Soros, George

Born in Budapest in a middle-class Jewish family. His father, Tivadar Schwartz , was a lawyer , a prominent figure in the Jewish community of the city, an Esperanto specialist and an Esperanto writer . In 1936, the family changed their surname to the Hungarian version of Soros ( Soros ). The older brother is an engineer, entrepreneur, and philanthropist Paul Soros (1926–2013). ^[7]

In 1947, Soros moved to the UK, where he entered the London School of Economics and Political Science and successfully completed it after three years. He was lectured by the Austrian philosopher Karl Popper , who had a great influence on him, the ideological follower of which he became ^[8] . In England, he found work in a haberdashery factory, and then turned into a traveling salesman , but did not abandon his job search in the bank. In 1953 he received a place in the company "Singer and Friedlander." Work and at the same time an internship took place in the arbitration department, which was located next to the exchange .

By 1956, Soros began his career as a financier. He arrived in New York at the invitation of his father's 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, calling it internal arbitration — selling separately the combined securities of shares , bonds and warrants before they could be officially separated from each other. In 1963, Kennedy introduced an additional charge on foreign investment, and Soros closed his business. By 1967, he served as research manager at Arnhold and S. Bleichroeder, a well-known brokerage company specializing in European stock markets ^[8] .

In 1969, Soros became manager of the Double Eagle Foundation, 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 of the Double Eagle Foundation, founded a fund, later called Quantum (a term from the field of quantum mechanics) ^[9] . Soros was a senior partner, Rogers until his retirement in 1980 - the youngest. The division of labor in fund management between Soros and Rogers was that Rogers did most of the analytical work, but he decided on when to enter into transactions, Soros. The fund carried out speculative operations with securities, currencies, commodities ^[10] and achieved great success. During the joint work from 1970 to 1980, Soros and Rogers never suffered losses, the personal fortune of Soros by the end of 1980 was estimated at $ 100 million ^[11] , in June 1981, Institutional Investor magazine named Soros the world's greatest fund manager. Despite the success of the fund in the long term, it had bad years - if in 1980 the profit was 100%, then the following year the fund lost 23%. Soros’s decision during Black Monday in 1987 to close all positions and withdraw into cash was one of the biggest failures in his career. If before “black monday” the annual profitability of “Quantum” was 60%, then after a week the fund turned into unprofitable, with losses of 10% in annual terms ^[8] .

In 1988, Soros invited Stanley Druckenmiller to work in his foundation, which 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 per day. Soros began to call this day, known as " black environment " - "white environment", and he himself is noted as "the man who broke the Bank of England", although his role in the fall of the pound is clearly exaggerated.

In 1997, Soros, together with Vladimir Potanin, created the offshore company Mustcom, which paid $ 1.875 billion for a 25% stake in Svyazinvest , but after the crisis of 1998, the price of shares fell more than twice. Soros in the hearts called this purchase "the worst investment of money in a lifetime." After long attempts in 2004, he sold shares of Svyazinvest for $ 625 million to Access Industries, headed by Leonard Blavatnik . At the end of 2006, Blavatnik sold a blocking stake to Comstar-UTS, part of Sistema, for $ 1.3 billion.

Gradually, Soros departs from financial speculation and declares charitable activities , including in the field of education and scientific research. He makes statements on the necessity and usefulness of restrictions in the financial sphere, including for reducing the investment opportunities of large financial structures ^[12] .

On July 26, 2011, he made a statement about closing his investment fund and returning to outside investors their investments in the amount of about one billion dollars. The contributors were informed of the decision of the head of the fund by a special letter ^[13] . As Soros said on the same day, starting next year, he will be engaged in increasing only personal capital and funds of his family ^[14] . Jonathan and Robert, the deputy chairmen of the foundation's board, the sons of Soros, explained that the decision to close the fund was due to changes in US law that are being developed as part of the current financial reform in the United States. This is a new Dodd-Frank law , known by the name of its developers, congressmen Chris Dodd and Barney Frank ( English Barney Frank ), which imposes a number of significant restrictions on hedge funds: until March 2012, all hedge funds operating in the country must register with the US Securities and Exchange Commission and hedge funds are required to disclose all information about their investors, assets, investment policies, and possible conflicts of interest.

