The clean technology wave just got a little bigger. This tends to be a side-effect of interest from billionaire investor George Soros. And, as usual, it's more than just money; it's more than just a return. Soros, yet again, is trying to save the world. Interestingly, the bold move was announced at a meeting on climate change sponsored by Project Syndicate - an international association consisting of 430 newspapers from 150 countries (and thus with clear ties to the past, rather than future).

The investor and founder of Soros Fund Management LLC is planning to put $1 billion into clean-tech opportunities using what he calls "rather stringent criteria," which involves being "profitable but should also actually make a contribution to solving the problem [i.e., of clean technology adoption and proliferation]." Soros didn't provide any other details on the nature or scope of his investments.

Continue reading Soros to put $1 billion into clean-tech companies

Soros to put $1 billion into clean-tech companies originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Mon, 12 Oct 2009 08:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

This post is part of a feature in which we wonder whatever happened to some notorious financial felons. See all 17.

Just say it's been "a long and winding financial road" for billionaire investor George Soros -- but one that's had more smooth traveling than detours.

True, the Hungarian-born Soros was fined $2 million by a French court in 2002 for insider trading, which France's highest court upheld on an appeal on June 14, 2006, but other than that transgression, critics would be hard pressed to find other operational/financial flaws.

Soros is perhaps best known for one of the most cunning and successful short-term plays in investment fund history. On September 16, 1992 Soros sold short more than $10 billion worth of the British pound, after the Bank of England failed to raise interest rates. Soros' profit on the ensuing fall in the pound: about $1.1 billion.

Further, the other dimensions of Soros life that some critics would cite -- his social activism and philanthropy -- are viewed as positives by many others. Soros has promoted nonviolent democratization in Central and Eastern Europe, and other states, and pledged hundreds of millions of dollars to numerous universities globally and to antipoverty programs in Africa, among many other charitable acts.

Continue reading Financial Felons: George Soros

Financial Felons: George Soros originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 20 Nov 2008 18:10:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.