Who

Izzy Englander is the founder of the hedge fund Millennium Partners.

Backstory

The Brooklyn-born, yeshiva-educated Englander's brilliant career has been book-ended by scandal. After dropping out of NYU's MBA program to work on Wall Street, he partnered with Ivan Boesky protégé John Mulheren, who was later convicted of insider trading, resulting in the dissolution of their firm Jamie Securities. (Englander was not implicated in any wrongdoing.) In 1990, Englander founded Millennium with $35 million and constructed a track record to beat, returning 17% annually and growing assets under management to $8 billion by 2005. He then he ran into the Eliot Spitzer chainsaw, becoming the most prominent firm caught up in the 2004-5 mutual fund trading scandal. Englander remains a major figure in the hedge fund world—but a tainted one.

Of note

The secretive hedge funder continues to generate solid returns despite relatively stiff fees (20 percent of profits, plus up to 4 percent of assets). Investors include Jim and Thomas Tisch, Duke University, and the wealthy Belzberg family of Canada. But the mutual fund trading scandal of 2004-5 seriously tarnished the firm's rep. In 2004, it was revealed that Millennium had been trading in mutual funds after-hours; the news got substantially worse when it turned out that the firm had opened hundreds of separate accounts and committed $1 billion to perpetrate the scheme. In December 2005, Englander reached a settlement with then-attorney general Eliot Spitzer and the SEC; the firm paid a $26.6 million fine, disgorged $121.4 million in "ill-gotten revenues," and Englander paid $30 million in civil penalties out of his own pocket. Englander didn't have to acknowledge any wrongdoing as part of the deal and today he continues to oversee his fund, which now has $11 billion under management.

Keeping score

Forbes pegs Englander's net worth at $1.8 billion. Trader Monthly estimates he collected $600-700 million in 2006 and $400-$500 million in 2007.

Personal

An Orthodox Jew, Izzy is married to Caryl Englander, a photographer who sits on the board of trustees of the International Center of Photography. (Englander's brother-in-law is the legendary investor Jack Nash, who built up Oppenheimer & Co. with Leon Levy and went on to found the Odyssey hedge fund.) They have three children, including Michael, who works in finance, and Laura, an ex-girlfriend of Observer owner Jared Kushner. The Englanders live at 740 Park, where their neighbors include David Ganek, David Koch, Steve Schwarzman, and Kent Swig.