James Chanos Biography
James Chanos (Full name- James ‘Jim’ Steven Chanos) is an American investment manager who was born on December 24, 1957, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, U.S. He currently serves as president and founder of New York City registered investment advisor who is focused on short selling, Kynikos Associates. Chanos appeared on the BBC Four documentary The Banker’s Guide to Art and is a noted art collector.
James Chanos has identified and sold short the shares of numerous well-known corporate financial disasters; among them Baldwin-United, Commodore International, Conseco, Tyco International, Coleco, Integrated Resources, Boston Chicken, and Sunbeam. His celebrated short-sale of Enron shares was dubbed by Barron’s as “the market call of the decade, if not the past fifty years.”
James Chanos Family
James Chanos was born in 1957 in Milwaukee to a Greek immigrant family that operated a chain of dry-cleaning shops. He received a B.A. in Economics and Political Science from Yale University in 1980 after graduating from Wylie E. Groves High School.
James Chanos Net Worth
Jim Chanos was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and went on to graduate from Yale in the early 80s. He began his career in finance and investments soon after graduating from Yale. He is estimated to have a net worth of $1.5 billion.
James S. Chanos Age
Chanos was born born on December 24, 1957, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He is the Founder of Kynikos Associates. Chanos is 61 years old as of 2018.
James Chanos China | Cnbc
James Chanos has been a skeptic of the future of the Chinese economy for a long time. In the summer of 2009, he became bearish after starting to study China in earnest. Chanos went public with his pessimistic outlook on China in September 2009. Chanos said that the Chinese miracle economy was “getting harder and harder to believe”, predicting the country would head the way of the “old Soviet Union” while on CNBC.
The New York Times referenced Chanos making a prediction of an impending Chinese economic crash in January 2010, that would resemble “Dubai times 1,000 — or worse”. In April 2010 on the Charlie Rose Show, he maintained that China was on a “treadmill to hell” that would result in a crash caused by a “world class” property bubble.
Chanos 2010 prediction of the Chinese real estate crash did not materialize and has caused financial media to question his investment wisdom. In a December 2017 article, Bloomberg noted “Chanos has made wayward bets against U.S. stocks and China recently”. In an October 2017 article, The Financial Times used his “Dubai times 1,000” quote an example of one of the “dire prophecies” about China’s real estate market that did not come true, demonstrating the subject was “tricky for foreign investors and experts to grasp”.
Chanos has since pulled back on going short on China from his initial predictions. In an interview during a forum event hosted by Schechter Wealth in December 2017, he said “in the past few years we’re actually now [have] reduced our China short and our global fund to the lowest it’s been”.
James Chanos Enron
Throughout 2001, James Chanos was a short seller of Enron increasing his short position as more information surfaced. Ultimately, Kynikos profited from the trade. When he correctly predicted the fall of Enron Corp before it filed for bankruptcy in 2001, Chanos gained notability as a short seller. Enron’s Bankruptcy led to preference of criminal charges against Enron’s top brass including CEO Jeff Skilling, Lou Pai and Founder Kenneth Lay.
James Chanos Kynikos Associates
James Chanos began his career in the 1980s as a short seller. He founded Kynikos (Greek for “cynic”) in 1985 with $16 million, as a firm specializing in short selling after working as an analyst in several firms. Jim Chanos started Kynikos Associates in 1985 and the group has since become the world’s largest exclusive short-selling investment firm. The hedge fund manages approximately $6 billion in assets as of mid 2015. A critical position taken at Kynikos was his shorting of Enron which bore generous fruit.
James Chanos Alibaba
Chanos has in the past criticized Alibaba’s business model and financial disclosure, and expressed concern that the Alibaba balance sheet is growing faster than its business, in particular criticizing its logistics arm. Joe Tsai, Alibaba executive vice Chairman, said that Alibaba “made full disclosure” about the profits, loss and revenues of its logistics business. He went further to criticize Chanos saying he “doesn’t seem to try to understand the business and understand the power of the digital economy in China.” Tsai added that he respected Chanos for “enduring so much much pain” by shorting Alibaba. Tsai was speaking to CNBC.