6 billion USD making him the 26th wealthiest person on the Forbes 400, and the 5th wealthiest hedge fund manager as of February 2017
On January 30, 2016, Icahn donated $1 million for US veterans groups at a Des Moines, Iowa, fundraiser held by Donald Trump
In December 2015 Icahn made a qualifying offer to purchase the auto-parts and maintenance chain Pep Boys for $15
In October 2014, Icahn took a stake in Canadian energy company Talisman Energy
He also made large contributions to Mount Sinai Hospital, New York, of which he is a trustee, which in return not only named a building the Icahn Medical Institute designed by Davis Brody Bond, but also, in 2013, renamed the Mount Sinai School of Medicine as the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
In October 2012, Icahn purchased a 10% stake in Netflix
On March 15, 2011, Mentor's board issued a strong warning to its shareholders against a proxy action by Icahn
In 2010, Icahn joined the Giving Pledge list, pledging to give away more than half his fortune, yet has not decided on the specific beneficiaries
In April 2009, Icahn engaged in a proxy battle for Amylin
In September/October 2008 Icahn was involved in the rejected attempted purchase of Imclone by Bristol Myers Squibb and in the eventual sale of Imclone to Eli Lilly and Company in an all-cash deal valued at $6
Beginning in 2007, Icahn gradually increased his stake in biotechnology company Biogen
In 2006, he was honored with the 100 Women in Hedge Funds Effecting Change Award for his outstanding contributions to improving education
In 2005, XO Holding announced its intention to sell the wired part of its business for $700 million to its majority shareholder and chairman Icahn; the money would be used to pay back its debts and to buy back its preferred stock for about $600 million from Icahn
Having bred more than 140 stakes horses, in 2004 Icahn shut down Foxfield, selling all his mares and weanlings without reserve at the Keeneland Sales November breeding stock auction
He was also named Guardian Angel 2001 Man of the Year
In 1999, Icahn married his longtime assistant and former broker, Gail Golden
They separated in 1993 and divorced in 1999 after years of litigation during which Liba sought to invalidate a prenuptial agreement she had signed prior to their marriage, claiming duress as she was pregnant at the time
In 1992, Foxfield ended its racing operation and became a commercial breeder
In 1991, he sold TWA's London routes to American Airlines for $445 million
Icahn's Meadow Star won the 1990 Breeders' Cup Juvenile Fillies and was voted the Eclipse Award for Outstanding Two-Year-Old Filly
" In 1988, Icahn took TWA private, gaining a personal profit of $469 million, and leaving TWA with a debt of $540 million
In 1985 Icahn established Foxfield Thoroughbreds, a horse breeding operation
In the 1980s Icahn developed a reputation as a "corporate raider" after profiting from the hostile takeover and asset stripping of the American airline TWA
In 1979, Icahn married Liba Trejbal, a ballerina from the former Czechoslovakia
In 1978, he began taking controlling positions in individual companies
Icahn began his career on Wall Street as a stockbroker in 1961; in 1968, he formed Icahn & Co
Carl graduated from Princeton University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in philosophy in 1957 and then entered New York University School of Medicine, but he dropped out after two years to join the army reserves
Carl Celian Icahn (born February 16, 1936) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist
In July 2017, Soros was elected an Honorary Fellow of the British Academy (HonFBA), the United Kingdom's national academy for the humanities and social sciences
A Russian intergovernmental letter released in December 2015 stated that Soros' charities were "forming a perverted perception of history and making ideological directives, alien to Russian ideology, popular
In January 2014, Soros was ranked number 1 in LCH Investments list of top 20 managers having posting gains of almost $42 billion since the launch of his Quantum Endowment Fund in 1973
In October 2013, Soros donated $25,000 to Ready for Hillary, becoming a co-chairman of the super PAC's national finance committee
On September 27, 2012, Soros announced that he was donating $1 million to the super PAC backing President Barack Obama's reelection Priorities USA Action
In October 2011, Soros drafted an open letter entitled "As concerned Europeans we urge Eurozone leaders to unite," in which he calls for a stronger economic government for Europe using federal means (Common EU treasury, common fiscal supervision, etc
In October 2010, Soros donated $1 million to support California's Proposition 19
In February 2009, Soros said the world financial system had in effect disintegrated, adding that there was no prospect of a near-term resolution to the crisis
In 2008, he was inducted into Institutional Investors Alpha's Hedge Fund Manager Hall of Fame along with David Swensen, Louis Bacon, Steven Cohen, Kenneth Griffin, Paul Tudor Jones, Seth Klarman, Michael Steinhardt, Jack Nash, James Simmons, Alfred Jones, Leon Levy, Julian Roberston, and Bruce Kovner
Time magazine in 2007 cited two specific projects—$100 million toward Internet infrastructure for regional Russian universities, and $50 million for the Millennium Promise to eradicate extreme poverty in Africa—noting that Soros had given $742 million to projects in the U
