Ivan Boesky | |
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Born | March 6, 1937 Detroit, Michigan |
Ivan Frederick Boesky (born March 6, 1937) is an American businessman who is notable for his prominent role in a Wall Street insider trading scandal that occurred in the United States in the mid-1980s.
Boesky was born in Detroit, Michigan to a Jewish family.[1] He attended the Cranbrook Kingswood School in Bloomfield Hills before graduating from Detroit's Mumford High School. He then attended courses at Wayne State University, Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan. he was admitted to the Detroit College of Law, which allowed him to enroll despite having no undergraduate college degree. He graduated from the Detroit College of Law in 1965.[2].[3] In the 1980s, he served as an Adjunct Professor at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business and at New York University's Graduate School of Business.[4]
By 1986, Boesky had become an arbitrageur who had amassed a fortune of more than US$200 million by betting on corporate takeovers. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission investigated him for making investments based on tips received from corporate insiders. These stock acquisitions were sometimes brazen, with massive purchases occurring only a few days before a corporation announced a takeover. Boesky was on the cover of TIME December 1, 1986. [5]
Although insider trading of this kind was illegal, laws prohibiting it were rarely enforced until Boesky was prosecuted.[6] Boesky cooperated with the SEC and informed, including the case against financier Michael Milken. As a result of a plea bargain Boesky received a prison sentence of 3.5 years and was fined US$100 million. Although he was released after two years, he was barred from working in the securities business for the remainder of his life.[7] He served his prison sentence at Lompoc Federal Prison Camp near Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.
Boesky never recovered his reputation after doing a stint in jail, and paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and compensation for his Guinness share-trading fraud role and a host of separate insider dealing scams. In later years he embraced his Judaism strongly and even took classes related to Judaism at the Jewish Theological Seminary where he was previously a major donor; however, in 1987, following the fallout from his financial scandal, The New York Times reported that "after Ivan F. Boesky had been fined $100 million in the insider-trading scandal, the Jewish Theological Seminary, acting at his request, took his name off its $20 million library."[1]
His involvement in criminal activities is recounted in the book Den of Thieves by Pulitzer Prize-winning author James B. Stewart.
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Ivan Frederick Boesky (born March 6, 1937) was a Wall Street arbitrageur notable for his prominent role in an insider trading scandal that occurred in the United States in the mid-1980s.
"What good is the moon if you can't buy or sell it?"
"I think "immoral" is probably the wrong word to use...I prefer the word "unethical." "
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