James Chanos
James S. Chanos (born December 24, 1957) is an American investment manager and currently serves as president and founder of Kynikos Associates, a New York City registered investment advisor that is focused on short selling.
Early life and education
Chanos was born in 1957 into a Greek immigrant family living in Milwaukee that operated a chain of dry-cleaning shops.[1] He graduated from Wylie E. Groves High School, and then Yale in 1980.[citation needed]
Career
He describes his investment strategy as being based on "intensive research into stocks"[2] looking for fundamental and large market failures in valuation, typically based on underestimated or previously unreported failings in the business or market of a stock. He follows this research by committing to a (usually large) short-position which he is willing to hold for long period of time—almost the mirror image of Warren Buffett's reputed "fundamentals+long stay" investment strategy.[3] Because of this model, his investments function more like those of a whistle-blower than most typical investments. Examples of this include short-selling companies such as Baldwin-United, and more recently Enron Corporation.[4]
He began his career in the 1980s as a short seller. After working as an analyst in several firms, he founded Kynikos (Greek for "cynic") in 1985 as a firm specializing in short selling. A critical position taken at Kynikos was his shorting of Enron.[5]
In October 2000, Chanos started research into the valuation of Enron Corporation.[dubious ][citation needed] He examined their use of mark-to-model (opposed to mark-to-market) accounting, which, in Chanos' view, results in management overstating earnings, as well as what appeared to be a worryingly low (6-7%) return on capital investment.[dubious ][citation needed] Chanos was a short seller of Enron throughout 2001, increasing his short position as more information surfaced. Kynikos profited greatly, and Chanos became well known as a consequence of his early awareness of Enron's problems.[6][dubious ][citation needed]
He is a long time skeptic of the Chinese economy. In a January 2010 interview in the New York Times, Chanos predicted the Chinese economy would crash, resembling “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse”.[7] He reasoned that historically analogous evidence points especially to a property bubble, particularly in commercial real estate.[8]
Previous jobs
- Analyst with Blyth Eastman Webber.[9]
- Analyst with Gilford Securities - where he exposed Baldwin-United, which filed for bankruptcy thereafter.[4]
- Analyst and Vice President at Deutsche Bank Capital Corp.[4]
- Founder and President of Kynikos Associates Ltd (current).[10]
References
- ↑ [1]
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- ↑ James Chanos (2002). Anyone could have seen Enron coming: Prepared witness testimony given Feb. 6, 2002 to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce. [2].
- ↑ Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind.
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External links
- Articles with unsourced statements from October 2015
- All accuracy disputes
- Articles with disputed statements from July 2014
- Articles with unsourced statements from July 2014
- 1958 births
- American financial analysts
- American investors
- American money managers
- American people of Greek descent
- American hedge fund managers
- American stock traders
- Living people
- Yale University alumni