In September 2013, he married for the third time, 42-year-old Tamiko Bolton became his darling, they met five years ago, and in August announced their engagement ^[15] .

The activities of Soros causes a mixed assessment in different countries and various circles of society. Soros is often spoken of as a financial speculator , “the man who bankrupted the Bank of England”, the term “ Soros ” was formed on his behalf to refer to large speculators who run currency crises for “profit and pleasure” ( Paul Krugman , 1996) ^[16] .

Soros became famous after the “ black environment ” on September 16, 1992 - the day of a significant drop in the value of the pound sterling relative to the German mark. It is believed that in one day his profit amounted to more than a billion dollars.

The main speculation in the global financial markets was through the Quantum Fund NV hedge fund , registered on the Netherlands-owned Caribbean island of Curaçao due to offshore conditions. It is the largest fund within the Soros-controlled .

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 states that in making important decisions, Soros uses insider information provided by senior officials from the political and financial circles of the largest countries in the world. For example, it is known that on the eve of the black environment of 1992, Soros talked with Helmut Schlesinger , President of the Bundesbank , and found out that Germany had no intention to lower the discount rate in the near future, which allowed him to act more confidently ^[11] .

Soros himself tried to explain the tremendous success by applying his theory of reflexivity of stock markets , according to which decisions about buying and selling securities are made based on price expectations in the future, and since expectations are a psychological category, it can be the object of informational impact. The attack on the currency of any state consists of successive informational strikes through the media and custom articles in analytical publications, combined with real actions of currency speculators, shaking the financial market ^[17] .

In 2002, a Paris court found George Soros guilty of receiving confidential information in order to extract profits 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 in shares of the French bank Societe Generale . ^[18] Subsequently, the fine was reduced to 0.9 million euros. Soros appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, but in 2011 he did not discern the violation of the violations, by four votes to three ^[19] .

In 1979, he created his first Open Society foundation in the USA. Currently ^{[ clarify ]} Soros spends about $ 300 million a year on its non-commercial projects on average.

He now has foundations in more than 25 countries. In September 1987, the Soviet-American Cultural Initiative Foundation in support of science, culture and education was created in the USSR on his initiative, but the fund was later closed as money was used for the personal purposes of certain individuals. ^{[ who? ]} . Also in 1988, in order to incorporate the economic complex of the USSR into the modern world economic system, it proposed to create an “open sector in the Soviet economy,” but for various reasons this work was stopped ^[20] . In 1995, it was decided to organize in Russia a new fund, the Open Society. From 1996 to 2001, the Soros Foundation invested about $ 100 million in the project “Internet University Centers”, as a result of which 33 Internet centers appeared in Russia ^[21] .

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

A textbook of cultural studies and a history textbook published by the Soros Foundation have been heavily criticized ^[22] .

At the end of 2003, Soros officially curtailed financial support for its activities in Russia, and in 2004 the Open Society Institute stopped issuing grants. But the structures created with the assistance of the Soros Foundation are now working without his direct participation: Moscow Higher School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSESES, created in 1995 with a grant from the Soros Foundation ^[23] ), the Foundation for Culture and Art PRO ARTE Institute ^[24] , The International Charitable Foundation named after DS Likhachev ^[25] , the non-commercial fund for the support of book publishing, education and new information technologies "Pushkin Library" ^[26] .

The activity of the Soros Foundation was terminated in the Republic of Belarus in 1997 ^[27] .

As of November 2009, the fortune of George Soros was estimated at 11 billion dollars, as of September 2012 - 19 billion ^[28] . According to Business Week , he donated more than $ 5 billion to charity in his entire life, and one billion of these five fell to Russia .

In November 2015, the Open Society Foundation was included in the list of “undesirable” NPOs in Russia, which made its further work in Russia impossible ^[29] .

In 2017, the ruling party in Hungary, the FIDES party, in particular, its leaders stated that 2017 will mark the beginning of an amendment to the law of 2011, according to which NGO leaders will have to declare their assets ^[30] .

In the political field, he showed himself to be a sponsor and influential lobbyist . He played an important role in the fall of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe during the velvet revolutions of 1989 ^[31] . He also played a prominent role in the preparation and conduct of the Georgian “Rose Revolution” of 2003, although Soros himself claimed that his role was extremely exaggerated by the press ^[32] .

