John Paulson Profile

Name: John Paulson

Born: December 14th, 1955

Education: Graduated first in his class with a degree in Finance from NYU's College of Business and Public Administration. Went on to receive a MBA from the Harvard Business School, where he received a Baker Scholar designation for finishing in the top 5% of his class.

Started: Was hired on by Odyssey Partners after graduating from Harvard. Eventually moved on to become managing director in mergers and acquisitions at Bear Stearns. Moved on to become a general partner at Gruss Partners. Paulson then went on to start Paulson and Co. in 1995, where he remains today.

Notable Accomplishments: Made his career (and billions of dollars) by correctly betting against the US housing market. This was accomplished by going short on CDO slices and long on credit-default swaps. Maintained his bearish position even in the face of a peaking housing market in 2005 that caused temporary losses in his positions. When the subprime mortgage market started to collapse, Paulson's positions quickly became profitable and eventually earned the company (and himself) billions of dollars in profits.

Paulson's Credit Opportunities and Credit Opportunities II funds were two of the most successful funds of 2007 and put John Paulson on the map.

Paulson and Co. has rode the wave of success and positive press, soaking in billions upon billions of dollars in new capital over the past year. The company is now one of the largest hedge funds in the world.

Recent News: Spoke at the US House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform hearing in November. Revealed 50 million share purchase of Yahoo! in May of 2008. Bloomberg.com recently revealed that Paulson and Co. ran four of the top 20 performing hedge funds through the first three quarters of 2008.

Current Company: Paulson and Co.