Soros George: biography and success story. George Soros' New Bride George Soros Success Story

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

In any sphere of human life there are legendary personalities. These are individuals who have become famous for their great achievements, discoveries and other deeds that have changed the world. If you are interested in the history of the world of finance, be sure to come across the name of George Soros. This is a controversial figure who has become a subject for imitation, in some cases censure, but much more often - 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. So characterize his personality 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 the founder of the Soros Foundation charitable organization. Also, D. Soros takes an honorable place in the executive committee of the International CrisisGroup agency.

George's activities most often cause ambiguity in assessments. Often he is condemned for impudence in stock speculation and is remembered as the man who ruined the Bank of England. Using his name, even such a financial term as “soros” was formed. That is, exchange speculators who turn over very large amounts of funds and “move” the markets in the direction they need. Also, the name of Soros flashed 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 went 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 earned by picking apples in the suburbs of London. His career became a role model for tens of thousands of novice financiers in every corner of the planet. And, probably, there is no such trader who at least once in his life would not meet the name surrounded by myths - George Soros. Of course, because George now and then appears in the media as a financial expert and plays the role of an investor or patron in various charitable projects.

Childhood

D. Soros was born into a Jewish family in Budapest in 1930. George's father earned money as a publisher and worked as a barrister. At the very beginning of the Second World War, using fake documents made by George's father himself, the Soros family, fleeing German repression, left Budapest, moving to the UK. There they were able to settle in the suburbs of the capital - London. FROM this moment George's biography new chapter, where the cruel reality of that period of time made him grow up quickly.

Soros acquired his primary education in a regular high school, where he studied until the age of 17. At that time, George became 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 were not going well for his family. Therefore, already at that time, Soros was forced to look for ways to earn money and, not having sufficient education, took on any low-paid and not prestigious part-time job, from an apple picker to a dishwasher and a waiter in London pubs.

Youth

After graduation economic college, George set about looking for a real job in his specialty, but all that he was lucky enough to find young specialist- this is the position of an assistant manager at a small haberdashery factory, having received in his job duties the supply of customers with factory products on an old Ford that was living out its days.

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

Only in 1953, D. Soros was able to get a job in the arbitration operations department of the Singer and Friedlander company, which was located near the London Mercantile Exchange. For three whole years, the rising 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 leadership. But the company's board, established in its conservative views, did not want to listen to the innovative ideas of Soros. Therefore, being annoyed, the young stock trader accepted the offer of the father of an old friend and moved to America, deciding to try his luck on Wall Street.

Soros received a new position at a small broker, where the young alchemist of finance began to comprehend the art of international arbitration, more precisely, to resell the securities he bought up to the end buyers of the stock market. The results of George's work and his authority began to go up rapidly. But climbing career ladder interrupted the Suet Crisis, which broke his firm's arbitrage tactics with securities.

Maturity

But it was this fact that changed Soros's life for the better. By inventing a new strategy, George demonstrated to his management his potential and non-standard way thinking. The “internal arbitrage” that Soros came up with allowed the company he worked for not only to stay afloat, but also quickly break into the Wall Street leadership.

After some time, John F. Kennedy imposed additional fees on foreign investment, making George's tactics low-return. However, having gained experience, skills and earned a certain authority in stock exchange circles, George decided to leave the company in which he worked and set about writing a thesis, which had remained unfinished since the days of the London School of Economics.

Most likely, it was a stage in life when George, who had matured in his worldviews, tried to comprehend the experience he had gained and find the most optimal path for his further career climb.

From theory to practice

Soros returned to the exchange world in 1966. And George's new company was the Double Egle exchange fund, to which Soros came with his savings and 100 thousand dollars borrowed from his comrades. It's time to show your theoretical achievements in practice! With this period of biography, few people associate the period of Soros's success, although it was with this place George's biography and is starting to get most interesting. Having taken the place of the executive director of the fund, George Soros began to actively implement his philosophy of finance.

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

Further, 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 steps of George Soros brought only profit. It is human nature to err, and therefore the alchemy of finances of D. Soros sometimes failed. In 1997, he made a mistake and linked one of his lines of business with a Russian company, Svyazinvest, which soon went bankrupt. As a result, George Soros lost a pretty decent part of his capital (how much history is silent). This situation is precisely that fly in the ointment in a barrel of honey, 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, he achieved fame for D. Soros not only in connection with the success of his hedge operations. Soros is also known as a philanthropist, whose generosity knows no bounds. His investments in science and culture are regular and extensive. He is a frequent guest at various scientific and cultural events and conferences, donates money to orphanages and schools. Several educational programs operate under its auspices.

