave looking for work in a bank. In 1953 he got a job at Singer & Friedlander. Work and at the same time internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the exchange.

By 1956, Soros began his career as a financier. 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. A career in the United States began with international arbitration, 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 formally separated from each other. In 1963, Kennedy introduced a surcharge on foreign investment, and Soros closed his business. By 1967, he was head of research at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, a renowned brokerage firm specializing in European stock markets.

In 1969 Soros became the head and co-owner of the Double Eagle Foundation, which later grew into the famous Quantum fund... Soros named the foundation after Karl Heisenberg, a German theoretical physicist, one of the founders of quantum mechanics, and his uncertainty principle. The fund carried out speculative transactions in securities with varying degrees of success.

It is believed that Soros earned more than a billion dollars in a day on the sharp drop in the British pound against the German mark on September 16, 1992. Soros began to call this day, known as "Black Wednesday" - "White Wednesday", and he himself is noted as "the man who broke the Bank of England", although his role in the fall of the pound is clearly exaggerated.

After that, a "black streak" began in the life of Soros. In 1997, together with Potanin, he created the offshore Mustcom, which paid $ 1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price more than halved. Soros in his hearts called this purchase "the worst investment of money in his entire life." After long attempts, in 2004 he sold shares of OJSC Svyazinvest for 625 million dollars to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who is also a shareholder of TNK-BP. At the end of 2006, Blavatnik sold a blocking stake for $ 1.3 billion to Comstar-UTS, a subsidiary of AFK Sistema.

Gradually Soros moves away from financial speculation and declares charitable activities, including in the field of education and scientific research... Comes out with statements about the necessity and usefulness of restrictions in the financial sector, including for reducing the investment opportunities of large financial structures.

On July 26, 2011, he made a statement about the closure of his investment fund and the return to third-party investors of their investments in the amount of about one billion dollars. The depositors were informed about this decision of the head of the fund by a special letter. As Soros said on the same day, starting from next year, he will only increase his personal capital and the funds of his family. The vice-chairmen of the board of the fund, the sons of Soros, Jonathan and Robert, explained that the decision to close the fund is due to changes in American legislation, which are being developed as part of the ongoing financial reform... We are talking about the new Dodd-Frank law, known by the name of its developers - Congressmen Chris Dodd and Barney Frank (English Barney Frank), which imposes a number of significant restrictions on hedge funds: until March 2012, all hedge funds operating in the country must be registered with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and hedge funds are obliged to disclose all information about their investors, assets, investment policies, and possible conflicts of interest.

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

Became famous after the "Black Wednesday" September 16, 1992 - the day of a significant drop in the value of the pound sterling relative to the German mark. It is believed that in one day his profits amounted to more than a billion dollars. It is known that the day before Soros talked with Helmut Schlesinger, President of the Bundesbank, and found out the intentions of Germany, which allowed him to act more confidently.

The main speculations in the world financial markets were carried out through the hedge fund Quantum Fund NV, registered on the Caribbean island of Curacao belonging to the Netherlands due to offshore conditions. It is the largest fund within the Soros-controlled Quantum Group of Funds.

There are two main points of view regarding Soros's financial success. According to the first point of view, Soros owes his luck to the gift of financial foresight. Another says that in making important decisions, Soros uses inside information provided by high-ranking officials from the political and financial circles of the largest countries of the world.

Soros himself tried to explain the tremendous success by applying his theory of the reflexivity of stock markets, according to which decisions about buying and selling securities are made on the basis of price expectations in the future, and since expectations are a psychological category, it can be an object of informational influence. An attack on the currency of any country consists of successive information strikes through the media and analytical publications, combined with the real actions of currency speculators who are shaking the financial market.

In 2002, a Paris court found George Soros guilty of obtaining confidential information in order to extract profit and sentenced to a fine of 2.2 million euros. According to the court, thanks to this information, the millionaire earned about $ 2 million on shares of the French bank Societe Generale. Subsequently, the fine was reduced to 0.9 million euros. Soros appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but in 2011 he did not see in the conviction of violations, by four votes to three.

In the political field, he proved himself as a sponsor and an influential lobbyist. He played important role in the fall communist regimes v Eastern Europe during the 1989 velvet revolutions. He also played a prominent role in the preparation and implementation of the 2003 Georgian Rose Revolution, although Soros himself claimed that his role was grossly exaggerated by the press.

Mikhail Kasyanov recalled how, when Russia received IMF support in difficult situation 1998, August 13 “George Soros issued a statement that Russia needs devaluation and that the IMF underestimates the seriousness of the problem. The market opened and immediately "died". The next day, Friday, the President vowed that there would be no devaluation ... ”.

In the United States, he was very active during the 2004 presidential campaign, because he considered Bush's policies dangerous for the United States and the world. He spent $ 27 million promoting changes in American politics. Since 2005, has helped create and finance the Democracy Alliance, an organization that brings together and guides American progressives within democratic party... Soros will support Hillary Clinton's candidacy for the 2016 US presidential election.

Considered one of the main sponsors of reform campaigns in legislative regulation drug trafficking, including movements to legalize marijuana and decriminalize drug use. In his opinion, the legalization of marijuana will simultaneously increase budget revenues and reduce the number of crimes that accompany drug trafficking.

From 1994 to 2014, Soros donated about US $ 200 million to support reforms in this sector. The largest recipient of his donations is the Drug Policy Alliance. In 2007, he channeled $ 400,000 to support the passage of the Massachusetts Senate and House of Representatives Act on the liberalization and mitigation of punishments for the possession and consumption of marijuana), in 2008 this law was passed. In 2010, Soros donated $ 1 million to a similar initiative in California, but the referendum ended in its rejection.

In early January 2015, Soros made an appeal to provide Ukraine with urgent financial assistance in the amount of 20 billion euros to support the “belligerent side”. German Economic News quoted Soros as saying that "Russia's attack on Ukraine is a direct attack on the EU and its principles."