George Soros Was Long The Pound But Don't Worry, He Still Made Money: Spokesman

What, you were expecting it to go another way?

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Updated:: Jan 14, 2019
Original:: Jun 27, 2016

(Getty Images) — Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images

Hedge fund manager George Soros famously shorted the pound sterling in 1992 on the expectation that it would be devalued, scoring a profit of about £1 billion and earning the nickname "The Man Who Broke The Bank Of England." As in, he knows a little something about making prudent bets about the precarious position of the UK currency and then further bringing it to its knees and beating it with a tire iron. So while you might have thought that in the lead up to the Brexit, which Soros was vehemently against and which he predicted will make everyone poorer with only speculators winning, he would have built a position that hedged the intelligence of those casting votes, you would've thought wrong!

For Soros, not only was he not short the pound, a spokesman said Monday that the 85-year old bearish investor was long the pound.

But worry not.

“However, because of his generally bearish outlook on world markets, Mr. Soros did profit from other investments,” the spokesman said.

You hear that? That's the sound of us all breathing easy.

OMG! Soros bet wrong on pound despite warnings of disaster [NYP]

(Getty Images)

Really, it'd make that whole thing look like child's play.

(Getty Images)

Let him explain.

Are there many advantages to being born the son or daughter of a billionaire many times over? Sure. Financial security. Unparalleled opportunities. World is your oyster type stuff. But there's also a dark side that few people ever see or talk about, which can make being astonishingly wealthy by virtue of birth all the more isolating and hard. Today, however, in an effort to show kids born into immense privilege that YOU ARE NOT ALONE, the Times has run a profile of Alexander Soros, son of George, which examines the struggles he faced in coming to terms with being rich. They included: Never getting to live in a McMansion. Alex Soros spent his youth padding around a Charles A. Platt-designed 14-room house on a sprawling country estate in Katonah, N.Y. His mother, Susan Weber Soros, now divorced from his father, founded the Bard Graduate Center for the decorative arts and adorned the house with Sargents and Cassatts. Their place in the city was a duplex at 1060 Fifth Avenue. While his parents worked, he spent much of his time with his younger brother, Gregory, now 23 and pursuing a career as an artist; his nanny, Ping, from China; and the staff...Mr. Soros was acutely aware that he lived in a privileged bubble, and sometimes dreamed of living in a subdivision, where he could play football in the street with other boys. “As a kid, all you want to be is normal,” he said. “When all you’re being fed is vichyssoise, you want to eat Big Macs like everyone else.” Gaining weight. After King Low Heywood Thomas, a prep school in Stamford, Conn., he attended New York University, where he tried to come to grips with expectations that came with his last name. For a period, he brooded, and gained weight. Not being seen as an intellectual. “Alex sought anonymity,” said Adam Braun, a former roommate. “He wanted to be known as the intellectual, not the son of the financier.” Alex hated small talk, Mr. Braun added, and he would ditch parties early to go home and curl up with his Baudrillard. Being seen as a "party-boy" who posted pictures on Facebook with captions like “chilling at dad’s house in Southampton, drinking 40s while cruising on the family boat, and making out with the babes," after posting pictures on Facebook with captions like “chilling at dad’s house in Southampton, drinking 40s while cruising on the family boat, and making out with the babes.” ...after graduation, he came out of his shell and started to socialize. He made new friends, some of whom were nightclub habitués looking to trade on his name, he said. It was around that time that Facebook pictures [“chilling at dad’s house in Southampton, drinking 40s while cruising on the family boat, and making out with the babes"] of him popped up. He was shocked to be portrayed as another helium-weight Hamptons party boy swilling away his trust fund. “I became this caricature,” he said. Ultimately, after "wrestling with his moneyed upbringing," Soros came to grips with who he is and what he's worth, monetarily-speaking. He was born rich and he's OK with that. Mr. Soros, now 26, is taking the stage on his own terms, though in a direction his father clearly approves: philanthropy. Last fall, while pursing his Ph.D. in history at Berkeley, the younger Mr. Soros started the Alexander Soros Foundation. Its stated mission is to promote social justice and human rights...These days, he divides the bulk of his time between Berkeley and New York. Alex admits that his lifestyle is wildly at odds with that of most graduate students. He has a house in North Berkeley, a two-bedroom apartment near Astor Place in Manhattan and a place in South Kensington, London. He collects art by Otto Dix and George Grosz, and has “a couple of Magrittes,” he said. He has also given up on the idea that he can escape public scrutiny. His trip to Florianópolis, a Brazilian island getaway, with buddies a couple of years ago somehow landed on Page Six, which had him partying alongside the actor Stephen Dorff (“I’ve never even met Stephen Dorff,” he said). “I live well,” he told the Times. “I try to stay reasonable, but it’s very hard to say what is reasonable. There’s not a how-to book. In a way, if you try to live quote-unquote normal, you’re being disingenuous.” Making Good On The Family Name [NYT]

If you were to have told me in August 2011 that a story about George Soros's love life involving women 60 years his junior, "on again, off again non-exclusive relationships," dream apartments, broken promises, and broken lamps would still be unfolding 19 months later and getting better at each turn I would have told you to check yourself. And yet it has! With an amazing update that involves George Soros allegedly being assaulted with the light fixture he allegedly assaulted his non-exclusive girlfriend with and an official reminder that George Soros has had sex with more women by 9AM than most people have in their entire lives.