In the course of an endless process of making a profit, Soros did not lose his human face and, unlike the vast majority 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 of his success. 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 the way he does, and allow you to learn from the experience that has made him who he is today as one of the most popular figures. peace big money. His career is truly alchemy!

The child of the scientific activity of D. Soros is a treatise “Market reflexivity” written by him, 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 quotes. And based on the fact that almost all human beliefs are more often a psychological aspect, it means that people can be purposefully influenced through the media, rumors and verbal interventions. In simple terms, the market is a completely manageable 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 the problems of Soros with the law. Soros used the 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 data, which he immediately turned into money. On the other hand, you will agree 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 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, in relation to D. Soros and other well-known stock figures in Paris, a trial, and according to its results, George was fined € 2.25 million for insider fraud with the securities of the French bank Societe Generale.

Also, this well-known investor was involved in several more high-profile frauds in the securities market, but it was not possible to prove his guilt to the regulatory authorities and the courts.

Black Wednesday

But these are not the most basic scandalous situations in which George Soros was a participant. Once, this world-famous scammer 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 $10 billion sell deal on the British, causing a significant collapse in the value of the British currency. Soros came to the aid of the theory of "reflexive markets" invented by him, which in practice caused a wave of massive sales of the pound sterling by other bidders. The British currency collapsed by 1,000 p/p in a matter of hours. For 1992, the fall of the currency by 1000 points was something of a fantasy. The Bank of England even had to urgently intervene in the situation through large-scale foreign exchange interventions, and remove the pound sterling from the list of exchange currencies, since its collapse could drag the EU currency down.

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 a subject for censure, since, in pursuing his personal financial interests, investor George neglected the fact that his actions would cause financial damage to others, in particular the Bank of England and the UK itself. On the other hand, we all know one simple rule - in the financial market, the profit of some participants is the loss of others. This is how the world of finance is built. This means that the actions of George Soros do not go beyond the established standards and differ from other speculations only in their scale.

That is why the story described above is more 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 ranking. the richest people popular edition of Forbes.

Conclusion

Of course, in addition to George Soros, in the world of finance you can meet 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 (Schwartz) is a famous American trader, investor, financier and philanthropist. Founder of the network of charitable organizations "Soros Foundation". As of 2016, Soros' fortune was $24.9 billion. Many consider him a speculator and a man who ruined the Bank of England.

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

Principles of George Soros

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

They say, "What doesn't kill us makes us stronger." These words can be attributed to George Soros. Life gave him good lessons, thanks to which he became the way 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 the family, he formed the main life principles:

• “My principle is to strive first to survive, and only then to earn.”
• “I did not accept the rules proposed by others. If I did that, I wouldn't be alive."

In London

In 1947, the family moved to. Soros would later 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 Science, whose motto is "Know the reason for 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 Soros's entire life. The essence of this idea is that people in an open society, when making decisions, should rely on their own intelligence and critical thinking, 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 open to him a direct path to big business. But he works first at a haberdashery factory as an assistant manager, then as a traveling salesman travels to English seaside resorts. In 1953, he got a job in the arbitration department of London companies, but he quickly got bored with routine work.

Once he had to earn extra money as a porter at the station, and as a waiter, and even as 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 ambitions will be satisfied with the position of a traveling salesman. He is attracted to the financial sector, but when he tries to get a job in 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 it begins financial activities. In a brokerage house, 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 enterprising 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 seek 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 left for three years, from 1963 to 1966, to write a dissertation and a philosophical treatise, The Heavy Burden of Consciousness. Over time, he realizes that business attracts him more than philosophy.

Creation 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 fund, which later grew into (received such a name in honor of the creator of quantum mechanics).

Quantum is a hedge fund, that is, a non-public private investment fund managed by a professional investment manager. Due to the lack of a clear regulatory framework, 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 go through not only ups, but also downs.

Nevertheless, Quantum provided its investors with more than 30% of annual returns on shares, and in total they received $ 32 billion - this is the largest profit in the history of hedge funds. By 1990, Quantum's capital was already $10 billion.

