George Soros is a billionaire, Hungarian-born American investor and businessman known for his savvy investments, making him one of the most successful investors of all time. Let’s see what we can learn about him.
biography
Soros was born György Schwartz to Jewish parents.Erzsebet and Tivadar Schwartz on August 12, 1930 in Budapest, Hungary. His father was a lawyer and former prisoner of war in Russia, while his mother came from a family involved with silk. His family was an oblivious Jew who, while not practicing, needed protection from the growing anti-Semitic persecution in Hungary. This led to his father changing the family name from Schwartz to Soros as he himself began to go by Teodoro and his wife Elizabeth.
Witnessing the Nazi invasion of 1944, Soros emigrated to England where he enrolled at the London School of Economics and became a student of the philosopher Karl Popper. In 1951 he graduated with a degree in philosophy and in 1954 he received a Master of Science in the same discipline from the same school.
After school, George Soros did a few odd jobs. He worked as a waiter and railroad porter before taking an entry-level job at merchant bank Singer & Friedlander. After a few years on the job, he moved to New York to work on Wall Street as an arbitrage trader at FM Mayer.
Soros’ focus on European stocks is growing in popularity with US investors. His next job was as a European Securities Analyst at Wertheim & Co., where he worked for four years before becoming Vice President of investment bank Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder.
George Soros Net Worth
George Soros is one of the world’s most successful investors with an estimated net worth of $8 billion. A year or two ago his current net worth was three times what it is now. The figure was slashed after Soros decided to give $18 billion to charity.
The legendary hedge fund manager has an estimated $27 billion under management through family-owned Soros Fund Management LLC as of December 2017.
Everything you need to know about George Soros
marriages and children
George Soros is currently in his third marriage. His first marriage was to a German immigrant, Annaliese Witschak, from 1960 to 1983. His second marriage was to American historian Susan Webber, who is 25 years his junior, from 1983 to 2005. In 2013, he swapped vows for the third time with Tamiko Bolton, who is 42 years his junior.
He has five children in total; three with his first wife and two with his second wife. His first is Robert Daniel Soros, the founder of the Central European University. He was born in 1963. This was followed by Andrea Soros, born in 1965, and Jonathan Tivadar Soros, born in 1970 and currently a hedge fund manager. The last two are Alexander Soros and Gregory James Soros who were born in 1985 and 1988 respectively.
Qualifications and Philanthropy
Soros holds four doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research (New York), Oxford University, Corvinus University Budapest and Yale University. He has also authored or co-authored more than 10 books.
George Soros founded the philanthropic agency, Open Society Foundations (OSF), which provides financial support to civil society groups in more than 37 countries around the world. OSF received its founder’s $18 billion, which it uses to support causes in education and youth, justice, public health and the media.
Savvy deal
The legendary investor is dubbed “The Man WhoBrach the Bank of England” for the foresight he took in betting against the pound sterling due to the UK’s unfavorable position in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. His fund sold over $10 billion worth of pounds, giving him over $1 billion in profit on the day dubbed the “Black Wednesday of 1992”.
Soros has spoken out against somewhat lenient regulations on tech/internet companies like Google and Facebook. Soros said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2018 that stricter regulations for such large companies will keep competition and innovation in business.