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Have you ever seen a billionaire who has given out over 64% of his fortune to charity and remains a billionaire still? Well, it is no secret that if many billionaires give away over 60% of their net worth, you can bet that they’ll be dropped out of the 3-commas league. This is why the life of any billionaire who has been there and done that is worth emulating. George Soros is worth a mention, not only because he is in the billionaires’ league but also because he is one of the few billionaires who, despite their wealth and power, will always have the goodwill of humanity at heart. How did George Soros make his billions, to begin with? How did he become a self-made billionaire and the most generous giver in the world according to Forbes? By the time you are done reading this article, you’d have found the answer to that and many more questions
Who Is George Soros?
George Soros was born on August 12th, in the year 1930 in Budapest, Kingdom of Hungary. He was born to a Jewish family. Erzsebet his mother was from a family who owned a popular silk shop while his father, Tivadar was a popular lawyer and Esperanto speaker who modified the Esperanto literary magazine, Literatura Mondo and educated his son to speak the Esperanto language as well. Originally "Schwartz", the Soros family changed their name to "Soros" in 1936. In 1944, he experienced the Nazi takeover of Hungary. To survive, his family had to purchase documents stating that they were Christians. His father also helped save many Jews and George Soros described these periods as times when he got to witness his father’s heroism. In 1951, at the young age of 17, George Soros relocated to Paris before moving to England where he studied Philosophy at the London School of Economics. By 1954, he got his master’s degree in Philosophy from the same institution
George’s Humble Beginnings
As a student, George Soros worked as a waiter and a railway porter in order to sustain himself. When he graduated college: he went on to work for a London investment firm while abandoning his dream of working as a professor because his grades just weren't high enough. It was around this time he moved to the United States to continue exploring the world of investments and finance. Once in the U.S., he first got a job in a merchant bank with the referral of his friend. He got another job with F.M. Mayer where he spent three years before joining Wertheim & Co where he worked as an analyst of European securities for four years. George Soros would later get employed at Arnold & S. Bleichroeder as Vice President between 1963 to 1973. Following his instincts and intuition, George used investors’ capital of $4 million in addition to his own $250,000 to form a hedge fund in 1969. By 1973, the hedge fund had $12 million which spurred George to resign and start his own hedge fund.
Soros Fund Management
1973 saw George Soros resigning from his job to start his own hedge fund in the U.S called Soros Fund Management. What he didn’t know or didn’t realize just yet was that this was his first step to becoming one of the most successful investors in the history of the United States. He also raised $12 million around this time to start The Quantum Group of Funds with Jim Rogers. The Quantum Group expanded to yield $22 million which is almost two times the starting capital by 1998. It is important to note that one of the defining years for George was 1992 when he made huge successful trades. In 1998, The Quantum Group of Funds became the world’s largest hedge fund while achieving an annual average of 30% and this earned him a title as the man who broke the Bank of England. By 2011, having amassed enough wealth, he decided to return investors’ money worth about $1 billion and converted Soros Fund Management into a family office.
George Soros’ Philanthrophic Ventures
George Soros’ Family office is reported to have over $28 billion under management which includes George’s personal assets and the assets of about six Open Society foundations; Open Society Fund, Soros Economic Development Foundation, Open Society Institute, Soros Fund Charitable Foundation, Foundation for an Open Society, and Fund for Policy Reform. These foundations put together have assets under management worth a whopping $19.5 billion which is excluded from George Soros’ net worth estimates as there is still a leftover $8.5 billion that stands as his current worth and personal assets earning him the title of the most generous giver by Forbes. Word has it that he is one of the most generous donors to the Democratic Party and has donated $125 million for the 2022 midterm elections.
George Soros’ Family, Honours, And Awards
This one-of-a-kind billionaire has 5 children from 3 marriages. He has received so many honors and awards to buttress his legendary life. In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame along with Jack Nash, Alfred Jones, David Swasen, and Bruce Kovner. In 2014, George Soros ranked number 1 in LCH Investments’ list of top 20 managers after posting gains of almost $42 billion since the launch of his Quantum Endowment Fund in 1973. In 2017, he got elected as an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy (HonFBA) and 2019 saw him awarded the Ridenhour Prize for Courage.
Sources: Investopedia, Forbes, Britannica.