Mikhail Kasyanov recalled how when Russia received IMF support in a difficult situation in 1998, on August 13, “George Soros made a statement that Russia needs devaluation and that the IMF underestimates the seriousness of the problem. The market opened and immediately died. The next day, on Friday, President Boris Yeltsin swore that there would be no devaluation ... ” ^[33]

In the United States, he was very active during the 2004 presidential campaign , because he considered Bush’s policy dangerous for the United States and the world. He spent 27 million dollars to promote changes in American politics ^[34] . However, in the 2004 elections, George W. Bush won. Since 2005, Soros has contributed to the creation and financing of the Democratic Alliance ( Eng. Democracy Alliance ) - an organization that unites and directs American progressives within the Democratic Party. Soros supported Hillary Clinton’s candidacy in the US presidential election in 2016 ^[35] .

It is considered one of the main sponsors of campaigns for reforms in the legislative regulation of drug trafficking, including the movement to legalize marijuana and decriminalize drug use ^[36] . In his opinion, the legalization of marijuana will simultaneously increase revenues to the budget and reduce the number of crimes that accompany illicit drug trafficking ^[37] . From 1994 to 2014, Soros donated about $ 200 million to support reforms in this industry. The largest recipient of his donations is the Drug Policy Alliance . In 2007, he sent 400 thousand dollars to support the passage in the Senate and House of Representatives of the Massachusetts ), in 2008 this law was adopted. In 2010, Soros donated $ 1 million to a , but the referendum ended with its rejection ^[36] .

In early January 2015, Soros made a call to provide Ukraine with urgent financial assistance in the amount of 20 billion euros to support the "belligerent". “German economic news” quotes Soros, who said that “Russia's attack on Ukraine is a direct attack on the EU and its principles ^[38] ” .

November 12, 2015, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko awarded George Soros with the Order of Freedom ^[39] . Poroshenko noted the significant role of the International Foundation "Vidrodzhennya", founded by Soros, in the development of the Ukrainian state and the establishment of democracy. In addition, Poroshenko expressed his gratitude for the efforts of Soros and his long-term comprehensive plan to support Ukraine, as well as for professional advice on public finance.

• 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 . American bubble supremacy. What should be directed American power. from English - M .: Alpina Business Books, 2004, 192 p., ISBN 5-9614-0042-5 (rus.), ISBN 1-58648-217-3 (English), shooting. 10,000 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. 10,000 copies
• Soros J. On globalization. - M .: Eksmo, 2004. - 224 p. - ISBN 5-699-07924-6 .
• Soros J. "Foundation" for Russia. What was, what will be. - M .: Algorithm, 2015. - 224 p. - (Dangerous knowledge). - 2000 copies - ISBN 978-5-906798-99-2 .
• Soros, George. “The Crisis of World Capitalism.” (1999).
• Soros, George. New paradigm of financial markets. Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2008.

• Central European University
• Soros teacher
• Soros Professor
• Soros Educational Journal
• Soros Encyclopedia on Natural Sciences
• Soros conferences
• Soros Olympiad

• Glen Arnold. Great investors: Practical lessons from George Soros, Warren Buffet, John Templeton, Benjamin Graham, Anthony Bolton , Charles Manger, Peter Lynch, Philip Fisher, John Neff = The Great Investors. Lessons on Investing From Master Traders. - M .: Alpina Publisher , 2014. - 320 p. - ISBN 978-5-9614-1923-8 .
• Robert Slater Soros: Life, activities and business secrets of the world's greatest investor. - Kharkov, “Folio”, 1996. - 382 p.

• George Soros (eng.)
• Soros, George - an article in Lentapedia . year 2012.
• Hedge Funds and the Crisis of 1997, Studie (Eng.)
• Open Society Institute (eng.)
• Is George Soros - “financial” or revolutionary?
• From the book “The Crisis of World Capitalism” - about Russia
• Agent of influence. Legendary investor and philanthropist George Soros leaves the big business. In order to return at once and again to blow up this crazy world , “Results”, № 32/791, 08.08.2011.