George Soros scores with sale of OneWest bank

A gang made up of some of Wall Street’s biggest names is set to realize a big score from the sale of OneWest Bank to CIT Group for $3.4 billion.

George Soros was part of the group that together with buyout baron Christopher Flowers and billionaire Michael Dell bought the assets in 2009 of the former IndyMac, one of the nation’s largest bank failures ever, from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which had seized its assets. The group paid $1.55 billion for the bank in the teeth of the financial crisis. The deal to sell the bank to CIT Group was announced Tuesday.

The deal is truly a legacy of the financial crisis. IndyMac was the second-biggest bank failure of the financial crisis and the FDIC agreed to share losses on a portfolio of loans. Mnuchin’s group was the only bidder for IndyMac’s assets and the FDIC was desperately trying to recapitalize the crumbling banking sector. Paulson had made his name betting against mortgage securities in the months leading up to the financial crisis. And John Thain, the CEO of CIT Group, was the last CEO of Merrill Lynch, a controversial run that ended with the sale of Merrill Lynch to Bank of America. As the bank recovered, some of OneWest’s foreclosure practices came under criticism, but the bank has long said those criticisms were unfounded.

Soros says Europe is weak

Unfortunately Europe is very weak.  It's preoccupied with its internal problems, which are unresolved.  The euro - the euro crisis is no longer a financial crisis, is turning into a political crisis.  And you're going to see it in the elections.  

Goerge Soros on Putin, Russia and Ukraine

Putin will try to destabilize Ukraine.  But the Ukrainians, the large majority of Ukrainians, are determined to be independent of - of Russia. It won't be easy, because Putin has staked his regime on destabilizing Ukraine, because it's a threat to Ru - to his regime in Russia.  If you have freedom, a free media and so on, and a flourishing economy, that would make his regime unsustainable.

George Soros vs Takahiro Mitani

Takahiro Mitani finds himself between George Soros and a hard place.

Mitani is Japan's $1.26 trillion man. The Government Pension Investment Fund that he runs tops Mexico's annual output and dwarfs the Middle Eastern sovereign-wealth funds that investors are always cooing about. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants the notoriously conservative fund to crank up returns by putting more money in stocks -- with an unlikely assist from billionaire Soros.

In January, the world's most famous short seller chatted with Abe at Davos, urging him to nudge the pension colossus into the 21st century. News of that tete-a-tete is helping Abe to push changes in the fund's management structure and to encourage it to diversify. At the moment, about 60 percent of the fund's holdings are wasting away in the lowest-yielding domestic debt -- Japan's -- anywhere. Getting the fund to move large chunks of that money into stocks could provide a timely boost to Abe's reflation efforts.

It could also be dangerous. When Abe talks about upping stock holdings, I fear what he really means is Japanese stocks. There's great disappointment that last year's Nikkei rally fizzled. When shares roared higher, Abe could plausibly argue that investors were heeding his call to "buy my Abenomics." Now, investors are disappointed that none of the structural reforms pledged 18 months ago have been implemented.

You'd think the prime minister would respond with urgent action to bolster confidence and enliven growth: Next week my government will do X, the week after that Y, and next month Z. Instead, he's focusing on boosting asset prices. The first blow was struck when the Bank of Japan doubled bond purchases in April 2013. The second, it seems, will entail massive share purchases by the government pension fund, which raises more than a few moral-hazard questions.



via http://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-international/george-soros-takes-on-japans-126-trillion-man

George Soros group to give $40m

A group back by billionaire George Soros and other millionaires with progressive political slants are charting a course to give out nearly $40 million to various entities that can further their favored policy reforms — in 2014 alone, documents show.

The documents, reported by the Washington Free Beacon, give a glimpse at the oft-guarded membership make-up of the Democracy Alliance, the umbrella network that’s funded by powerful liberals — including the noted progressive-minded Mr. Soros — to win crucial electoral battles.

Within the pages obtained by the Free Beacon is the group’s core hope: to fundraise and distribute a total of $39.3 million to 20 different organizations that can help with upcoming elections.

That means — if fundraising goals are on target — that one of every five dollars of the 20 targeted groups’ total budgets will come from the Democracy Alliance, the news outlet estimated.

The Democracy Alliance’s main function is to connect Democratic donors with activist groups. Counted among past beneficiaries is Media Matters for America; that group, as well as the Center for American Progress are slated to get millions more for this campaign season, the Washington Free Beacon found.


