George Soros: Famous or Infamous

George Soros has been a lightning rod for criticism. From his bold financial maneuvers to his outspoken politics, Soros has become a household name, for good or ill.

The Man Who Broke the Bank of England

In 1992, Soros made one of the biggest bets of his career based on how the UK’s pound sterling was valued in the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. The mechanism was designed in 1979 to reduce exchange rate variability throughout Europe.

Soros believed the mechanism’s rate for the pound sterling was badly out of alignment. The UK was experiencing inflation three times that of Germany, and interest rates in Britain had reached the point at which they had begun to harm asset prices.

It was Stanley Druckenmiller, then a trader working for Soros, who first spotted the opportunity created by the faulty European Exchange Rate Mechanism. Soros pushed him to bet the farm. On September 16, 1992, the Quantum Fund borrowed £5 billion and quickly traded the currency for German marks.

With the massive trade, Soros intended to prove that the Bank of England couldn’t maintain the value of the pound. Soros was correct. The trade forced the British government to spend a staggering £27 billion in one day to support the pound. Its efforts failed, and the UK eventually withdrew from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism, which badly devalued the pound sterling.

That devaluation was exactly the effect Soros and the Quantum Fund were betting on. The fund sold short more than $10 billion worth of pounds sterling. Those trades made the fund more than $1 billion in profits. In addition, its trades in the Italian lira and Swedish kroner earned it another billion dollars.

In the year he broke the Bank of England, Soros personally earned $650 million.

The Brazilian Soap Opera Star

George Soros married his third wife, 42-year-old Tamiko Bolton, in 2013. His first and second marriages lasted twenty three and eighteen years, respectively.

But the details of his romantic life became a public matter in 2011, when ex-girlfriend Adriana Ferreyr filed a $50 million lawsuit against him, claiming fraud, harassment, emotional distress, assault and battery. The former soap-opera actress had dated Soros for five years.

In 2014, Soros was able to get most of the suit dismissed, with the exception of the assault-and-battery charge. Ironically, Ferreyr allegedly assaulted Soros and his lawyer during 2014 depositions after they refused to allow the proceedings to be videotaped.

At one point, Soros reportedly offered Ferreyr $6.7 million to drop the suit. Ferreyr’s lawyer would later sue her for failing to agree to that settlement. She would go through two more sets of lawyers, and was representing herself in the suit against Soros when the Manhattan Supreme Court dismissed it in February of 2015.

Polarized Politics

Because of his outspoken political views, Soros has become a magnet for attention from both the political left and right within the U.S. Many on the left view him as a wealthy old investor who openly supports their views, while many on the right believe that he is secretly behind many liberal causes, even going so far as to believe that he is a “puppet master” controlling large aspects of the political and economic worlds.

“What makes the Soros thing interesting is that most of the conspiracy theories about rich people tend to be made by people on the left about people on the right,” remarked Joe Uscinski, a professor of political science at the University of Miami. A spokesman for Soros Fund Management once indicated that “Soros first found himself in the crosshairs of the conservative propaganda machine when he publicly expressed opposition to the march to war in Iraq.” Whatever the truth about Soros’ political involvement really is, it’s likely he will remain a highly polarizing figure.