George Soros - biography, information, personal life. Billionaire George Soros: how he achieved success and became richer than some countries Soros biography

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George Soros (Schwartz) is a famous American trader, investor, financier and philanthropist. Creator of the Soros Foundation network of charitable organizations. As of 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 personality: for some he is a financial guru, founder of charitable foundations in 25 countries, an influential investor and a loving father of five children, for others he is “great and terrible.” He is called a master of market speculation, a stock speculator, a “crash” English bank

. He is a supporter of the legalization of marijuana, etc.

Principles of George Soros

George Soros was born in 1930 in Budapest, into a Jewish family with average income. His father, Tivadar Shvarts, was a lawyer and one of the leading figures in the Jewish community. In 1936, for security reasons, he forged documents: he changed his last name to Hungarian - Shoros. This is how Gyorgy Shoros appeared - the future George Soros. They say, “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” These words can also be applied to George Soros. Life gave him good lessons , thanks to which he became what we see him now. One of them: “The lesson that I learned during the war is that sometimes you can even lose own life

, if you don’t take risks.”

• Thanks to the difficulties that befell his family, he developed the following life principles:
• “My principle is to strive to survive first and make money second.”

“I did not accept the rules proposed by others. If I did this, I would no longer live.”

In London

In 1947 the family moved to. Subsequently, Soros would write: “I was lucky that my father was one of those who did not act as people usually do.” In the UK, Soros goes to study at the London School of Economics and political sciences

At the London School, John Soros met the Austrian lecturer Karl Popper, a sociologist and philosopher, whose idea of ​​an open society influenced Soros’s entire subsequent 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 completed school. It would seem that after graduating from such a prestigious educational institution, a direct path to big business was open to him. But he first works at a haberdashery factory as an assistant manager, then travels to English seaside resorts as a traveling salesman. In 1953, he got a job in the arbitration department of London companies, but he quickly became bored with routine work.

At one time he had to work as a porter at the station, as a waiter, and even as an apple picker, so it cannot be said that he shunned 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 to the financial sector, but when trying to get a job at a bank, he is rejected everywhere. And one of the main reasons is his nationality.

Start of financial activity

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 this time his financial activities begin. In a brokerage office, he learns the secrets of buying and selling securities. On the so-called external arbitrage - buying shares in one country and selling them in another - he manages to make good money. In addition, George is entrepreneurial and comes up with his own way of trading securities, which he calls internal arbitrage: he sells combined securities separately even before they can be officially separated from each other.

And here he follows another of his life principles: “I do not play within the framework of a given set of rules, I strive to change the rules of the game.”

However, changes in legislation, in particular the fees introduced by the government, made this business unprofitable, and Soros went into writing his dissertation and philosophical treatise “The Heavy Burden of Consciousness” for three years, from 1963 to 1966. Over time, he realizes that business attracts him more than philosophy.

Creation of the Quantum Fund

Since 1966, the investment activity of George Soros began. The capital of the company he founded initially amounts to 100 thousand dollars. Over the course of three years of work, he makes a significant profit and becomes a co-owner and director of the Double Eagle fund, which later grew into (named after the creator of quantum mechanics).

Quantum is a hedge fund, a private investment fund not available to the general public, managed by a professional investment manager. Due to the lack of clear regulatory regulation, hedge funds are free to use various financial instruments and choose strategies when investing money in any market. 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.

Nevertheless, Quantum provided its investors with an annual return of over 30% on shares, and in total they received $32 billion - this is the largest profit in the entire history of hedge funds. And Quantum’s capital by 1990 was already $10 billion.

"White Wednesday"

However, Soros became famous throughout the world not for this, but because in one day he earned $1 billion by playing on the decline of the English pound against the German mark. The day of September 16, 1992, which became “black Wednesday” for English banks, became for Soros, in his words, “white Wednesday.” He himself acquired the reputation of 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 position occupied by different regions and countries in these regions, makes a conclusion about which asset classes will go down and which will go up.

For several years, Soros bought British currency in small quantities. In addition, he approached the largest American investment banks with his idea for financial support. Having the appropriate capital, Soros began to play to reduce the English pound - to short. Selling 5 billion British pounds at once made it possible to reduce the exchange rate of the pound to a critical minimum, and repurchasing the pounds that had fallen in price made it possible to make a profit of 1 billion.

