Ivan Boesky

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Ivan Frederick Boesky (born March 6, 1937 in Detroit, Michigan) was notable for his prominent role in a Wall Street insider trading scandal that occurred in the United States in the mid-1980s. Boesky was born to a Russian-Jewish family. He is a graduate of the Michigan State University College of Law (formerly Detroit College of Law).

By 1986, Ivan Boesky had become an arbitrageur who had amassed a fortune of about US$200 million by betting on corporate takeovers. He was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for making investments based on tips received from corporate insiders. These stock acquisitions were sometimes brazen, with massive purchases occurring only a few days before a corporation announced a takeover.

Although insider trading of this kind was illegal, laws prohibiting it were rarely enforced until Boesky was prosecuted. Boesky cooperated with the SEC and informed on several of his insiders, including junk bond trader Michael Milken. As a result of plea bargaining Boesky received a prison sentence of 3.5 years and was fined US$100 million. Although he was released after two years, he was barred from working in the securities business for the remainder of his life. He served his prison sentence at Lompoc FPC near Vandenburg AFB in California. He started out working irrigation on the 3000 head cattle ranch but moved to taking care of the flower beds at the dairy.

Boesky gave an infamous speech on the positive aspects of greed at the University of California, Berkeley in 1986 (where he said in part "I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself") which inspired the key speech by Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street.

Interesting fact: Boesky owned a t-shirt with the slogan "He who owns most when he dies, wins.".