"White Wednesday"

However, Soros became famous in the world not at all for this, but because in one day he earned $ 1 billion by playing on the fall of the British pound against the German mark. The day of September 16, 1992, which became "black Wednesday" for British banks, became for Soros, in his words, "white Wednesday". 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 position occupied by different regions and countries of these regions, makes a conclusion about which asset classes will go down and which ones will go up.

For several years, Soros bought the British currency in small batches. In addition, he turned with his idea for financial support to the largest American investment banks. Having the appropriate capital, Soros began to play for the fall of the British pound - to short. The sale of 5 billion British pounds at once allowed the pound to depreciate to a critical minimum, and the repurchase of 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 did not bypass Soros either. He called the purchase in 1997 of a controlling stake in the Russian telecommunications company Svyazinvest, in which he lost almost $ 2 billion, as his worst investment and the main mistake of his life: 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.

In the future, he had other failures, albeit on a smaller scale, so he decided to finance 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, the Stefan Batory Foundation, the 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 about $300 million a year on non-profit projects. And in 2010, he donated $332 million to his open society charitable foundation, earning him 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 for a fall).

He adhered to the theory of reflexivity stock markets, according to which decisions on the purchase and sale of securities are made on the basis of 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 people's decisions, which shape the course of events," he says.

It is believed that George Soros can 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 of the world's leading countries.

For example, in 2002, a Paris court found him guilty of using confidential information to generate profits, through which he earned $ 2 million from the shares of 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 on Soros. Ahead of Change”, “A New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The 2008 Credit Crisis and Its Significance”. In addition, George Soros is an honorary doctorate from the New York New School for Social Research, Oxford and Yale.

On his initiative, in 1990, the Central European University was opened 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 (Gyorgy Shorosh) 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 time of repression, thanks to false documents made 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 three years later. 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. Then George turned into a traveling salesman, driving around in a cheap Ford and selling goods to various merchants in the seaside resorts of Wales. Simultaneously with the work of a traveling salesman, Soros tried to get a job in all the merchant banks in London. But everywhere he was refused due to his nationality and the lack of a protégé. Only in 1953 did he get a job in the company "Singer and Friedlander", from his compatriot Hungarian. Work and at the same time an 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 work did not inspire George Soros, and three years later he found a way to move to America.

IN THE USA in 1956 he arrived at the invitation of the father of his London friend, a certain Mayer, who had his own small brokerage firm on Wall Street. 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 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). Prior to Kennedy's introduction of a surcharge on foreign investment, this type of activity brought in a good income. After that, Soros' business was destroyed overnight.

Soros returned to philosophy. From 1963 to 1966, he tries to rewrite the dissertation, which he began working on 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, as he believed that he was simply conveying the thoughts of his great teacher . At this, the career of the philosopher was terminated 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 dollars. Having received significant profits for three years of work, in 1969 Soros became the head and co-owner of a fund called Double Eagle and later developed into the famous Quantum Group. The fund carried out speculative operations with securities that brought him millions of dollars in profit. By mid-1990, Quantum's capital was $10 billion. To date, every dollar invested in this fund has turned into 5.5 thousand US dollars. A significant day on September 15, 1992, when, thanks to the operations undertaken by Soros associated with a sharp fall in the British pound, his fortune increased by another 1 billion dollars. After that day, Soros became known as "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, thrown back in their development by 10-15 years ago. China became its next target, but local experts managed to prevent the attack.

Losses

But since 1997, Soros has had a "black streak". Almost all investments brought huge losses . In 1997, together with Potanin, he created Mustcom offshore, which paid $1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest, but after the 1998 crisis, the share price fell by more than half. Soros angrily called this purchase "the worst investment of money in my life." After much trying, in 2004 he sold Svyazinvest shares for $625 million to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik, who is also a shareholder in 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 to the Italian banking group Intesa his stake in KMB Bank (Small Business Loan Bank), which has more than 50 branches in all major cities Russia and serves more than 35 thousand customers. In 1999, the Soros investment fund (not to be confused with a charitable one) acquired a 47 percent stake in the bank, which was then called the Russian Project Finance Bank. 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 each had about 37 percent of the bank's shares, with another 26 percent in the hands of German and Dutch investors.

