Israel Englander

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Israel Alexander Englander
Born1948 (1948) (age 76)[1]
New York City, U.S.[1]
Other namesIzzy Englander
EducationNew York University (BS)
Occupations
Known forFounder and CEO, Millennium Management
SpouseCaryl Schechter
Children3

Israel “Izzy” Englander (born 1948) is an American billionaire hedge fund manager.[2] In 1989, he founded his hedge fund, Millennium Management, with Ronald Shear. The fund was started with US$35 million, and as of 2024 had US$61.1 billion in assets under management.[3]

As of March 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$11.8 billion.[4]

Early life and education[edit]

Israel "Izzy" Englander was born in 1948 and was raised in a Polish-Jewish family in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn.[1] He was raised in a religious home and attended yeshiva.[1]

His father's entire family was killed in the Holocaust.[1] His Polish parents were deported to a Soviet labor camp after the war, where Englander's two older sisters were born. They then immigrated to the United States in 1947.

Always interested in the stock market, Englander began trading stocks while in high school. During college, he interned at Oppenheimer & Co. (where his future brother-in-law, Jack Nash, would eventually become president and chairman) and at the New York Stock Exchange. In 1970, he graduated from New York University with a B.S. in finance.[2][1] His first full-time job was with the Wall Street firm Kaufmann, Alsberg & Co. He later enrolled in New York University's MBA program in the evenings but never completed the degree.[2][1]

Investment career[edit]

Early business career[edit]

At Kaufmann Alsberg, Englander focused on trading convertible securities and options. When the American Stock Exchange began to list options, he purchased a seat on the exchange. In 1977, he formed a floor brokerage house, I.A. Englander & Co.[5]

In 1985, Englander and his partner John Mulheren Jr., started an investment firm called Jamie Securities Co. with a $75 million investment from the Belzberg family of Canada. Mulheren had previously worked as a trader for Ivan Boesky. In February 1988, when Boesky was later convicted of insider trading, and agreed to testify against Mulheren in a plea deal to receive a lesser sentence,[1] Mulheren was arrested for carrying a loaded rifle[6] and convicted of orchestrating illegal stock trades for Boesky, but the ruling was later overturned. Although Englander was never implicated in the matter in any way whatsoever, Jamie Securities was dissolved in 1988 due to the negative publicity in the aftermath of Mulheren's situation.[1]

Millennium Management[edit]

In 1989, Englander started Millennium Management with Ronald Shear—whom he knew from his time at the American Stock Exchange—with $35 million[7] in seed money (including $5 million from Englander himself and another $2 million from the Belzberg family). The firm got off to a rough start and Shear left in 1990.[1] Since then, Englander has grown Millennium into a $39.2 billion (under management) enterprise by using investment strategies like statistical arbitrage (quantitative analysis); fundamental long-short pairing; merger arbitrage (taking advantage of price differentials between a buy-out target company's stock price and bid price) and convertible arbitrage (taking advantage of price differentials between a company's stock price and convertible bond or stock warrant price).[1] At any given time, Millennium holds thousands of investment positions and makes over 2 million trades on an average day.[7] At the end of 2019, Millennium had 2,900 employees in more than 12 offices in the United States, Europe and Asia.[7][8]

Personal life[edit]

Englander is married to Caryl (née Schechter) Englander. They have three children.[2][9] In 2014, he bought a duplex apartment at New York City's Park Avenue for US$71.3 million, a record price for a Manhattan co-op.[10][11]

In 2022, he acquired a $20 million apartment in Paris, formerly owned by the Bettencourt family, founding family of L'Oréal.[12]

Wealth and philanthropy[edit]

In 2006, the Englander Foundation, headed by Englander and his wife, donated $20 million to mostly Jewish organizations and schools.[1] Englander serves on the board of Weill Cornell Medical College[13] and the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.[14] In March 2019, he was named one of the highest-earning hedge fund managers and traders by Forbes.[15]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Institutional Investor: "Izzy Englander's Growth Strategy for Millennium" by Stephen Taub May 20, 2009
  2. ^ a b c d "Israel Englander". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2020-05-31. Retrieved 2020-10-18.
  3. ^ "Operating System". Millennium Management, LLC. 22 January 2024. Retrieved 22 January 2024.
  4. ^ "Forbes profile: Israel Englander". Forbes. Retrieved 10 March 2024.
  5. ^ "Company history". I.A. Englander website. March 23, 2013. Archived from the original on October 22, 2019. Retrieved October 27, 2020.
  6. ^ Stewart, James B. (September 1992). Den of Thieves. New York: Simon and Schuster. pp. 421–428. ISBN 978-0-671-79227-5. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Knab, Matthias (19 Dec 2009). "Israel A. Englander" (transcript). Opalesque TV. Opalesque Group. Archived from the original on 16 April 2014. Retrieved 5 April 2014.
  8. ^ "Millennium Management". Archived from the original on 2017-02-20.
  9. ^ New York Times: "Paid Notice: Deaths SCHECHTER, SAMUEL" Archived 2016-08-19 at the Wayback Machine September 16, 1998
  10. ^ "Millennium's Englander Buys $71.3 Million Manhattan Co-Op". Bloomberg News. 2 September 2014. Archived from the original on 2016-03-06.
  11. ^ "Home | Atlantic Beach Historical Society". Atlantic Beach. Archived from the original on 2020-07-12. Retrieved 2020-07-14.
  12. ^ Bensoussan, David (2022-12-28). "Les Bettencourt vendent un appartement parisien à 20 millions d'euros". Challenges (in French). Retrieved 2023-01-08.
  13. ^ "Weill Cornell Medical College". Archived from the original on 2013-09-05.
  14. ^ "Our Leadership - Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty". www.metcouncil.org. Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2016-06-07.
  15. ^ Vardi, Nathan. "The Highest-Earning Hedge Fund Managers And Traders". Forbes. Archived from the original on 2019-03-30. Retrieved 2020-06-20.

External links[edit]