John Alfred Paulson (born December 14, 1955) is president of Paulson Co., Inc., a New York-based hedge fund. Paulson received his B.Sc. in finance from New York University’s College of Business and Public Administration, where he graduated first in his class, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he was designated a Baker Scholar, the school's top academic honor, for graduating in the top 5 percent.[1] Paulson began his career at Boston Consulting Group before leaving to join Odyssey Partners, working under Leon Levy. He later worked in the mergers and acquisitions group at Bear Stearns. Prior to founding his own firm, he was a partner at mergers and acquisitions firm Gruss Partners LP. In 1994, he founded his own hedge fund with $2 million and two employees (himself and an assistant). Paulson Co., Inc. had assets under management (as of June 1, 2007) of $12.5 billion (95% from institutions), which leapt to $36 billion as of November 2008.[2] Under his direction, Paulson Co has capitalized on the problems in the foreclosure and mortgage backed securities (MBS) markets. In 2008 he decided to start a new fund that would capitalize on Wall Street's capital problems by lending money to investment banks and other hedge funds currently feeling the pressure of the more than $345 billion of write downs resulting from under-performing assets linked to the housing market. On May 15, 2008, Paulson Co., which bought 50 million shares of Yahoo stock during the first quarter of 2008, said it is supporting Carl Icahn on a proxy fight to replace Yahoo's board.[3] In early 2008, the firm hired former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. John Paulson is not related to former Goldman Sachs CEO and U.S. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson.[4][5][6] A September 26, 2008 Wall Street Journal opinion written by John Paulson suggested an alternative to the Treasury Secretary's plan for stabilizing the markets.[7] In September 2008, Paulson has bet against four of the five biggest British bank. His positions included a £350m bet against shares in Barclays; £292m against Royal Bank of Scotland; and £260m against Lloyds TSB.[8] He eventually booked a profit of as much as £280m after reducing its short position in RBS in January 2009.[9] Paulson is #78 on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest Americans[10] and is worth approximately $6 billion.