biography
pronunciation:
[sawros]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1930– )
|
| biography:
| Financier and philanthropist, born in Budapest, Hungary. A member of a prosperous Jewish family, he spent much of World War 2 in hiding from the Nazis. He moved to London in 1947, studied at the London School of Economics, joined the merchant bank Singer & Friedlander, and in 1956 went to New York City, working as a financial analyst. In 1969 he set up the Quantum and Quota groups of hedge funds, which grew rapidly from his daring speculations, and in 1979 he began to establish a network of Soros Foundations, mainly in C and E Europe, to advance opportunities in education and business. After the fall of communism in 1989, he dispersed over $2 billion of his personal fortune to promote the market economy throughout the former communist countries of C and E Europe. In 1992 his currency speculation earned him about $1 billion (£625 million) after betting that the British government woud be forced to devalue sterling and leave the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In 2000 the Soros funds were badly affected by misguided speculations on internet and telecommunications stocks that failed to pay off. He published The Crisis of Global Capitalism in 1998. |
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