John Alfred Paulson(born
December 14,
1955) is an
American hedge fund manager based in
New York City.
Paulson received his
BS in Finance from
New York University’s College of Business and Public Administration, where he graduated first in his class, and an
MBA from
Harvard Business School, where he was awarded the designation of
Baker Scholar, the school's top academic honor, for graduating in the top 5%.
[1] He is President of Paulson & Co., Inc., New York.
Paulson & Co., Inc. had assets under management (as of
June 01,
2007) of $12.5 billion (95% from institutions), which leapt to $36 billion as of November 2008.
[2] Under his direction, Paulson & Co has capitalized on the problems in the foreclosure and Mortgage Backed Securities (MBS) markets. Recently he decided to start a new fund that would capitalize on Wall Street's capital problems by lending money to investment banks and other hedge funds currently feeling the pressure of the more than $345 billion of write downs resulting from under-performing assets linked to the housing market. On May 15, 2008, Paulson & Co., which bought 50 million shares of
Yahoo stock during the first quarter of 2008, said it is supporting
Carl Icahn on a
proxy fight to replace Yahoo's board.
[3]John Paulson is not related to former CEO of Goldman Sachs and former United States Treasury Secretary
Hank Paulson[4] [5] [6] A September 26, 2008 Street Journal opinion written by John
[7] suggested an alternative to stabilize the markets than the Treasury Secretary's plan.
Paulson is #78 on the
Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans
[8] and is worth approximately 4.5 billion dollars.
George Soros(pronounced
/ˈsɔroʊs/ or /ˈsɔrəs/,
[2] Hungarian IPA:
[ˈʃoroʃ]) (born August 12, 1930, in
Budapest,
Hungary, as György Schwartz) is a
Hungarian-born
Jewish American financial speculator,
stock investor,
philanthropist, and
political activist.
[3]Soros is famously known for "breaking the
Bank of England" on
Black Wednesday in 1992. With an estimated current
[update] net worth of around $9 billion, he is ranked by
Forbes as the
101st-richest person in the world.
[1]Soros is chairman of
Soros Fund Management and the
Open Society Institute and is also a former member of the Board of Directors of the
Council on Foreign Relations. He is also one of three initial funders of
Center for American Progress, and is represented on the board.
[4] His funding and organization of
Georgia's
Rose Revolution was considered by Russian and
Western observers to have been crucial to its success, although Soros said his role has been greatly exaggerated. In the United States, he is known for having donated large sums of money in a failed effort to defeat President
George W. Bush's bid for re-election in 2004.
Former
Federal Reserve Chairman
Paul Volcker wrote in 2003 in the foreword of Soros' book The Alchemy of Finance:
George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game. The bulk of his enormous winnings is now devoted to encouraging transitional and
emerging nations to become 'open societies,' open not only in the sense of freedom of commerce but—more important—tolerant of new ideas and different modes of thinking and behavior.
James Beeland Rogers, Jr. (born
October 19,
1942) is an
American investor and financial commentator. He is co-founder, along with
George Soros, of the
Quantum Fund, and is a college professor, author, world traveler, economic commentator, and creator of the
Rogers International Commodities Index (RICI).
Rogers, whose full name is James Beeland Rogers, Jr. was born in
Wetumpka,
Alabama. Rogers grew up in
Demopolis, getting started in business at the age of five, picking up bottles at baseball games. He got his first job on
Wall Street, at Dominick & Dominick, after graduating with a
bachelor's degree from
Yale University in 1964. Rogers then acquired a second BA degree from
Balliol College,
Oxford University in 1966. After Oxford, Rogers returned to the U.S. and enlisted in the army for a few years.
In 1970, Rogers joined Arnhold & S. Bleichroeder, where he met
George Soros. That same year, Rogers and Soros founded the
Quantum Fund. During the following 10 years the portfolio gained 4200% while the S&P advanced about 47%.
[1] It was one of the first truly international funds.
In 1980, Rogers decided to "retire", and traveled on motorcycle through
China. Since then, he has been a guest professor of finance at the
Columbia University Graduate School of Business.
In 1989 and 1990, Rogers was the moderator of
WCBS' The Dreyfus Roundtable and
FNN's The Profit Motive with Jim Rogers. From 1990 to 1992, he traveled through China again, as well as around the world, on motorcycle, over 100,000 miles (160,000 km) across six continents, which was picked up in the
Guinness Book of World Records. He tells of his adventures and worldwide investments in Investment Biker.
In 1998, Rogers founded the
Rogers International Commodity Index. In 2007, the index and its 3 sub-indices were linked to
exchange-traded notes under the banner ELEMENTS. The notes track the total return of the indices as an accessible way to invest in the index.