Failures

Of course, playing on the stock exchange is associated with risks and failures. They didn’t bypass Soros either. He called the purchase of a controlling stake in the Russian telecommunications company Svyazinvest in 1997 his worst investment and the main mistake in his life, on which he lost almost $2 billion: due to the crisis that happened in 1998, the share price fell by more than half , and he was able to sell them only after numerous attempts in 2004 for $625 million.

Later 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 that have their 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 the 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 approximately $300 million a year on non-profit projects. And in 2010, he gave $332 million to his open society charity, earning him the title of America's most generous billionaire.

Strategy for making a profit from Soros

It is known that Soros managed to earn significant profits using the so-called “bearish” tactics (playing short).

He adhered to the theory of 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, the media, and 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 was provided to him by 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, thanks to which he earned $2 million from 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 books as “Alchemy of Finance”, “Soros about Soros. Staying Ahead of Change,” “A New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The 2008 Credit Crisis and Its Implications.” In addition, George Soros is an honorary doctorate from New York's New School for Social Research, Oxford and Yale Universities.

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

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

George Soros (Soros) real name (György 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 offering merchandise to various merchants at sea ​​resorts 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 Boring job 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 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). 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, since 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, 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. Deciding to retire, he became closely involved in programs for financing science and art.

Strategy: how George Soros got rich

George Soros's 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 in the Netherlands. Caribbean island 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 real actions currency speculators shaking 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 George Soros uses insider information provided by senior political, financial and intelligence officials largest countries peace[source?]. Moreover, it is assumed that Soros is a hired manager carrying out financial projects groups of powerful international financiers who prefer to keep a low profile and are based primarily 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 Mark 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 for 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), "Sustaining 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, the decision was made to start over in Russia, and a new Open Society Foundation was established. 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 open access centers to the global information computer network Internet at 32 Russian universities. This project was financed jointly with the Russian government. Soros' contribution amounted to $100 million, and Russian government 30 million. This is believed to be the only commitment that the government has fulfilled in 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 of charitable foundations and other institutions reached $300 million, in 1995 and 1996 - $350 million each.

If you are an experienced and active investor or just starting out in this role, then you simply need to know who George Soros is. Since this person is an Investor with capital letters. Studying it life experience, you will gain a lot of new and very useful information for your investment activities.

Every sphere of human life has its own legendary personalities. These are individuals who became famous for their great achievements, discoveries and other actions that changed the world. If you are interested in the history of the world of finance, you will definitely come across the name of George Soros. This is a controversial figure who has become a subject of imitation, in some cases of censure, but much more often of admiration. Who is George Soros and what is the alchemy of his finances, you can find out in this article.

Today D. Soros is the most famous billionaire, investor and philanthropist. This is how his personality is characterized today. But not everyone knows how this figure appeared on the pages of world history.

As Wikipedia says, he is considered an adherent of the theory of an open society and, at the same time, an opponent of the theory of “market fundamentalism.” Soros is known not only as a financial genius who has earned billions, not only as an investor, but also as a creator charitable organization"Soros Foundation". Also, D. Soros occupies an honorable place on the executive committee of the International CrisisGroup agency.

George's activities most often cause ambiguity in assessments. He is often condemned for his impudence in stock market speculation and is remembered as the man who ruined the Bank of England. Using his name, such a financial term as “Soros” was even formed. That is, stock speculators who move very large sums of funds and “move” the markets in the direction they need. Also, the name of Soros appeared several times in companies aimed at legalizing marijuana in America for medical purposes and other non-standard social programs.

Biography of George Soros and the first steps of formation

The biography of such a person as George Soros is the story of a man who created himself. The path of his formation passed through many obstacles and difficulties. Now he occupies the top of the rankings of the richest people in the world, and in his youth he made money by picking apples in the suburbs of London. His career growth has become an example to follow for tens of thousands of aspiring financiers and traders in every corner of the planet. And, probably, there is no trader who has not at least once in his life met the name surrounded by myths - George Soros. Of course, George appears in the media every now and then, like financial expert and acts as an investor or philanthropist in various charitable projects.

Childhood

D. Soros was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1930. George's father earned money from publishing and worked part-time as a lawyer. At the very beginning of World War II, using forged documents independently prepared by George's father, the Soros family, fleeing German repression, left Budapest and moved to the UK. There they were able to settle on the outskirts of the capital, London. WITH at this moment biography of george began new chapter, where the cruel reality of that time period forced him to grow up quickly.

