George Soros, the world's richest hedge fund billionaire, has pledged to invest as much as $US500 million ($662 million) to help refugees and migrants globally.
"We will invest in startups, established companies, social impact initiatives, and businesses started by migrants and refugees themselves," the currency speculator said in a statement Tuesday. "These investments are intended to be successful."
The investments will be owned by Soros' non-profit organisations and the profits will go to fund programs at the Open Society Foundations, including programs that benefit migrants and refugees, according to the statement. Soros, whose charities have donated more than $US8 billion since the latest 1970s, plans to work with organisations such as the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Rescue Committee to establish appropriate investment principles for the initiative, according to the statement.
Globally, 65.3 million people have been forcibly displaced, according to the UNHCR. Of those, 21.3 million are refugees, and 10 million are stateless. More than half the world's refugees are fleeing conflicts in Syria, Afghanistan and Somalia.
Filippo Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, said the organisation supports Soros' pledge to make investments that will help refugees become self-reliant and help host communities. Refugees need access to financial and legal services, education and employment opportunities, Grandi said according to the statement.
Soros rose to fame as the money manager who broke the Bank of England in 1992, netting a profit of $US1 billion with a wager that the UK would be forced to devalue the pound and pull it from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism. In 2012 and 2013, he made almost as much shorting Japanese Yen. He owns a $US25 billion family office, Soros Fund Management and is chairman and founder of the Open Society Foundations, a network of foundations supporting issues such as education, human rights, migration and health, with about 40 offices globally.
He's known for taking strong public stands on politics, having made headlines earlier this year by saying that Donald Trump was "doing the work of ISIS." Calls to end Muslim immigration to the US and anti-immigrant vitriol might "convince the Muslim community that there is no alternative but terrorism." In 2003, he unsuccessfully pledged US15.5 million to oust then US President George W. Bush in the 2004 presidential race.
Bloomberg
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