Ivan F. Boesky

Ivan Frederick Boesky (born March 6, 1937, in Detroit) 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 Detroit's Mumford High School and the Detroit College of Law (now known as the Michigan State University 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 a plea bargain 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 Federal Prison Camp near Vandenberg Air Force Base in California.

Boesky has never recovered his reputation after doing a stint in jail, and paying hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and compensation for his Guinness share-trading fraud role and a host of separate insider dealing scams.

The character of Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street is based at least in part on Boesky, especially regarding a famous speech he delivered 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".

His involvement in criminal activities is recounted in the Pulitzer Prize-winning book Den of Thieves by James B. Stewart.

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Ivan Boesky

• Ivan Boesky at the Notable Names Database

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