Soros, George (sôr`ōs), 1930–, American stock trader and philanthropist, b. Budapest, Hungary, as George Schwartz. He studied under Sir Karl Popper Popper, Sir Karl Raimund, 1902–94, Anglo-Austrian philosopher, b. Vienna. He became familiar with the Vienna circle of logical positivists (see logical positivism ) while a student at the Univ. of Vienna (Ph.D., 1928). He taught at Canterbury Univ.
..... Click the link for more information. at the London School of Economics (grad. 1952). He emigrated from Hungary to Great Britain (1947) and then to the United States (1956). Soros mostly worked as a financial analyst, and in 1969 he founded the first of his offshore hedge funds hedge fund, in finance, a highly speculative, largely unregulated investment device. Originating in the 1950s, the funds "hedge" by offsetting "short" positions (borrowing a security and then selling it at a higher price before repaying the lender) against "long"
..... Click the link for more information. . His Quantum funds grew in value tremendously, partly through speculation speculation, practice of engaging in business in order to make quick profits from fluctuations in prices, as opposed to the practice of investing in a productive enterprise in order to share in its earnings.
..... Click the link for more information. in foreign currency. He earned (1992) $1 billion on the fall of the British pound and notoriety as "the man who broke the Bank of England." In the late 1990s, financial analysts and government officials charged that this speculation had helped destabilize Asian and Latin American national economies. His reputation for financial acumen was tarnished somewhat, however, when the value of the funds fell 20% in early 2000.

As president of the Soros Management Fund, he has used his wealth to create a network of wealthy foundations foundation, institution through which private wealth is contributed and distributed for public purpose. Foundations have existed since Greek and Roman times, when they honored deities.
..... Click the link for more information. , many of which are intended to aid former Communist countries in creating the kind of anti-Marxist "open society" advocated by Popper. Others fund health initiatives and aid immigrants in the United States. He also established (1991) the Central European Univ., based in Budapest. In the United States, he has funded political campaigns, most notably by organizations opposed to President George W. Bush. Soros has written several books, including Opening the Soviet System (1990; rev. ed. 1991), The Alchemy of Finance (1994), The Crisis of Global Capitalism (1998), Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism (2000), and The Bubble of American Supremacy: Correcting the Misuse of American Power (2003).

Bibliography

See his autobiography Soros on Soros (with B. Wien and K. Koenen, 1995); biographies by R. Slater (1995) and M. T. Kaufman (2002).

Soros, George

(born Aug. 12, 1930, Budapest, Hung.) Hungarian-U.S. financier. He left his native Hungary in 1944 and settled in London in 1947, where he studied and joined a merchant bank. He moved to New York City in 1956 and initially worked as an analyst of European securities. By 1979 his daring investments and currency speculation brought large profits, some of which he used to found Soros Foundations, dedicated to creating open societies in many eastern European countries and Russia. Other Soros programs have been dedicated to enlarging public debate on a wide range of controversial issues. In 1992 he reached new heights of wealth, making a profit of about $1 billion when Britain devalued the pound sterling, but in 1998 he suffered large losses from currency speculation in Russia.