All shareholders, except for the EBRD, have completely sold their shares in KMB. The total amount of the deal is estimated at $90 million. This transaction is notable because, according to the Kommersant newspaper, the stake in this bank was Soros' last financial asset in Russia. Deciding to retire, he came to grips with the funding programs for science and the arts.

Strategy: how George Soros got rich

George Soros' fortune is estimated at $7.2 billion. According to Business Week magazine, he has donated more than $5 billion to charitable causes throughout his life, with one billion of that five coming from Russia. All of Soros' 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, owned by the Netherlands. It is the largest fund within the Soros-controlled Quantum Group of Funds.

George Soros made his fortune playing games on downgrade ("bearish" tactics), during which he used his "reflexivity theory 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, they can be the object of information impact. 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, shaking the financial market.

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

The core of this group is believed to be the famous Rothschild family, but in addition to the Rothschilds, the organization represented by Soros includes the infamous American billionaire Mark Rich, Shaul Eisenberg, Rafi Eitan and others.

In 2002, a Parisian 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 on the shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

Charity

George Soros is known not only as a financier, but also as philanthropist and social thinker, author of a number of books and articles, for which 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. And he is also an honorary doctor of the New School for Social Research (New York), Oxford and Yale Universities. In addition to numerous articles George Soros wrote books"Alchemy of Finance" (1987), "Discovering the Soviet System" (1990), "Supporting Democracy" (1991).

The Open Society Fund was the start of Soros' philanthropic career. Now he has established charitable foundations in more than 25 countries. Back in 1988, Soros organized the Cultural Initiative Foundation in the USSR to support science, culture, and education. But the "Cultural Initiative" fund was closed, as the money was not used for its intended purpose, but was used for personal purposes by certain individuals. In 1995, the decision was made to start over in Russia, and a new Open Society Foundation was organized. George Soros is the first in Russia since 1996. finances the project "Internet University Centers". The goal of the project was to open and maintain for five years the functioning of centers for open access to the global information computer network Internet at 32 Russian universities. This project was financed together with the government of the Russian Federation. Soros' contribution was $100 million, and the contribution Russian government 30 million. It is believed that this is the only obligation 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.

George Soros, a world-famous financier, received the title of “modern Robin Hood” from the Times magazine because, according to the publication, he takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor, in the modern world these are the countries of Eastern Europe and Russia. Soros, making huge money on speculation against central banks developed countries, invests them in projects to create the so-called "open society" in the post-communist countries located in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

August 12, 1930 in Budapest, in the very ordinary family a boy named Gyord Schwartz was born, who later the whole world recognized as George Soros. George's father, Tivadar Schwartz, was from an humble and poor family, while his mother's parents, Erzebet Suts, were very wealthy people.

Tivadar was a very versatile person. He was a lawyer and a prominent figure in the Jewish community of Budapest, founded a literary magazine, of which he became editor for a time, and regularly published his work there as an Esperanto writer. Soros' parents came from Jewish families, but there was no way to call them Orthodox Jews.

Tivadara Schwartz was not a workaholic. He often preferred fun, relaxing in the pool, cafe or ice rink, proud that he could afford to work much less than the rest. Sometimes it even led to the loss of potential clients who were afraid to entrust their cases to such a peculiar lawyer. However, Tivadar was quite able to maintain such a frivolous lifestyle thanks to a decent income that brought the property owned by the family. Soros's father took particular pleasure in risk, a sense of danger, and the joy of being able to avoid sad consequences. George Soros was able to adopt this skill from his father, which became very useful in the future, when he began to play on the stock exchange and not only earn money, but also enjoy the risks associated with these operations.

Soros's father volunteered during the First World War, without experiencing any special patriotic feelings. It just became another opportunity for him to walk on the edge of a knife.

Tivadar fought for Austria-Hungary, was taken prisoner by Russia. He was sent to Siberia, to a prison camp, from where he managed to escape and returned to Budapest, having made a difficult and dangerous journey home.

George and his brother Paul could always count on their father to provide them with any amount of money, no matter how much they asked. Thus, Tivadar tried to instill in his sons a responsible attitude towards money. Despite a fairly decent income, the head of the family himself managed the money rather ineptly, which left very serious gaps in the family budget.