Read more: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/20/george-soros-backed-group-plots-40m-course-win-201

George Soros $1.3 billion bearish bet on market

A recent 13F filings shows that George Soros's firm increased a put position on the S&P 500 ETF  SPY  by a whopping 154% in the fourth quarter, compared with the third. 

The value of that holding, the biggest position in the fund, has risen to $1.3 billion from around $470 million. It now makes up a 11.13% chunk of all reported holdings. 

George Soros likes US economy

In contrast to Europe, the United States is emerging as the developed world’s strongest economy.

Shale energy has given the US an important competitive advantage in manufacturing in general and in petrochemicals in particular. The banking and household sectors have made some progress in deleveraging.

Quantitative easing has boosted asset values. And the housing market has improved, with construction lowering unemployment. The fiscal drag exerted by sequestration is also about to expire. - in www.project-syndicate.org

George Soros on China

How China decides to approach the tension it faces between sustaining rapid economic growth and amassing a major debt burden represents the key global issue facing the world today, says hedge fund legend George Soros, chairman of Soros Fund Management.
"The major uncertainty facing the world today is . . . the future direction of China," he writes in Economia.

"The growth model responsible for its rapid rise has run out of steam. That model depended on financial repression of the household sector, in order to drive the growth of exports and investments."

http://www.moneynews.com/StreetTalk/George-Soros-China-Global-growth/2013/12/31/id/544572#ixzz2pBA7iACn

Global economy issues are political

George Soros is heartened by current efforts to revive growth in the world’s major economies, the hapless eurozone being the one exception.
“All of the looming problems for the global economy are political in character,” he writes.

The U.S. is showing its muscle as the developed world’s strongest economy on several counts:

Shale energy is an important competitive advantage in manufacturing in general and in petrochemicals in particular.
The banking and household sectors are deleveraging.
Quantitative easing has boosted asset values.
The housing market has improved, with construction lowering unemployment.
The fiscal drag exerted by sequestration is about to expire.

http://www.cutimes.com/2014/01/06/soros-makes-predictions-for-worlds-top-economies?ref=hp

Unsolved problems in China

The Chinese leadership was right to give precedence to economic growth over structural reforms, because structural reforms…But there is an unresolved self-contradiction in China’s current policies: restarting the furnaces also reignites exponential debt growth, which cannot be sustained for much longer than a couple of years. How and when this contradiction will be resolved will have profound consequences for China and the world.

 A successful transition in China will most likely entail political as well as economic reforms, while failure would undermine still-widespread trust in the country’s political leadership, resulting in repression at home and military confrontation abroad.

The other great unresolved problem is the absence of proper global governance. The lack of agreement among the United Nations Security Council’s five permanent members is exacerbating humanitarian catastrophes in countries like Syria – not to mention allowing global warming to proceed largely unhindered.
But, in contrast to the Chinese conundrum, which will come to a head in the next few years, the absence of global governance may continue indefinitely. - in Project Syndicate

Future crises will be political in origin

Future crises will be political in origin. Indeed, this is already apparent, because the EU has become so inward-looking that it cannot adequately respond to external threats, be they in Syria or Ukraine. But the outlook is far from hopeless; the revival of a threat from Russia may reverse the prevailing trend toward European disintegration.

As a result, the crisis has transformed the EU from the “fantastic object” that inspired enthusiasm into something radically different. What was meant to be a voluntary association of equal states that sacrificed part of their sovereignty for the common good – the embodiment of the principles of an open society – has now been transformed by the euro crisis into a relationship between creditor and debtor countries that is neither voluntary nor equal. Indeed, the euro could destroy the EU altogether. - in project syndicate

Major decisions facing China

"The major uncertainty facing the world today is not the euro but the future direction of China."

“[T]here is an unresolved self-contradiction in China’s current policies: restarting the furnaces also reignites exponential debt growth, which cannot be sustained for much longer than a couple of years,” writes Soros.
“How and when this contradiction will be resolved will have profound consequences for China and the world.”

Soros added in a recent article in project syndicate

George Soros Blog

George Soros is a investor who is outspoken on world economic policies and an unapologetic proponent of European integration, Soros has recently declared that the euro is "here to stay." Born in Budapest, Soros survived Nazi occupation of Hungary and went on to study at London School of Economics before launching his hedge fund firm in 1969, the Quantum Fund with Jim Rogers.

George Soros is currently married to Tamiko Bolton, who is half his age. Bolton is the investors third wife.