Surprise Punt on Wall Street Could Cost Billionaire $750m
Legendary British currency trader is estimated to be sitting on paper losses of $750m (£370m) after his punt on Bear Stearns
Some you win, some you lose. That's speculation. And there aren't many bigger speculators out there than Bahamas-based Joe "the Boxer" Lewis, the legendary British currency trader who is estimated to be sitting on paper losses of $750m (£370m) after his counter-intuitive punt on Bear Stearns.
Among its "big five" investment banking peer group on Wall Street, Bear Stearns was well known as having the largest exposure to sub-prime mortgages. When the US housing market began to tumble, its shares quickly followed. Despite the stock having lost a quarter of its value in four months, Lewis invested £425m to take an 8% stake last September. It was a bold move to call the bottom of the sub-prime crisis, from one of the canniest and most influential traders in the world. But he could not have been more wrong.
For a time Lewis appeared to the vanguard for a band of Middle Eastern and Asian sovereign wealth funds who rode to the rescue of Wall Street by providing much-needed liquidity. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Kuwait Investment Authority ploughed $7.5bn into Citigroup, Singapore's GIC fund invested $11bn into UBS and China's investment arm put $5bn into Merrill Lynch as the credit crunch began to bite in the autumn.
As banking stocks were hammered yesterday in the wake of Bear Stearns' insolvency, all those investments will be worth significantly less.
Few will feel much sympathy for Lewis, who will always be remembered for teaming up with a pack of speculators, including George Soros, to bet on the pound crashing out of the European exchange rate mechanism - which it did. Black Wednesday, in 1992, cost the Treasury an estimated £3.4bn and generated fortunes for the pack. Some even maintain the rags-to-riches British tax exile scooped more than Soros.
Lewis,70, conducts operations from his Bahamas mansion, with currency trading screens in almost every room. He guards his privacy meticulously.
"He doesn't like to talk to people," his daughter Vivienne once explained. "It aggravates him."
Among its "big five" investment banking peer group on Wall Street, Bear Stearns was well known as having the largest exposure to sub-prime mortgages. When the US housing market began to tumble, its shares quickly followed. Despite the stock having lost a quarter of its value in four months, Lewis invested £425m to take an 8% stake last September. It was a bold move to call the bottom of the sub-prime crisis, from one of the canniest and most influential traders in the world. But he could not have been more wrong.
For a time Lewis appeared to the vanguard for a band of Middle Eastern and Asian sovereign wealth funds who rode to the rescue of Wall Street by providing much-needed liquidity. Abu Dhabi Investment Authority and Kuwait Investment Authority ploughed $7.5bn into Citigroup, Singapore's GIC fund invested $11bn into UBS and China's investment arm put $5bn into Merrill Lynch as the credit crunch began to bite in the autumn.
As banking stocks were hammered yesterday in the wake of Bear Stearns' insolvency, all those investments will be worth significantly less.
Few will feel much sympathy for Lewis, who will always be remembered for teaming up with a pack of speculators, including George Soros, to bet on the pound crashing out of the European exchange rate mechanism - which it did. Black Wednesday, in 1992, cost the Treasury an estimated £3.4bn and generated fortunes for the pack. Some even maintain the rags-to-riches British tax exile scooped more than Soros.
Lewis,70, conducts operations from his Bahamas mansion, with currency trading screens in almost every room. He guards his privacy meticulously.
"He doesn't like to talk to people," his daughter Vivienne once explained. "It aggravates him."
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