Bloomberg — Joe Lewis built one of the world’s biggest fortunes taking big swings in public markets, with his major bets as a currency trader alongside legendary investor George Soros earning him a nickname of “The Boxer.”
Now, the 86-year-old billionaire, who has amassed a fortune across real estate, art and sports, including as owner of English soccer club Tottenham Hotspur, faces one the biggest fights of his career.
The Tavistock Group founder is accused of abusing his access to corporate boardrooms to pass on inside information to his friends, staff of his 321-foot (98-meter) superyacht, personal pilots and romantic interests.
After turning himself in to federal authorities in Manhattan on Wednesday, Lewis, who lives in the Caribbean, faces more than a dozen counts of securities fraud for alleged “brazen” conduct that spanned about eight years. He pleaded not guilty and was released on a $300 million bail package, secured by his yacht and private jet.
As part of his bail conditions, he can’t board the yacht or travel internationally and can only use his plane to travel domestically for court purposes. Lewis’s attorney, David M. Zornow, said the government made an “egregious error in judgment” charging his client.
“Mr. Lewis has come to the US voluntarily to answer these ill-conceived charges, and we will defend him vigorously in court,” Zornow said in a statement on Tuesday night.
Family’s Pub
Born in London, Lewis lived above his family’s pub until it was destroyed in World War II during the Blitz. At 15, he left school to work at the family’s cafe and transformed it into a chain of themed restaurants that he eventually sold for about £30 million ($39 million).
To avoid UK taxes, Lewis moved to the Bahamas and began speculating in foreign currencies. His first big score came in 1992 after he bet on a falling British pound, the same trade that famously made Soros billions. Lewis went on to short the Mexican peso in 1995, profiting from that country’s economic crisis and turning his millions into billions.
Today, Lewis puts most of his fortune to work through Tavistock, the Bahamas-based holding company that has stakes in more than 200 businesses worldwide, including UK private lender Ultimate Finance, the Freebirds burrito chain and the five-star St. Regis hotel in Atlanta. He has a net worth of about $6.6 billion, and is among the richest people in the UK, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Lewis also has owned stakes in two US firms cited in the charges against him — Mirati Therapeutics Inc. and Solid Biosciences Inc. — through his San Diego-based Boxer Capital fund, which targets investments in biotechnology.
Boxer reported stock sales and purchases in both companies totaling more than $250 million over the past five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg from regulatory filings. While Boxer hasn’t disclosed a holding in Solid since last year, it still owned about $74.4 million of Mirati shares in March, making up a fraction of its $2 billion portfolio, filings show.
Pilots Charged
Other firms cited in the charges include beef producer Australian Agricultural Co., where a trust controlled by Lewis is a major shareholder alongside mining billionaire Andrew Forrest. Lewis has held an indirect stake in the Queensland-based company since at least early 2014, with its shares rising about 12% in the period despite a slump in 2019.
That year, Lewis allegedly passed on tips about Australian Agricultural suffering losses to his personal pilots, Patrick O’Connor and Bryan ‘Marty’ Waugh, who have been charged criminally with securities fraud. Both pleaded not guilty.
In addition, the US Securities and Exchange Commission filed an insider trading lawsuit against Lewis, a former girlfrield and the two pilots.
Lewis keeps a low profile and rarely speaks in public, but isn’t afraid of displaying his wealth, occasionally guiding his superyacht, Aviva, down the River Thames when he visits London. He’s also amassed one of the world’s biggest private art collections and counts sports legends such as Tiger Woods and Ernie Els among his business associates.
One of his most successful bets was the 2000 purchase of Tottenham Hotspur, the Premier League football team based not far from where Lewis grew up. While the club hasn’t won a major trophy for years and may soon lose its best player, Harry Kane, it’s among a group of top clubs that has doubled in value since 2016 to at least €1.8 billion ($2.3 billion), according to research from KPMG. Over the years, Lewis has been spotted in the club’s stadium during games, typically in a long coat or suit and dark glasses.
‘Periphery Figure’
“A lot of Spurs fans consider Lewis a periphery figure, as somebody who works a lot behind the scenes,” said Simeon Daniel, co-owner of the club’s fan channel WeAreTottenhamTV. “He’s not a constant figure at the ground, which doesn’t help the perception that he’s only in it for the money.”
Not all Lewis’s bets have been successful. He lost more than $1 billion during the 2008 financial crisis after building up a major stake in Bear Stearns before JPMorgan Chase & Co. bought the crippled US securities firm. That led to Lewis making a rare public appearance, calling JPMorgan’s 2008 bid “a derisory offer.”
Lewis, who typically spends most of his time in the Bahamas, now becomes the highest-profile investor prosecuted this year for insider trading by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Wearing a gray suit, white shirt and a dark tie, he spoke at the Wednesday afternoon hearing only to enter his plea. His lawyers declined to comment afterward.
“The stakes are high,” said Edward Imperatore, a New York-based attorney at law firm Morrison & Foerster and a former US prosecutor. “In a case like this even where Lewis did not himself benefit financially from the trading activity and alleged tipping, he faces the prospect of prison time.”
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