In September 2006 Soros pledged $50 million to the Millennium Promise, led by economist Jeffrey Sachs to provide educational, agricultural, and medical aid to help villages in Africa enduring poverty
In November 2005, Soros said: "My personal opinion is there's no alternative but to give Kosovo independence
On September 28, 2004, he dedicated more money to the campaign and kicked off his own multistate tour with a speech: Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush delivered at the National Press Club in Washington, D
In 2003 former Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker wrote in the foreword of Soros's book The Alchemy of Finance:George Soros has made his mark as an enormously successful speculator, wise enough to largely withdraw when still way ahead of the game
According to National Review Online the Open Society Institute gave $20,000 in September 2002 to the Defense Committee of Lynne Stewart, the lawyer who has defended controversial, poor, and often unpopular defendants in court and was sentenced to 2⅓ years in prison for "providing material support for a terrorist conspiracy" via a press conference for a client
He received the Yale International Center for Finance Award from the Yale School of Management in 2000 as well as an honorary degree in economics from the University of Bologna in 1995, the oldest university in the world
)In 1999, economiSt Paul Krugman was critical of Soros's effect on financial markets
In 1998's The Crisis of Global Capitalism: Open Society Endangered Soros explained his role in the crisis as follows:The financial crisis that originated in Thailand in 1997 was particularly unnerving because of its scope and severity
" In 1997, Soros closed his foundation in Belarus after it was fined $3 million by the government for "tax and currency violations
United when the league was founded in 1995, but the group lost these rights in 2000
" In 1994, Soros delivered a speech in which he reported that he had offered to help his mother, a member of the Hemlock Society, commit suicide
On October 26, 1992, The Times quoted Soros as saying: "Our total position by Black Wednesday had to be worth almost $10 billion
Lenders began to make more money available to more people in the 1990s to buy houses
In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (COB—the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros's transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading
In 1988, Soros was contacted by a French financier named Georges Pébereau who asked him to participate in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large number of shares in Société Générale, a leading French bank that was part of a privatization program (something instituted by the new government under Jacques Chirac)
I did it first in The Alchemy of Finance (in 1987), then in The Crisis of Global Capitalism (in 1998), and now in this book
Soros played a role in the peaceful transition from communism to democracy in Hungary (1984–89) and provided a substantial endowment to Central European University in Budapest
They had three children:In 1983, George Soros married Susan Weber, twenty-five years his junior
By 1981 the fund had grown to $400m, and then a 22% loss in that year and substantial redemptions by some of the investors reduced it to $200m
Soros received honorary doctoral degrees from the New School for Social Research (New York), the University of Oxford in 1980, the Corvinus University of Budapest, and Yale University in 1991
" From 1979, as an advocate of 'open societies', Soros financially supported dissidents including Poland's Solidarity movement, Charter 77 in Czechoslovakia and Andrei Sakharov in the Soviet Union
It represented Kosovo, the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (under military occupation by Turkey since 1974), Somaliland and the Polisario Front of Western Sahara
Since its inception in 1973, the fund has generated $40 billion
Soros has been active as a philanthropist since the 1970s, when he began providing funds to help black students attend the University of Cape Town in apartheid South Africa, and began funding dissident movements behind the Iron Curtain
In 1969 Soros set up the Double Eagle hedge fund with $4m of investors' capital including $250,000 of his own money
In 1966 he started a fund with $100,000 of the firm's money to experiment with his trading strategies
He spent the years from 1963 to 1966 with his main focus on the revision of his philosophy dissertation
In 1954, Soros began his financial career at the merchant bank Singer & Friedlander of London
Soros earned a Bachelor of Science in philosophy in 1951, and a Master of Science in philosophy in 1954, both from the London School of Economics
In 1947, Soros immigrated to England and became a student at the London School of Economics
In 1945, Soros survived the Siege of Budapest in which Soviet and German forces fought house to house through the city
Tivadar not only saved his immediate family but also many other Hungarian Jews, and George would later write that 1944 had been "the happiest [year] of his life," for it had given him the opportunity to witness his father's heroism
In 1936 Soros's family changed their name from the German-Jewish Schwartz to Soros, as protective camouflage in increasingly antisemitic Hungary
George Soros, Hon FBA (/ˈsɔːroʊs/, /ˈsɔːrɒs/; Hungarian: Soros György, pronounced [ˈʃoroʃ ˈɟørɟ]; born György Schwartz, August 12, 1930) is a Hungarian-American investor, business magnate, philanthropist, political activist and author