Soros acquired his primary education in a regular high school, where he studied until he was 17 years old. At that time, George began to become interested in finance and after graduating from school he became a student at the School of Economics in London, where he studied for 3 years. Things weren't going well for his family. Therefore, already at that time, Soros was forced to look for ways to earn money and, without sufficient education, took on any low-paid and not prestigious part-time job, ranging from an apple picker to a dishwasher and a waiter in London pubs.

Youth

After graduating from economics college, George began searching of this work in his specialty, but all that the young specialist was lucky enough to find was a position as an assistant manager at a small haberdashery factory, having received job responsibilities supplying customers with factory products in an old Ford that was dying out.

Of course, this was not the subject of Soros’ dreams, therefore, while working at the factory, George continued to look for work, along with delivering products, visiting banks and investment companies in London. But, as expected, his attempts always ended in nothing.

Only in 1953 was D. Soros able to get a job in the arbitration department of the Singer and Friedlander company, which was located near the London Mercantile Exchange. For three whole years, the growing investor and future billionaire George Soros tried, by some miracle, to break through the gray mass of his colleagues and stand out in the eyes of his management. But the company’s board, entrenched in its conservative views, did not want to listen to Soros’ innovative ideas. Therefore, being annoyed, the young stockbroker accepted the offer of his old friend’s father and moved to America, deciding to try his luck on Wall Street.

Soros received a new position from a small broker, where the young alchemist of finance began to comprehend the art of international arbitration, or more precisely, to resell the securities he bought to the end buyers of the stock market. George's work results and his authority began to rise quickly. But climbing career ladder interrupted by the Suet crisis, which broke the tactics of arbitrage operations with securities used by his company.

Maturity

But it was precisely this fact that changed Soros’s life in better side. By inventing a new strategy, George demonstrated to his management his potential and innovative way of thinking. “Internal arbitrage,” which Soros came up with, allowed the company in which he worked not only to stay afloat, but also to quickly become a leader on Wall Street.

After some time, John Kennedy imposed additional taxes on foreign investment, making George's tactics low-profit. However, having gained experience, skills and earned a certain authority in stock exchange circles, George decided to leave the company where he worked and began writing a dissertation that had remained unfinished since the days of the London School of Economics.

Most likely, this was a stage in life when George, who had matured in his worldviews, tried to comprehend the experience he had received and find the most optimal way for your further climb up the career ladder.

From theory to practice

Soros returned to the stock exchange world in 1966. And George’s new company was the Double Egle exchange-traded fund, to which Soros came with his savings and $100 thousand borrowed from his comrades. It's time to show your theoretical developments in practice! Few people associate the period of Soros’ success with this period of biography, although it is from this point that George’s biography begins to become the most interesting. Having taken the place of executive director of the fund, George Soros began to actively implement his financial philosophy.

A new stage in George S.'s growth was the creation in 1970 of his own exchange-traded fund, Quantum. It was this hedge fund that became a springboard for George to universal recognition. Over the ten years of its operation, the fund was able to earn a huge fortune, annually bringing its creator more than 3000% of profits. This dynamic could not have gone unnoticed by America's elite financial circles, which now welcomed him with open arms.

Then, for a couple of decades, this investor continued to engage in stock speculation, creating hedge funds in specialized financial markets. And the luck that accompanied him allowed him to increase his capital by two or three times, which had already grown to global proportions.

Like any other figure in the world of finance, not all of George Soros's moves brought only profit. It is human nature to make mistakes, which is why D. Soros’ financial alchemy sometimes failed. In 1997, he made a mistake and connected one of the areas of his business with a company from Russia - Svyazinvest, which soon went bankrupt. As a result, George Soros lost a fairly decent part of his capital (exactly how much history is silent). This situation is exactly the fly in the ointment, which shows that in real life any success is associated with a certain share of defeats, and in the financial market, making a profit without losing trades is impossible!

Patronage and charity

However, D. Soros achieved fame not only in connection with the success of his hedge operations. Soros is also known as a philanthropist whose generosity knows no bounds. Its investment in scientific fields and culture are regular and large-scale. He is a frequent guest at various scientific and cultural events and conferences, and donates money to orphanages and schools. Several educational programs operate under its auspices.

During the endless process of making a profit, Soros did not lose his human face and, unlike the overwhelming number of personalities from Forbes rating, in many ways remained an ordinary person who is not alien to compassion and pity.