Between January 1, 1999 and 5 January, 2002, Rogers did another Guinness World Record journey through 116 countries, covering 245,000 kilometers with his wife,
Paige Parker, in a custom-made Mercedes. The trip began in
Iceland, which was about to celebrate the 1000th anniversary of
Leif Eriksson's first trip to America. On January 5, 2002, they were back in
New York City and their home on
Riverside Drive. His route around the world can be viewed on his website,
jimrogers.com. He wrote Adventure Capitalist following this around-the-world adventure. It is currently his best selling book.
On his return in 2002, Rogers became a regular guest on
Fox News'
Cavuto on Business which airs every Saturday. He has a daughter, Happy, born in 2003.
[2] In 2005, Rogers wrote Hot Commodities: How Anyone Can Invest Profitably in the World's Best Market. In this book, Rogers quotes a Financial Analysts Journal academic paper co-authored by
Yale School of Management professor, Geert Rouwenhorst, entitled Facts and Fantasies about Commodity Futures. Rogers contends this paper shows that commodities investment is one of the best investments over time, which is a concept somewhat at odds with conventional investment thinking.
In December 2007, Rogers sold his mansion in New York City for about 16 million USD and moved to
Singapore. This is due mainly in his belief that this is a ground-breaking time for investment potential in Asian markets. Rogers' first daughter is now being tutored in Mandarin to prepare her for the future, he says. "Moving to Asia now is like moving to New York City in 1907," he said. Also, he is quoted to say: "If you were smart in 1807 you moved to London, if you were smart in 1907 you moved to New York City, and if you are smart in 2007 you move to Asia." In a CNBC interview with
Maria Bartiromo broadcast on May 5, 2008, Rogers said that people in Asia are extremely motivated and driven, and he wants to be in that type of environment, so his daughters are motivated and driven. He said during that interview that, this is how America and Europe used to be. He chose not to move to Hong Kong or Shanghai due to the high levels of pollution causing potential health problems for his family. His second daughter was born in 2008.
[3]Julian H Robertson Jr (born 1932) was born in
Salisbury, North Carolina in the United States. Robertson founded the investment firm
Tiger Management Corp. He is credited with turning $8 million in start-up capital in 1980 into over $22 billion in the late 1990s, though that was followed by a fast downward spiral that ended with the funds' closing in 2000.
In 1993, his compensation and share of Tiger's gain exceeded $300 million. His 2003 estimated net worth was over $400 million, and in 2008 it was estimated at $1.8 billion.
[1] Robertson is thought to have shorted the sub-prime. Having long warned of a coming credit crisis, Robertson's bet may have paid off handsomely: his current wealth is estimated by some to exceed $3 billion.
The Tiger funds reached a peak of $22 billion in assets in 1998. But because of the skyrocketing values of the
technology stock craze combined with the stumbling of Robertson's usual valuation yardstick, Robertson suffered large losses at the end of the decade. When the Standard and Poor's 500-stock index climbed 21 percent in 1999, the Tiger funds declined 19 percent.
Tiger's largest equity holding at that time was
U.S. Airways, whose troubles dragged down the value of his holdings. Such missteps ultimately led him to close his investment company in March 2000 and return all outside capital to investors. Tiger earlier made $2bn in gains but then gave most of them back during a huge one-day move in the yen in 1998.
But when viewed from the longterm, the results look a bit different: Robertson's funds since their inception yielded an average annual return of roughly 25 percent over 20 years. And the timing of the closure was fortunate for investors: Robertson managed to dodge some of the worst bloodletting of the market top. Since that time, Robertson has fared well for his chief client: himself.
[2]Robertson is a native of North Carolina, the son of Julian Hart Robertson Sr., a textile company executive, and the former Blanche Spencer.
[3] He graduated from
Episcopal High School in 1951 and the
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1955. While at Chapel Hill, he was admitted to
Zeta Psi fraternity. He then served as an officer in the
U.S. Navy until 1957. He worked for a time as a stockbroker for
Kidder, Peabody & Co., where he later headed up the firm's asset management division (Webster Securities) before departing to move to
New Zealand for a year. On his return, Robertson launched Tiger with initial investments from friends and family.
Today, Julian Hart Robertson is an active philanthropist and serves on a number of organization and university boards. He is the founder and benefactor of the
Robertson Scholars Program which awards a merit scholarship that provides four-year full-tuition, room and board, and travel funding for 36 Duke and University of North Carolina students each year. He remains a staunch supporter in the campaign to stop global warming.
He also is active as an investor and developer in New Zealand, where he spends much of his time. He owns both Kauri Cliffs Lodge near
Kerikeri in
Northland, and The Farm at
Cape Kidnappers,
Hawkes Bay. The Kauri Cliffs Golf Course was rated the Best New International Golf Course of 2001 by Golf Magazine and Golf Digest USA.
[4]The golf course at Cape Kidnappers is also highly rated, being judged 27th best in world in 2005. Both properties are part of the international
Relais & Chateaux group.
