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At 5.30 p.m. (10.30 p.m. in London) on September 15, 1992,
George Soros was sitting in his Manhattan office, perched on the 33rd
floor of a mirrored skyscraper overlooking Central Park. Confident that
sterling could not stay in the Exchange Rate Mechanism, Soros instructed
his head trader, Stanley Druckenmiller, to sell $10 billion-worth of
sterling, taking a giant gamble that it would have to be devalued
overnight.
(1 —) Next morning he was woken at 7 a.m. by a call from
Druckenmiller telling him he had just made $958m. Later he learned he
had made further gains by sliding with the French authorities against
speculators attacking the franc. All in all, from the events of what became
known as Black Wednesday', he had made close to $2 billion.
Attractive, with thick wavy grey hair, apple cheeks and
appraising eyes behind aviator glasses, Soros bears none of the
accoutrements of a tycoon. (2 ——) „I have a very, very abstract mind he
says, and as a result I don't really take pleasure in material possessions. If
I were a different person I’d buy old masters, but I don’t like to collect.”
Born in 1930 in Budapest he was the beloved younger son of a
Hungarian Jewish lawyer, Trivadar, who had been a prisoner of war in
Siberia between 1917 and 1921. (3---) Soros often credits his success as a
trader to the inflated sense of self his father gave him.
In 1947 Soros, aged 17, escaped the communist regime, leaving
his parents behind in Hungary and emigrating to London. His only source
of income was money given him by an aunt who had already fled to
Florida. It was a desperately lonely period: he made few friend, partly
because he couldn't speak the language properly, partly because he had
no money. (4——) In 1949 he became a student of economics at the
London School of Economics and then, later, in 1956, aged 26, he moved
to New York with $5000, his share of the profit he had made on £1000
given to him by a relative to invest. Then in 1957 George's parents also
left Hungary for the States but, apart from one disastrous attempt to open
an espresso stand on Coney Island, they did not work and George had to
support them. He was still poor and when his father developed cancer in
the early 1960s George was forced to ask the husband of a friend to help
him find a surgeon who would treat him free of charge.
The turning point came in 1963. He was hired by Arnhold and S.
Bleichroeder to advise American institutions on their European
investments. (5 .—) It was then that he set up the Soros Fund which, by
the late 1970s, was already beginning to make large Profits. (6 ----- )
Since 1979, Soros, a native Hungarian, has ploughed more than $ l00m
of his speculation profits into funding an 18-strong network of
"foundations spanning central and Eastern Europe and Russia. (7---) In
The Man Who Broke the Pound', a Thames Television documentary
shown in December, said the money he had made represented the
equivalent of £12 for every man, woman and child in Britain, who, he
said, really ought to have contributed it to the transformation of eastern
Europe. „But I am happy to do it for them.“
1. Match the following words with a definition on the right.
1.benefactor
2. a speculator
3. to devalue
4.to hire
someone
5. to gamble
6. a trader
7. a tycoon
a) to employ someone
b) a businessman with great wealth and power
c) a person who helps other people by giving money
d) a person who buys and sells goods
e) someone who tries to make money by taking
business risks
f) to reduce the value of something (especially money)
g) to take a risk in the hope of gaining something
2. The following sentences have been removed from the article. Read
the article again and put each sentence in the correct numbered gap.
There is one extra sentence which you do not need to use.
A One of his strongest memories is of being envious of the cat
because it got sardines for breakfast and he did not.
B Its initial investment of $4.8m has grown to nearly $6 billion, or
third of which is the personal stake of Soros.
C Out of the $250m he plans to donate in the next two years,$100m
has gone to set up an International Foundation for Science in Russia and
$50m to the Humanitarian Initiative in Bosnia.
D His simple $60 watch and patterned tie could have been picked up
at an airport shop.
E In 1978 he met Susan Weber, a 22 year-old art history documentary
maker, at a dinner party.
F He and his elder brother were doted on by their parents, particularly
by their father, who worked very little when he came back from the war,
spending most of his time with his sons.
G That evening, in his Fifth Avenue apartment, he enjoyed a simple
supper, cooked by his French chef, before retiring to bed.
H Some time later, in 1973, he parted company with his employers.
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