Books by D. Soros

It is impossible not to mention the book “Alchemy of Finance”, in which George Soros outlined the entire algorithm for his success. Download this book for free you can in the library of our portal!

The Alchemy of Finance will take you into the world of this world-famous investor and philanthropist, make you think as he does, and allow you to learn from the experiences that make him what he is today - one of the most popular figures. world of big money. His career is truly alchemy!

The child of D. Soros’ scientific activity is his treatise “reflexivity of markets”, which has been interpreted into reality by more than one generation of successful traders. According to Soros, all decisions in the financial market are the result of internal beliefs that relate to the future dynamics of price movements. And based on the fact that almost all human beliefs, this is more often psychological aspect This means that people can be purposefully influenced through the media, rumors and verbal interventions. In simple words, the market is a completely controllable mechanism, and in order to change the course of its movement, and even more so to influence the work of the company, even a rumor is enough. And, accordingly, according to Soros, all this can be converted into money.

Problems with law

Hence Soros' problems with the law. Soros has used theoretical developments in crowd control many times in reality. And several times he was officially accused of using insider information. His connections are extensive. Having become a friend, comrade, idol and favorite of many high-ranking officials, it was not difficult for George to be one of the first to learn insider information, which he immediately turned into money. On the other hand, you must admit that anyone in his place would have acted exactly as he did. Having received “closed” data that can be used in their own interests on the stock exchange, any investor or trader will rush to use it in their own interests. This is a business where almost any method is used to achieve goals. The world of money has never been “clean”...

In 2002, a trial was launched against D. Soros and other well-known stock exchange figures in Paris, and as a result, George was fined € 2.25 million for insider fraud with the securities of the French bank Societe Generale.

Also, this famous investor was involved in several other high-profile frauds on the securities market, but the regulatory authorities and courts failed to prove his guilt.

Black Wednesday

But these are not the most basic scandalous situations in which George Soros was a participant. Once, this world-famous schemer brought down the British pound, so much so that this day in the history of financial markets was called “Black Wednesday”.

On September 16, 1992, George opened a deal to sell the British currency in the amount of $10 billion, causing a significant collapse in the value of the British currency. Soros came to the aid of the theory of “reflexive markets” he invented, which in practice caused a wave of massive sales of the pound sterling by other trading participants. The UK currency fell by 1,000 p/p in a matter of hours. For 1992, a currency drop of 1000 points was something out of science fiction. The Bank of England even had to urgently intervene in the situation through large-scale foreign exchange interventions, and remove the pound sterling itself from the list of exchange currencies, since its collapse could drag down the currency of the European Union.

Then Soros, in just a few hours, was able to earn about $1 billion and his place in the world history of finance.

Yes, on the one hand, this act is subject to censure, since, in pursuing his personal financial interests, investor George neglected the fact that his actions would cause financial harm to others, in particular the Bank of England and Great Britain itself. On the other hand, we all know one simple rule - in the financial market, the profits of some participants are the losses of others. This is how the world of finance is built. This means that George Soros’s actions do not go beyond established standards and differ from other speculations only in their scale.

That is why the story described above is largely perceived as a fact in history, when one person did the almost impossible. However, “doing the impossible” can be attributed to the entire biography of George Soros, who grew from an apple picker to 23rd place in the world rankings richest people popular publication Forbes.

Conclusion

Of course, besides George Soros, in the world of finance you can find not a single dozen famous people who were able to reach even greater heights of popularity and fame than him. But Soros is definitely one of those who stands out from the crowd of billionaires. This was helped by his image of a “financial hooligan” and “Robin Hood”, who was in a hurry to share everything he earned with other, more needy people.

George Soros is an American financier, trader and investor, also famous for his philanthropic activities. Life path Soros raises a lot of doubts and is regarded ambiguously: some talk about him as a noble creator of a network of charitable institutions, others call him a speculator who is also to blame for currency crises.

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

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

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

Soros was less than 10 years old when the brutal and merciless Second World War began. The million-strong community of Jews in Hungary began to live in fear that they would suffer the same fate as their exterminated compatriots from other countries. European countries. The lifestyle of the Soros family has become a constant desire to hide. For weeks they huddled in basements, or, at best, in the basements and attics of the houses of friends who agreed to host them for a few days.