Memories of financial difficulties are firmly embedded in the memories of the young Soros and became another incentive for him to earn as much as possible. On the other hand, the ease with which his father treated money was transferred to George himself, allowing him to spend simply huge amounts on charity.

Surname change

In the 30s, the Soros family had to go through hard times. It was at this time, or rather in 1936, that a decision was made to change the Jewish surname Schwartz to the Hungarian Soros (“Shorosh”). Translated from Hungarian, it means “follower”, and in Esperanto it means “soar” in the future tense, which Tivadar really liked.

In 1944, the Nazis came to Hungary. They invited all Jews to register with the German administration. Tivadar immediately realized that this would not bring his family anything good and decided to get lost among the Hungarians who profess Christianity. To do this, forged documents were made for all family members, after which they dispersed to different parts Budapest, trying to attract as little attention as possible.

In order to protect his sons, Tivadar even got certificates stating that he was circumcised solely for medical reasons. As a result of fascist repressions, 440 thousand Jews were destroyed, and the Soros family managed to survive.

The financial situation of the Soros at that time left much to be desired. Tivadar had to show all his abilities in order to find a way out of a variety of and very difficult situations. He not only took care of his relatives, but also helped many Jews in Budapest to obtain false documents, and for the poor this service was free, and for the rich it cost a lot of money, sometimes 20 times more expensive than for people with average incomes. According to George Soros himself, it was finest hour his father, when he worked like never before, without the slightest fear or despair. The threat of fascist reprisals hung over the Soros until January 1945, when the Red Army troops liberated Budapest.

Local residents met their liberators with open arms, but when the prospect of life under the socialist regime arose before them, their attitude towards Soviet troops noticeably changed. Socialism (and even more so communism), like fascism, was regarded by the Hungarians solely as a threat. During the two post-war years, the Hungarian economy faced hyperinflation. It was then that George Soros took his first steps in the foreign exchange market.

Moscow or London?

Life in post-war Hungary was unpromising for George, and at the age of 17 he decided to leave Budapest. The father asked his son where he intended to go, and George replied: “To Moscow, to see what this socialism is like, or to London: there is the Air Force (then they listened to the Air Force with the whole family).”

Tivadar helped George make the final decision by talking him out of going to Moscow. According to Soros himself, it was his father who laid in him the worldview that later allowed him to earn a lot of money and become a great investor.

In Britain, distant relatives of the Soros lived, whom Tivadar once helped to escape from Hungary on forged documents. They then settled George after his arrival in London. In the beginning, he was not very sweet, he even had to starve. It's hard to imagine, but one day the future billionaire became jealous of a cat that ate a herring right on the street.

In 1949, George entered the London School of Economics, where he studied for three years. In order to somehow survive, he had to constantly look for odd jobs: either at a haberdashery factory, then as a traveling salesman, then as a waiter, apple picker, porter at the station, without giving up the hope of eventually becoming a bank employee. Despite his meager budget, which at that time was about 4 pounds a week, George did not neglect personal bookkeeping. He kept a careful record of all income and expenses, trying to reduce his expenses so that there was still something left of his modest earnings.

In 1953, Soros graduated from the London School of Economics and went to work in the arbitration department of Singer and Friedlander. The office of the firm was next to the stock exchange, and George's manager was engaged in trading in shares of gold mining companies.

career in the USA. The goal is to earn half a million

In 1956, the father of a London friend of Soros invited him to the United States to work in a small Wall Street brokerage firm owned by him. At first, George was engaged in international arbitration, that is, he bought and sold securities in different countries ah, earning income from the difference in prices. But after a while, the Suez crisis broke out and this type of business began to gradually fade away.

Then Soros refocused his activities on the new kind brokerage business, which he himself called "internal arbitrage", the essence of which was to sell the combined securities (stocks, bonds and warrants) separately before they were officially separated.

At first, the income from this activity was quite decent, but then President Kennedy introduced additional fees on foreign investment, which had a very negative impact on the amount of profit. Soros again had to look for a new source of income.

Immediately after his arrival in America, Soros began to invest, using his modest savings as capital, as well as the funds of his friends and acquaintances. After some time, these operations have already brought a good income. George set himself the goal of earning half a million dollars so that he could leave his job and pursue philosophy, which he then considered his true calling.

