Israel Englander 101: The Famous American Investor

In this article, we at Zatrun.com will delve into everything you need to know about the famous American investor, Israel Englander. We’ll cover his background and provide a detailed overview of his career in the investment world. So if you’re curious about this prominent figure in the finance industry, keep reading to learn more.

Who is Israel Englander?

Israel “Izzy” Englander, born in 1948, is an American investor, hedge fund manager, and philanthropist. He co-founded Millennium Management, a hedge fund, with Ronald Shear in 1989. The fund was launched with $35 million and as of 2019, its assets under management exceeded $39.2 billion. Israel Englander was born and raised in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, in a Polish-Jewish family. He grew up in a religious family and attended yeshiva. His father’s entire family was killed in the Holocaust. Englander’s Polish parents were sent to a Soviet labor camp after the war, and his two older sisters were born there.

They later immigrated to the United States in 1947. Israel Englander had always been interested in the stock market and began trading stocks in high school. During college, he interned at Oppenheimer & Co. on the New York Stock Exchange, where his future brother-in-law, Jack Nash, would become chairman and vice chairman. He graduated from New York University with a B.S. degree in finance in 1970. His first full-time job was with Wall Street firm Kaufmann, Alsberg & Co. He later enrolled in the New York University MBA program in the evenings, but did not complete the degree.

Israel Englander is married and has three children. In 2014, he purchased a duplex apartment on Park Avenue in New York City for a record price for Manhattan co-operatives of $71.3 million. He also has a house in Atlantic Beach, New York. In 2022, he purchased a $20 million apartment in Paris belonging to the Bettencourt family, the founders of L’Oréal.

Career Life:

While working at Kaufmann Alsberg, Israel Englander focused on convertible securities and options. When the American Stock Exchange began listing options, he purchased a seat on the exchange. In 1977, he founded a floor brokerage firm called I.A. Englander & Co. In 1985, Englander and his partner John Mulheren Jr. established an investment firm called Jamie Securities Co. with a $75 million investment from Canada’s Belzberg family. Mulheren had previously worked as a trader for Ivan Boesky. When Boesky was later convicted of insider trading and agreed to testify against Mulheren in order to receive a lesser sentence, Mulheren was arrested in February 1988 for arranging illegal stock trades and carrying a loaded rifle, but the decision was later overturned.

Israel Englander was never charged with any wrongdoing, but due to negative publicity following Mulheren’s case, Jamie Securities was dissolved in 1988. In 1989, Israel Englander founded a hedge fund called Millennium Management with Ronald Shear. He knew Shear from his time at the American Stock Exchange, and they started the firm with a starting capital of $35 million (including $5 million from himself and $2 million from the Belzberg family). The firm’s beginnings were challenging, and Shear left in 1990.

Since then, Israel Englander has managed Millennium using investment strategies such as statistical arbitrage (quantitative analysis); fundamental long-short matching; merger arbitrage (profiting from the price difference between a target company’s stock price and the offer price) and convertible arbitrage. Millennium always holds thousands of investment positions and makes more than 2 million trades on an average day. As of the end of 2019, Millennium had over 2,900 employees in more than 12 offices across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and managed assets worth $39.2 billion.

Philanthropy:

In 2006, the Englander Foundation donated mostly $20 million to Jewish organizations and schools, managed by Englander and his wife. Englander serves on the Board of Trustees of Weill Cornell Medical College and the Jewish Board of Family and Children’s Services. In March 2019, he was named one of the highest-earning hedge fund managers and traders by Forbes.