The LSE Directory / Hedge fund managers
George Soros (born György Schwartz, 1930, Budapest, Hungary) is one of the most famous macro investors in history and the founder of Soros Fund Management, through which he managed the Quantum Fund. Soros developed the philosophical theory of reflexivity, the idea that market participants' biased perceptions create self-reinforcing feedback loops that influence fundamentals, making markets inherently unstable rather than self-correcting, which he applied as both an investment framework and a philosophy of knowledge. His most famous trade occurred in September 1992: Soros shorted sterling against the Deutsche Mark ahead of the UK's forced exit from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (ERM), profiting approximately $1-2 billion on 'Black Wednesday' (16 September 1992) and earning the phrase 'the man who broke the Bank of England'. The Quantum Fund averaged approximately 30% annual returns from 1970 to 2000. In 2011 Soros returned outside investors' capital and converted Quantum into a family office. He transferred management to his son Alexander Soros in 2023. He is also one of history's most prolific philanthropists via the Open Society Foundations.