But, appetite comes with eating. As revenues grew at a pace that was ahead of the wildest expectations, George's goals became more and more ambitious. He no longer dreamed of leaving the investment business, because this game brought not only money, but also the pleasure of risk and his own talents.

After graduating from business school, Soros began writing a dissertation, which he unsuccessfully tried to complete for three years (from 1963 to 1966). The results of work on the treatise "The Heavy Burden of Consciousness" did not satisfy George at all, and he decided that he was much better at investing than philosophizing or holding the post of top manager. At that time he was Vice President of Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder.

In 1967, Soros managed to convince the company's management to establish and transfer the First Eagle offshore fund under its management. Just two years later, another fund was formed, this time a hedge fund called the Double Eagle, which was also run by Soros. But after a while, George had to give up managing the funds due to decisions made by the regulators. Then he, together with Jim Rogers, founded own fund called Quantum. This happened in 1970. By 1980, as a result of ongoing speculation, the profitability of the Quantum fund reached 3365% per year, which largely provided Soros with his huge fortune, which by 2009 amounted to about $ 11 billion.

The theory of market reflexivity

George Soros is not only a very talented investor, but also a generous billionaire, which puts him on a par with such prominent people as Carnegie and Rockefeller. At the same time, Soros himself considers his intellectual abilities to be the main wealth. Since childhood, he wanted to become a second Keynes or Einstein, taking a great interest not only in finance, but also to a much greater extent in philosophy.

Karl Popper and George Soros

During his studies at the London School of Economics, Soros attended a course by the Anglo-Austrian philosopher Karl Popper, whose ideas he was very interested in. The theory of "reflexivity", formulated by Popper, states that in processes involving a person, the observer is part of the objective reality that he observes.

As a result, the observation itself can influence the reality that the observer analyzes. This is the main difference between living and inanimate nature. It was on the basis of this theory that Soros formulated his "theory of market reflexivity" and applied it with great success to his own exchange operations.

The essence of the theory is that traders make their decisions, whether buying or selling securities, solely on the basis of their own expectations of changes in price levels. Any expectation is an exclusively psychological category that can be influenced by information impact. The moods and expectations of trading participants inevitably affect their transactions, as a result of which the influence of fundamental market factors is distorted.

According to Soros himself, it was this approach that allowed him to achieve amazing success on the stock exchange. But people who have worked with him believe that he relies primarily on his intuition and foresight, and his philosophy often has nothing to do with it. For example, son Robert says about his father: "He buys when his back hurts, and sells when the pain goes away."

The man who brought down the Bank of England

George Soros became famous precisely for his currency speculation. Traders who have been working in the market for a long time still remember September 16, 1992, the day that went down in the history of the foreign exchange market as “black Wednesday”. Then Soros opened a short position on the pound for 10 billion dollars, closing which, in just one day, he became richer by 1 billion.

The result of this operation was that the Bank of England had to carry out a large-scale intervention and, after some time, withdraw the pound sterling from the mechanism for regulating the exchange rates of European countries, as a result of which the pound rapidly fell in price against all major currencies. After the incident, Soros began to be called "the man who brought down the Bank of England."

Not all transactions of George Soros were crowned with success. A vivid example of an unsuccessful project is the operation to create in 1997, together with Potanin, the offshore Mustcom, which bought out 25% of the shares of OJSC Svyazinvest for $ 1.875 billion, the value of which after the 1998 crisis fell by more than half. For Soros, this was the worst investment of money in his entire life. In 2004, he finally managed to get rid of these securities. The deal with Access Industries, managed by Leonard Blavatnik, a shareholder of TNK-BP, totaled only $625 million. Blavatnik himself sold shares in Svyazinvest to Comstar-UTS, part of AFK Sistema, at the end of 2006 for 1.3 billion. he receives from the most senior officials in the governments of different countries and the governing bodies of the largest corporations.

In 2002, Soros even had to pay a fine of 2.2 million euros by the decision of the Paris court for using confidential information. According to the prosecution, the information obtained illegally allowed the investor to earn $ 2 million on the shares of the French bank Societe Generale.

Many investors try to make their operations on the stock exchange as reliable as possible. But not George Soros, who has a heightened appetite for risk, using borrowed funds and doing all the things that most other players try to avoid, and is satisfied with the excitement and the fact that he once again emerged victorious from a difficult situation, in which came of his own free will. Soros himself said that 1944 was the best year of his life. Then he and his whole family were literally on the verge of death. His father helped his compatriots obtain false documents, risking his own life daily.

