George Soros[a]HonFBA (born György Schwartz on August 12, 1930)[1][2] is a Hungarian-American[b] businessman, investor, and philanthropist.[7][8] As of October 2023[update], he had a net worth of US$6.7 billion,[9][10] having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundations,[11] of which $15 billion has already been distributed, representing 64% of his original fortune. Forbes called Soros the "most generous giver" (in terms of percentage of net worth).[12] He is a resident of New York.[13]
Soros started his career working in British and American merchant banks, before setting up his first hedge fund, Double Eagle, in 1969.[17] Profits from this fund provided the seed money for Soros Fund Management, his second hedge fund, in 1970. Double Eagle was renamed Quantum Fund and was the principal firm Soros advised. At its founding, Quantum Fund had $12 million in assets under management, and as of 2011[update] it had $25 billion, the majority of Soros's overall net worth.[18]
Soros supports progressive and liberal political causes, to which he dispenses donations through the Open Society Foundations.[21] Between 1979 and 2011, he donated more than $11 billion to various philanthropic causes;[22][23] by 2017, his donations "on civil initiatives to reduce poverty and increase transparency, and on scholarships and universities around the world" totaled $12 billion.[24] He influenced the fall of communism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s and early 1990s,[25] and provided one of Europe's largest higher education endowments to the Central European University in his Hungarian hometown.[26]
^Weiss, Gary; Schares, Gail E.; Smith, Geri; Dwyer, Paul; Sandler, Neal; Pennar, Karen (August 22, 1993). "The Man Who Moves Markets". Bloomberg Businessweek. Archived from the original on December 22, 2015. Retrieved December 15, 2015.
^"George Soros". Forbes.com. Archived from the original on March 2, 2020. Retrieved June 25, 2021.
^"Bloomberg Billionaires". Bloomberg.com. Archived from the original on April 16, 2016. Retrieved February 6, 2015. Note that this site is updated daily.
^"George Soros". Open Society Foundations. Archived from the original on October 16, 2012. Retrieved December 13, 2018.
^Ferguson, Niall; Schlefer, Jonathan (September 9, 2009). "Who Broke the Bank of England?". Harvard Business School BGIE Unit Case No. 709-026. SSRN1485674.
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