101,000 Imime the infamous financier Jordan Belfort is gaining more notoriety – not least thanks to the film “The Wolf of Wall Street” , in which the action speculator famously played Leonardo DiCaprio. This production by the eminent director Martin Scorsese complemented the fund of film works, opening a veil of mysteries in the world of multimillion-dollar transactions and financial machinations. And for Belfort, who now makes a living by running seminars around the world, it’s become a good advertisement.
Actually exactly the same Hollywood service provided in 1999 to another entrepreneur – Nicholas Leeson, whose life story was the basis of the film “The Scammer”. Funny, but the two financiers have a lot in common: they were both accused of fraud and serving a prison sentence, after which they were involved in training and public speaking.
And one more thing: both “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Deception” are based on the eponym oussas that became extremely popular with readers after the film adaptation. The books written by Nicholas Leeson and Jordan Belfort are definitely worth reading: first of all, they seem interesting to experts in speculative trading, as well as managers of stock and banking organizations.
Belfort Biography
Broker Jordan Belfort is from New York, but his journey to Wall Street began in the Bronx. The future speculator grew up in a family of accountants who gave him a generally good upbringing. The “Wolf of Wall Street” himself notes that already at school age he managed to easily multiply in mind four-digit numbers. In Washington, D.C., he studied in the city and at a university in biological specialty.
At a young age, he managed to earn more than $20,000 by reselling ice cream on a local beach. As J. recalls. Belfort in his book, for money he was going to study to be a dentist. However, interest in this idea was cut to the root of his teacher, who said that the best times of dentists were far behind. This happened on the first day of classes, after which Belfort immediately took the documents from the university and enrolled in college as a biologist. The activity of reselling food products, mainly preceded by the acquisition of tickers, quotations and trading instruments. At one point it reached a weekly turnover of more than 20,000 kg, but for expansion there was a banal lack of capital. Recognizing that the difference between steaks and stocks, in general, is not so great, Jordan went on to understand the basics of stock trading at the investment firm L.F. Rothschild, which went bankrupt in the wake of the 1987 stock market crash.
Then Investors Center, whose business was built on low securities. In 1989, a year after Belfort took office, it was closed on behalf of the SEC. But it was enough to gain experience to set up his own Stratton Oakmont agency – that’s his work described in Scorsese’s “The Wolf of Wall Street.”
Belfort Activities at Stratton Oakmont
In a book published by Jordan Belfort mentions a particular approach to personnel selection. Instead of experienced traders and university graduates, Stratton Oakmont’s ranks were often complemented by ambitious young people with minimal education – they didn’t have to be retrained. The result of this practice was a vast team of more than 1000 employees and with a billion turnover. At the same time, Belford controlled about 50% of the company’s shares.
Capital Management Services offered at Stratton Oakmont has not always been investigated: in fact, the company has imposed on investors shares of doubtful companies with the expectation of profit in the shortest possible time.
More sophisticated techniques used. For example, Forbes’ attention at the time attracted interest in offers from Ventura Entertainment Group, which developed all kinds of TELEVISION content. The newspaper’s journalistic investigation revealed that, according to the documents, the company appeared on the day of its listing. Stratton Oakmont traders convinced investors about the company’s profitability and in the upcoming second edition. The last one took place, but it was followed by a statement of 455,000,000 losses. At the same time, according to Forbes, his revenue stood at about three million. In addition, the head of Ventura Entertainment Group, H. Bitrkoff, also managed electronics supplier Discovery Associates, which suffered exactly the same fate.
Remembering this period, Jordan Belfort admits in his book that he could build a transparent honest business and earn more. And yet, in these circumstances, he preferred a quick profit.
Arrest and further career
Belfort caught the attention of law enforcement in the second half of the 1990s and was convicted of fraud and money laundering in 1998. Unlike the main character of “The Wolf of Wall Street”, the entrepreneur willingly cooperated with the FBI and even recorded his conversations with colleagues. Promoting justice has helped him reduce his prison sentence to one year and 10 months. In addition, the court ordered him to pay 110.4 million in damages to deceived investors – so far 50% of Belfort’s profits are used to pay debts to society. While in prison, he met actor Tommy Chong, who advised him to write a memoir. It was on the basis of this story that “The Wolf of Wall Street” was shot.
Jordan Ross Belfort – a real wolf from Wall Street appeared for the first time on Globe Trader.