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

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

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

Business

George began his career in New York by purchasing securities in one state and selling them in another (this is called international arbitrage). When the United States introduced an additional tax on foreign investments in 1963, the financier considered the business not profitable enough and closed it.

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

The Quantum fund specialized in speculation in currencies, securities, and commodities. By the end of the 1980s, George Soros's fortune had already exceeded one hundred million dollars. Over a long period of time, the Soros and Rogers fund was successful, but it also had unsuccessful periods. For example, during “Black Monday” in 1987, when one of the largest stock market crashes in the history of mankind occurred, George ordered the closing of existing positions and withdrawal into cash. Before this decision, the fund’s annual profit level reached 60%, but after this, Quantum not only lost profitability, but also went negative: in annual terms, the loss rate was 10%.

Soon, Soros decided to involve the award-winning asset manager Stanley Druckenmiller in the work of the fund, with the help of whom the financier managed to further increase his wealth. Stanley worked at Quantum until 2000.

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

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

As a financier ages, he becomes less and less interested in investing and trading on the stock exchange and spends more time on charity. In 2011, he announced that his investment fund would cease operations. Since then, Soros has been engaged financial transactions only to increase your own capital and increase the well-being of your own family.

Fund

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

At the end of the twentieth century, the Soros Foundation spent about one hundred million dollars on Russian project“University Internet Centers”, thanks to which high-tech Internet centers appeared in 33 universities. For many years, the Open Society Institute provided grants to members of the cultural and scientific community, but these payments ceased in 2004.

In 2015, the Soros Foundation was included in the list of undesirable non-profit organizations for the Russian Federation, which is why its work in the country is now impossible. However, a number of charitable and non-profit foundations created in Russia with the support of this organization still operate to this day.

State

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

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

Personal life

George Soros's first wife is Annalize Witshak, with whom the financier lived for 23 years. His second wife is Susan Weber, whom he married in the same 1983. She was a quarter of a century younger than her new husband and was an art critic in New York. This family existed for 22 years.

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

On modern photos George Soros can be seen that this man, despite his advanced age, is still ready to lead an active life. A clear proof of this is the history of his new marriage: In 2013, George tied the knot with 42-year-old dietary supplement saleswoman and yoga specialist Tamiko Bolton. The wedding took place at the Karamoor Music and Arts Center and was attended by 500 people.

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

George Soros now

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

His name once made finance ministers and presidents tremble different countries. The billionaire, who made his fortune through currency speculation, at one time brought down the monetary systems of entire states. And now George Soros is a harmless old man with teary eyes and hearing aid...

Father's secret

They say that the future financial genius earned his first money as a child. At school, for a reasonable fee, he sold homemade newspapers, which he wrote and drew himself.

Gyorgy Soros, who later became George Soros, was born in 1930 into a family of intelligent and wealthy Hungarian Jews in Budapest. His mother brought her husband a good dowry and instilled in her two sons a love of art.

And from his dad, George, according to him, inherited the ability to make money and take risks. " My father didn't work, he just made money."- Soros once said in an interview. Tivador Shorosh was a prosecutor by profession, but he was never passionate about his service. At the same time, he loved to live in grand style.

Many people called Soros’s father a sneak, but his son sincerely considered him a hero. The family loved to talk about how in the First world war George’s father fought and was captured by Russia, and then wandered around Russia for three whole years, reaching his native Hungary.

During World War II, Tivador's "cunning" served the family well. In 1944, the prosecutor started producing fake passports, which he sold to rich Jews for a lot of money, and simply gave to the poor. These fakes during German occupation many were saved from death.

After the war, when a socialist regime had already been established in Hungary, George was just finishing school. The future financial tycoon did not want to live under the “Reds”, and with the support of his father, he emigrated to London.

At first, the free Western world met the emigrant boy with hostility. At first, he huddled in the apartment of his fellow countrymen and was hired to work either as a waiter or as a porter... And sometimes, when he was hungry, he envied the street cat that was gnawing on herring.

Only two years later George managed to become a student at the London School of Economics. He had difficulty finding money to pay for his studies, working at night as a porter at the station. And when he received his diploma, at first he sold handbags until he was hired as an intern at a bank.

George Soros always remembered the London period of his life as a nightmare. “Well, I’ve hit rock bottom,” he thought then. - From here you can only move upward."."He always looked a little unsettled", - a bank colleague said about George.

