James Chanos

James Chanos
Born 1957
Nationality American
Occupation Investor
Known for Short selling
Notable work Founder of Kynikos Associates, LP

James S. Chanos (born December 24, 1957) is an American investment manager and currently serves as president and founder of Kynikos Associates, a New York City registered investment advisor who is focused on short selling.

Early life and education

Chanos was born in 1957 into a Greek immigrant family living in Milwaukee that operated a chain of dry-cleaning shops.[1] He graduated from Wylie E. Groves High School, and then Yale University in 1980.[2]

Career

He describes his investment strategy as being based on "intensive research into stocks"[3] looking for fundamental and large market failures in valuation, typically based on underestimated or previously unreported failings in the business or market of a stock. He follows this research by committing to a (usually large) short-position which he is willing to hold for long period of time—almost the mirror image of Warren Buffett's reputed "fundamentals+long stay" investment strategy.[4] Because of this model, his investments function more like those of a whistle-blower than most typical investments. Examples of this include short-selling companies such as Baldwin-United, and more recently Enron Corporation.[5]

He began his career in the 1980s as a short seller. After working as an analyst in several firms, he founded Kynikos (Greek for "cynic") in 1985 with $16 million,[6] as a firm specializing in short selling. A critical position taken at Kynikos was his shorting of Enron.[7] He became famous as a short seller when he predicted the fall of Enron Corp. before it filed for bankruptcy in 2001.[6]

Chanos was a short seller of Enron throughout 2001, increasing his short position as more information surfaced. Kynikos profited greatly.

Chanos is a long-time skeptic of the Chinese economy. In a January 2010 interview in the New York Times, Chanos predicted the Chinese economy would crash, resembling “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse”.[8] He reasoned that historically analogous evidence points especially to a property bubble, particularly in commercial real estate.[9]

Previous jobs

References

  1. ↑ "Jim Chanos Resource Page". ValueWalk. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  2. ↑ "James Chanos Lecturer in the Practice of Finance". Yale School of Management. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  3. ↑ Leder, Michelle (2003). Financial fine print: uncovering a company's true value. John Wiley and Sons. p. 35. ISBN 0-471-43347-0. ISBN 9780471433477.
  4. ↑ "The man who got China right".
  5. 1 2 3 Sherman, Gabriel (December 15, 2008). "The Catastrophe Capitalist". New York Magazine. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  6. 1 2 Chung, Juliet (16 September 2015). "China Bear James Chanos Roars After Years of Losses". Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 10 November 2016.
  7. ↑ James Chanos (2002). Anyone could have seen Enron coming: Prepared witness testimony given Feb. 6, 2002 to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. .
  8. ↑ Barboza, David (January 8, 2010). "Contrarian Investor Sees Economic Crash in China". The New York Times. Retrieved May 5, 2010.
  9. ↑ "James Chanos interviewed by Charlie Rose".
  10. ↑ Mahar, Maggie (2004). Bull!: A History of the Boom and Bust, 1982-2004. HarperCollins. p. 56. Retrieved September 24, 2011.
  11. ↑ Gammeltoft, Nikolaj; Kisling, Whitney (May 24, 2011). "Chanos Misses Out as Chinese Stocks in U.S. Plunge on Accounting Concerns". Bloomberg. Retrieved September 24, 2011.

External links

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