These documents saved the lives of many Hungarian Jews. Little George saw all this, and the same love of risk and danger that was inherent in his father was transmitted to him. “I was lucky that my father was one of those who did not act as people usually do,” says George Soros. “If you act normally, you will most likely die. Many Jews then did not take any action to hide or leave the country. And my family is lucky. My father was not afraid to take risks. The life lesson that I learned during the war is that sometimes you can lose everything, even your own life, if you don’t take risks.”

Charity and Soros foundations

George Soros began to engage in charity work in 1979, when his first foundation, the Open Society, was formed. At the same time, in South Africa, engulfed by apartheid, a foundation was organized under his leadership, whose tasks included supporting black students at the University of Cape Town. In Eastern Europe, the first Soros fund began operating in 1984. It is quite logical that this happened in Hungary. Soros did not bypass Russia with his attention, where in 1987 he decided to support an open society. His funds were opened almost throughout the entire territory of the post-Soviet space.

In addition, in 1992, the International Science Foundation (ISF) began its work, main task which was the help to scientists in Russia and countries former USSR in their work in a very difficult transition period, which could allow them to continue their research and not immigrate to other countries. The MNF has paid out over $115 million and has had a huge impact in reducing the so-called "brain drain", which as a result has helped prevent Russia's intellectual resources from being used for destructive purposes. In 1990, with the help of funding from George Soros, the Central European University was founded, which began its work in Budapest, Prague and Warsaw.

At the end of 2003, Soros decided to stop his charitable activities in Russia. Less than a year later, the Open Society Foundation stopped making grants. But those structures that were created earlier continued their work even after the termination of funding from the American investor. Among them are the Moscow Higher School of Social and economic sciences, the Foundation for Culture and Art "Institute PRO ARTE", the D.S. Likhachev International Charitable Foundation, a non-profit foundation for the support of book publishing, education and new information technologies"Pushkin Library". Charitable organizations created with the money of George Soros operate in more than 50 countries around the world.

Most of them are located in Eastern Europe, Africa, Latin America, Asia and the USA. Their main task is to support the infrastructure and institutions of an open society. Each year, these funds transfer hundreds of millions of dollars to support certain categories of citizens and entire countries.

George Soros strategy

What is the secret of such an amazing financial success of George Soros, whose fortune before the 2008 crisis was about 7.2 billion dollars? Soros carried out almost all of his operations through the secret offshore company Quantum Fund NV, which is registered on the Caribbean island of Curacao, which is under the jurisdiction of the Netherlands.

This fund is still the largest in the financial empire of George Soros.

If we compare the two brilliant financiers of recent times - Warren Buffett and George Soros, then there are much more differences in their characters and vision of the world than similarities. Buffett gives his preference to long-term investments and does not try to exert any noticeable influence on the market. Soros, on the contrary, strives for fame and world recognition. His figure on the global financial Olympus is very ambiguous and controversial.

In his youth, Soros was seriously interested in philosophy. Perhaps this was the reason for his versatile activities, which include charity, participation in public life and literary work. In terms of his approach to trading, Soros is 100% bearish, that is, he prefers to play for a fall.

That is why most of his fortune was earned during periods of serious world crises and with the help of individual approach known as the "reflexivity theory of stock markets". Soros believes that the price of a currency (his favorite trading instrument) is determined based on future expectations. Anyone who knows how to influence these expectations gains control of the foreign exchange market. Soros's operations are based on short-term speculative transactions, for which he actively uses borrowed funds.

He considers his absolute advantage that he does not have a certain style of trading. In each specific situation, George will try to adjust to the current market conditions. For example, 10 years ago, his funds specialized in currency transactions, and today investments in industry have become the main instrument. Today, global economic trends are receiving more and more attention from this great investor. Soros considers intuition to be one of the foundations for making trading decisions and tries to actively develop it.

It is quite normal practice for him to create a possible scenario with the help of a hypnotist, and then see how accurately it will be implemented. Soros believes that weak analytical skills are by no means an obstacle to those who want to get rich with the help of the financial market. After all, he does not consider himself to be a specialist in the field of securities.
The Alchemy of Finance by George Soros. One of the main qualities that allowed Soros to reach the pinnacle of financial success was his caution and self-criticism.