By the way, Soros never made it to London. While working at a bank, he began trading shares of gold mining companies, but saved only five thousand dollars in three years. With this money, in 1956, an ambitious young man set off to conquer America.

The mystery of money

The alchemy of big money was revealed to Soros only in the States. And even then not right away.

At first, the future billionaire was engaged in the purchase and resale of shares of European companies in an investment firm in New York. He was helped in this matter by his knowledge of several foreign languages ​​and good connections in Europe.

However, it took Soros years to climb to the top of the financial Olympus. Only in the late 60s did he register his first investment fund, First Eagle, in an offshore zone, investing the accumulated $250 thousand into it.

Another $6 million was contributed to the fund by Soros' clients - rich people from Europe. By the way, the first investors never regretted it. Ten years later, the value of the fund was already 12 million dollars, and in 1980 - 381 million.

Soros's fortune in 1980 reached $100 million. The financier never revealed the secret of his unprecedented success. " He buys stocks when his back hurts and sells them when the pain goes away.", Soros’ adult son once said jokingly.

Many people spoke about the financier’s extraordinary intuition. But this was also due to his enormous natural intelligence and ability to understand the cause-and-effect relationships of the world economy. And also determination and nerves of steel: Soros could dispassionately put a lot of money on the line.

They say that the great financier’s personal life was never in the foreground. He married for the first time at the age of 31, to a German woman, Anna-Louise, whom he met in a company of emigrants. They lived happily together for 17 years, giving birth to three children.

In 1983, George left his first family for a young American woman, Susan Weber, the daughter of a New York handbag and shoe manufacturer. He also lived happily married to her for twenty years, giving birth to two more children. In a word, nothing interesting!

Even after becoming fabulously rich, George Soros never fell in love with luxury. Unlike his fellow millionaires, he did not buy yachts or private jets, flew only in business class and dressed modestly. Even outwardly, he looked not like a millionaire, but like a modest university professor.

The main “high” of his life in those years, apparently, was the process of making money itself. On September 22, 1985, Soros, for example, became $40 million richer overnight. The day before, he bought millions of dollars worth of Japanese yen, which rose sharply in price the next day.

And on September 15, 1992, Soros again earned 1 billion pounds sterling overnight and became famous throughout the world as "The Man Who Broke the Bank of Great Britain." On that “Black Wednesday” the British pound sterling fell in price by half. And this was the work of Soros.

The secret of life

"Millionaires spend money, billionaires make history"- this phrase belongs to Soros himself. In the early 90s, the financier’s personal fortune exceeded two billion dollars, and, apparently, political ambitions came into play.

At this time, Soros began to actively engage in charity work around the world and interfere in state politics. Branches Charitable Foundation Soros were opened in 26 countries, millions of dollars were allocated for humanitarian aid countries of Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa.

There were various rumors about why Soros needed this. They said that in this way the billionaire was hiding from paying taxes. It was assumed that he had delusions of grandeur and a thirst for power. They accused him of buying public opinion in those countries where he was collapsing the national currency. That he is a spy, and this is his cover, finally....

According to unverified information, George Soros financed opposition parties in his native Hungary back in the 80s. Later, he allegedly directed enormous resources to finally finish off the communist regimes in Eastern Europe and the territory of the former Soviet Union.

There is an opinion that political ambitions played a cruel joke on George Soros. He supposedly did not earn big dividends from politics, but he lost his unique financial sense. And from the late 90s, a period of great bad luck began in the life of Soros.

In 1997, the financier made a billion-dollar purchase in Russia, which he later called the worst investment of his entire life. These were shares of the Russian company Svyazinvest, which Soros had to sell at half the price after the 1998 default.

And then came the unfortunate failures with shares of Internet companies, then - unsuccessful fraud with the euro. And every time - multimillion-dollar losses. “The time for making money has passed for me,” Soros said. Apparently not wanting to tempt fate any longer, in 2004 he handed over the billions of dollars of his business to his sons for management.

They say that in recent years George Soros has been living like a pensioner in a penthouse in Manhattan and willingly consulting with journalists on the global financial crisis. And the American grandfather now has a stormy personal life.

Soros divorced his second wife in 2004. And since then, the retired billionaire's friends have included the young American violinist Jennifer Chun, the widow of the King of Jordan - Noor, Miss Russia 1998 Anna Malova and the young Russian blonde Marina Celle.