Israel Englander Biography

Israel "Izzy" Englander (born 1948) is an American hedge fund manager.

Early life and education

Israel "Izzy" Englander was born in 1948 and was raised in a Jewish family in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn. He was raised in a religious home and attended yeshiva. His parents were immigrants from Poland who arrived in the United States in 1947 after being deported to a Soviet labor camp after the war (where Englander's two older sisters were born). His father's entire family was killed during the Holocaust.

Always interested in the stock market, Englander began trading stocks while in high school. During college, he interned at Oppenheimer & Co. (where his future brother-in-law, Jack Nash, would eventually become president and chairman) and at the New York Stock Exchange. In 1970, he graduated from New York University with a B.S. in finance. His first full-time job was with the Wall Street firm Kaufmann, Alsberg & Co. He later enrolled in New York University's MBA program in the evenings but never completed the degree.

Career

At Kaufmann Alsberg, Englander focused on trading convertible securities and options, both new products at the time, which involves taking advantage of incremental differences in prices. When the American Stock Exchange began to list options, he purchased a seat on the exchange and in 1977, he formed a floor brokerage house called I.A. Englander & Co. (where he still owns a minority interest). In 1985, he and his partner John Mulheren Jr., started an investment firm called Jamie Securities Co. with a $75 million investment from the Belzberg family of Canada. In 1986, Mulheran - who had previously worked as a trader for Ivan Boesky (then recently convicted of insider trading) - was arrested for carrying a loaded assault rifle (after Boesky had agreed to testify against Mulheren in a plea deal to receive a lesser sentence). In 2008, the firm, unable to withstand the blow to its reputation, was dissolved.

In 1989, Englander started Millennium with Ronald Shear - who he knew from his time at the American Stock Exchange - with $35 million in seed money (including $5 million from Englander himself and another $2 million from the Belzberg family). The firm got off to a poor start and Shear left in 1990. Since then, Englander has grown Millenium into a multi-billion dollar enterprise by using lower-risk investment strategies like merger arbitrage (by taking advantage of price differentials between a buy-out target company's stock price and bid price) and convertible arbitrage (by taking advantage of price differentials between a company's stock price and convertible bond price). At any given time, Millennium holds thousands of investment positions and makes between 1.5 million to 2 million trades a day.

Philanthropy

In 2006, the Englander Foundation, headed by Englander and his wife, donated $20 million to mostly Jewish organizations and schools. Englander serves on the board of Weill Cornell Medical College and the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Personal life

Englander is married to Caryl Englander. They have three children.