Here’s a look at the life of John Paulson, hedge fund manager and founder of Paulson & Co.
Personal:
Birth date: December 14, 1955
Birth place: Queens, New York
Birth name: John Alfred Paulson
Father: Alfred Paulson
Mother: Jacqueline (Boklan) Paulson
Marriage: Jenny (Zaharia) Paulson (2000-present)
Children: Giselle; Danielle
Education: New York University, B.S., Finance, 1978; Harvard Business School, M.B.A., 1980
Other Facts:
Hedge fund manager and self-made billionaire.
Founder, president and portfolio manager, Paulson & Company, Inc.
Became a billionaire in 2007 by shorting subprime mortgage securities after the housing crash.
Serves on the boards of many organizations, including the board of trustees of New York University and the board of trustees of the Central Park Conservancy.
Timeline:
1980-1982 – Consultant, Boston Consulting Group, a management consulting firm.
1982-1984 – Associate with Odyssey Partners.
1984-1988 – Managing director of mergers and acquisitions, Bear Stearns Companies, Inc.
1988-1994 – General partner with arbitrage firm Gruss Partners.
July 1994 – Paulson & Company, Inc. is established.
2009 – Paulson’s ability to foresee financial crisis and profit from the 2007 housing market crash is explained in Greg Zuckerman’s book, “The Greatest Trade Ever Made.”
2009-2011 – Paulson’s charitable donations include $15 million to the Center for Responsible Lending, $20 million to New York University’s Stern School of Business and $15 million to build a maternity hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, his father’s homeland.
2010 – Paulson’s $4.9 billion take-home salary sets a record for hedge fund industry earnings.
2011 – His fortune declines by $3 billion in 2011 after making bad trades. Paulson invests personal wealth in gold and earns $3.1 billion from 2010-2011.
October 23, 2012 – Donates $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy.
June 3, 2015 – Harvard announces that Paulson is donating $400 million to endow the engineering school, which will be renamed the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. It is the largest single gift in Harvard University’s history.
August 5, 2016 – Is announced as one of Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump‘s economic advisers. Trump is elected president on November 8, 2016.
June 2017 – Joins the board of directors of Valeant Pharmaceuticals.
March 5, 2019 – Forbes lists Paulson, with a net worth of $5 billion, as tied for number 355 on its annual World’s Billionaires list.
