Sung Kook Hwang (Korean: 황성국), also known as Bill Hwang, is a Korean-born American
investor
An investor is a person who allocates financial capital with the expectation of a future return (profit) or to gain an advantage (interest). Through this allocated capital most of the time the investor purchases some species of property. Type ...
The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
'' reported that Hwang lost US$20billion over 10 days in late March, imposing large losses on his bankers Nomura and Credit Suisse. On April 27, 2022, he was indicted on federal charges of fraud and racketeering.
Early life
Hwang was born in South Korea in 1964.
Hwang earned an economics degree from
UCLA
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California ...
, and an
MBA
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from the
Tepper School of Business
The Tepper School of Business is the business school of Carnegie Mellon University. It is located in the university's campus in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US.
The school offers degrees from the undergraduate through doctoral levels, in addition ...
Peregrine Investments Holdings
Peregrine (including Peregrine Investments Holdings Limited and Peregrine Infrastructure Investments Limited) was an investment company based in Hong Kong. It was liquidated following the downturn of the Indonesian economy during the Asian financi ...
, where he met billionaire
hedge fund
A hedge fund is a pooled investment fund that trades in relatively liquid assets and is able to make extensive use of more complex trading, portfolio-construction, and risk management techniques in an attempt to improve performance, such as s ...
manager
Julian Robertson
Julian Hart Robertson Jr. (June 25, 1932 – August 23, 2022) was an American billionaire hedge fund manager, and philanthropist.
Robertson founded Tiger Management, one of the first hedge funds, in 1980. From its inception in 1980 to its 1 ...
, who was a client, and went to work for Robertson's
Tiger Management
Tiger Management Corp., also known as "The Tiger Fund", is an American hedge fund and family office founded by Julian Robertson. The fund began investing in 1980 and closed in March 2000/01. It continues to operate today in direct public equit ...
. Robertson closed the
fund Fund may refer to:
* Funding is the act of providing resources, usually in form of money, or other values such as effort or time, for a project, a person, a business, or any other private or public institution
** The process of soliciting and gathe ...
in 2000 but, during his time as its owner, he'd provided some of whom he considered to be his most promising employees, known as the “Tiger Cubs”, with funding to start their own hedge funds. Robertson gave Hwang a starting capital of about $25 million to launch his own Tiger Asia Management fund, which grew to over $5 billion at its peak, before suffering "heavy losses" during the 2007-09
Great Recession
The Great Recession was a period of marked general decline, i.e. a recession, observed in national economies globally that occurred from late 2007 into 2009. The scale and timing of the recession varied from country to country (see map). At ...
In 2012, Hwang closed Tiger Asia Management, and opened a "
family office
A family office is a privately held company that handles investment management and wealth management for a wealthy family, generally one with at least $50-$100 million in investable assets, with the goal being to effectively grow and transfer ...
," which is more lightly regulated than was a hedge fund, named
Archegos Capital Management
Archegos Capital Management was a limited partnership family office that managed the personal assets of Bill Hwang, at one time managing over $36 billion in assests. On April 27, 2022 Hwang was indicted and arrested on federal charges of fraud a ...
, which managed US$10 billion of funds.
In March 2021, losses at Archegos triggered the default and liquidation of positions approaching $30 billion in value, leading to "substantial" losses for Nomura, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, and
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
. The firm had held large positions in
ViacomCBS
Paramount Global (doing business as Paramount) is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate owned and operated by National Amusements (79.4%) and headquartered at One Astor Plaza in Midtown Manhattan, New York. It ...
,
Baidu
Baidu, Inc. ( ; , meaning "hundred times") is a Chinese multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products and artificial intelligence (AI), headquartered in Beijing's Haidian District. It is one of the l ...
,
Vipshop
Vipshop () is a Chinese company that operates the e-commerce website VIP.com (formerly Vipshop.com) specializing in online discount sales. Vipshop is based out of Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, and was listed on New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Marc ...
,
Farfetch
Farfetch is a British-Portuguese online luxury fashion retail platform that sells products from over 700 boutiques and brands from around the world. The company was founded in 2007 by the Portuguese entrepreneur José Neves with its headquarters ...
, and others. Before the Archego collapse, Hwang was believed to be worth $10–15 billion, with his investments
leveraged
In finance, leverage (or gearing in the United Kingdom and Australia) is any technique involving borrowing funds to buy things, hoping that future profits will be many times more than the cost of borrowing. This technique is named after a lever ...
at 5:1.
In November 2021, Credit Suisse, having taken a hit of $5.5 billion from the Archegos losses, shut down its
prime brokerage
Prime brokerage is the generic name for a bundled package of services offered by investment banks, wealth management firms, and securities dealers to hedge funds which need the ability to borrow securities and cash in order to be able to invest ...
On April 27, 2022, Hwang and his former top lieutenant, Patrick Halligan, were arrested and charged with racketeering,
conspiracy
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons (called conspirers or conspirators) for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agre ...
,
securities fraud
Securities fraud, also known as stock fraud and investment fraud, is a deceptive practice in the stock or commodities markets that induces investors to make purchase or sale decisions on the basis of false information, frequently resulting in lo ...
, and
wire fraud
Mail fraud and wire fraud are terms used in the United States to describe the use of a physical or electronic mail system to defraud another, and are federal crimes there. Jurisdiction is claimed by the federal government if the illegal activity ...
as part of a scheme to harm investors. In a 59-page indictment, Manhattan federal prosecutors alleged that Hwang and Halligan schemed to manipulate stock prices. Lawyers for Hwang and Halligan stated that they were innocent of the charges in the indictment. Hwang was released on a $100 million bond, which was secured by two properties and $5 million in cash. Halligan was released on a $1 million bond.
On September 8, 2022, District Judge
Alvin Hellerstein
Alvin Kenneth Hellerstein (born December 28, 1933) is a Senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and has presided over several high-profile cases.
Education and career
Heller ...
set October 2023 as the month when the trial of Hwang and Halligan, both of whom have pleaded not guilty, will begin. Former Archegos head trader William Tomita and ex-Chief Risk Officer Scott Becker have both pleaded guilty and agreed to testify against Hwang and Halligan.
pastor
A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...
. Hwang and his wife reside in
Tenafly, New Jersey
Tenafly () is a Borough (New Jersey), borough in Bergen County, New Jersey, Bergen County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census the borough had a population of 15,409,Fordham University in New York City.
Charitable work
Hwang has co-founded the Grace and Mercy Foundation, a
charitable organization
A charitable organization or charity is an organization whose primary objectives are philanthropy and social well-being (e.g. educational, religious or other activities serving the public interest or common good).
The legal definition of a ...
, which, by 2018, had reportedly "more than US$500 million in assets."
See also
*
Koreans in New York City
As of the 2011 American Community Survey, New York City is home to 100,000 ethnic Koreans, with two-thirds living in the borough of Queens. On the other hand, the overall Greater New York Combined Statistical Area enumerated 218,764 Korean A ...