According to the investor himself, this is what made him constantly on the alert, to calculate everything possible options developments and make decisions with lightning speed. Every novice trader will read in any book on the basics of trading and investing a rule that says that when conducting trading operations, you should never give in to emotions. But Soros has been breaking this rule for many years, he rejoices in his victories like a child and is very upset when he has to record losses.

Legalize marijuana and down with Bush!

George Soros came to Manhattan 50 years ago with just a few dollars and huge ambitions. Today he lives in a prestigious penthouse in one of the New York skyscrapers. His wealth and influence on the modern world is so great that it exceeds the capabilities of entire states whose flags fly near the UN headquarters just a few steps from his home. George Soros does not flaunt his power and wealth - he does not buy expensive cars, does not invest in sports clubs, luxurious castles or other "toys" for the elite of this world.

Their endless possibilities Soros demonstrates through his own actions, whether it is charity or activity in the financial or political sphere, sometimes collapsing currencies or setting the vector for the development of entire regions. George Soros actively advocates for the legalization of same-sex marriage and the free trade of marijuana for medical purposes. He was against the re-election of George W. Bush for a second term and spent more than $23 million in an attempt to prevent this event.

Probably, this is how a billionaire philosopher should behave, who is aware that he has every opportunity to change the world for the better. “I have always felt like an exceptional person,” says George Soros.

George Soros was married twice, but both of his marriages ended unsuccessfully. He has five children: three from his first wife - Robert, Andrea, Jonathan and two - from the second, Alexander and Gregory. In 2004, Soros retired from managing the Quantum Endowment Fund, handing over the reins of the firm to his eldest son, Robert. George's older brother, Paul Soros, shares the interests of his famous relative, engaging in investment and charitable activities.

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

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

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

Dossier

George Soros (real name Schwartz) was born on August 12, 1930 in Budapest (Hungary) into a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Tivadar Schwartz, was a lawyer, a prominent figure in the city's Jewish community, an Esperanto specialist, and an Esperantist writer. Older brother 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 an Austrian philosopher Karl Popper that had on him big influence, whose ideological follower he became.

In England, he found work in a haberdashery factory, and then turned into a traveling salesman, but did not leave the search for work in a bank. In 1953 he got a job at Singer & Friedlander. Work and at the same time an internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the stock 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, which he called internal arbitrage - selling separately combined securities of stocks, bonds and warrants before they could be officially 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 prominent European stock brokerage firm.

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

Despite the fund's success in the long run, it had bad years - if in 1980 the profit was 100%, then the next year the fund lost 23%. Soros' decision during Black Monday in 1987 to close all positions and go cash was one of the biggest setbacks of his career. If before "Black Monday" the annual profitability of "Quantum" was 60%, then a week later the fund turned into a loss, with a loss of 10% in annual terms.

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

In charity

Gradually, Soros moves away from financial speculation and declares charitable activities, including in the field of education and scientific research. He makes statements about the need and usefulness of restrictions in the financial sector, including to reduce the investment opportunities of large financial structures.

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

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

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

At the end of 2003, Soros officially cut off financial support for his philanthropic work in Russia, and in 2004 the Open Society Institute stopped issuing grants. But the structures created with the assistance of the Soros Foundation still work without his direct participation: the Moscow graduate School social and economic sciences (MVSESEN, established in 1995 with a grant from the Soros Foundation, the Foundation for Culture and Art, the PRO ARTE Institute, the D.S. Likhachev International Charitable Foundation, the Pushkin Library, a non-profit foundation for supporting book publishing, education and new information technologies .

State

As of November 2009, the fortune of George Soros was estimated at 11 billion dollars, as of September 2012 - 19 billion. According to Business Week magazine, he has donated more than $5 billion to charitable causes throughout his life, with one billion of that five coming from Russia.

A family

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

Political activism and lobbying

Crisis in Ukraine

In early January 2015, Soros called for urgent financial assistance to Ukraine in the amount of 20 billion euros to support the "belligerent side".

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

Compositions

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

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

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

Soros J. Open Society. Reforming global capitalism. Per. from English. - M .: Non-profit Foundation "Support of Culture, Education and New Information Technologies", 2001. - 458 p., ISBN 5-94072-001-3, shooting gallery. 10000 copies

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

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