Sense on Cents

Raj Rajaratnam

How is it that an individual with untold hundreds of millions of dollars in wealth could put himself in a position of risking it all?

Welcome to the world of Raj Rajaratnam, the owner of the hedge fund Galleon and the major kingpin arrested in the most recent insider trading scandal to rock Wall Street.

Who is Raj Rajaratnam and why would he take such professional risks? We learn about Rajaratnam from a London based financial site, Here Is The City:

He was born in Sri Lanka, attended S. Thomas’ Preparatory School, Kollupitiya, then moved to England to complete his schooling, and studied engineering at the University of Sussex. Rajaratnam earned an MBA from Wharton in 1983. He is married with three children.

Rajaratnam, a Tamil self-made billionaire hedge fund manager, is the 236th richest American according to Forbes (2009), with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion.

The hedge fund manager started his career as an analyst at the investment banking boutique Needham & Co., where his focus was on electronics. In 1991, he became the President of the bank at the age of 34. At the company’s behest, he started a hedge fund, Needham Emerging Growth Partnership in March 1992, which he later bought and renamed ‘Galleon’.

Initially invested in technology stocks and healthcare companies, he says his best ideas come from frequent visits with companies and conversations with executives who invest in his fund.

He has made more than $20 million in charitable donations in the last five years. In September 2009, Rajaratnam pledged to donate $1m to help the Sri Lankan government with the rehabilitation of former LTTE combatants. He has also donated generously to clear land mines in the war-affected areas in Sri Lanka, and was also a contributor to various causes that promoted development in the Indian subcontinent and programs that benefited lower income South Asian youth in the New York area. (more…)