Little has been reported about Besant’s personal wealth. Unlike his hedge fund peers like Ray Dalio and Ken Griffin, he does not appear on billionaire lists. Bloomberg or Forbes. But some details about his net worth will emerge later as he is required to liquidate some properties to avoid any conflict of interest while serving as Treasury Secretary.
Key Square did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its wealth or assets that would be divested.
For now, a look at Besant’s winning bets while working in finance provides some insight into how he made his fortune.
The South Carolina native and Yale graduate started out as a securities analyst and options trader in the investment arm of a Saudi family. According to Wall Street Journal. He later interned with Jim Rogers, worked for short seller James Chanos, and then joined Soros Fund Management in 1991.
That’s when Besant made one of his most famous bets. While in the firm’s London office, he helped engineer a short trade against the British pound in 1992, which netted Soros a profit of more than $1 billion. In the United Kingdom, this trade was notorious and led to “Black Wednesday,” when the pound was separated from European currencies.
After working for Soros, he became a senior partner at Protege Partners and then set up his own firm but had to return clients’ money in 2005. magazine I mentioned.
In 2011, he returned to Soros and served as chief investment officer of the hedge fund-turned-family office. During his second term, he generated $10 billion in profits for Soros, According to Bloomberg. Among his big bets was shorting the Japanese yen, which generated a $1 billion windfall in 2013.
He left in 2015 to launch Key Square, which bets on global macroeconomic trends, raising $4.5 billion, including $2 billion from Soros. Key’s flagship fund saw returns rise 13% in 2016 after Besent again bet on a fall in the British pound, this time following the Brexit vote. Sources told Reuters.
Besant scored another win later in 2016 by correctly predicting a rise in US stocks and the dollar after Trump’s first presidential election victory. Returns were mixed from 2017 to 2022, but it posted double-digit gains in 2023 and 2024, according to Reuters.
The report said that Key Square bet this year, as in 2016, that US stocks and the dollar would jump after Trump’s victory, which would contribute to the company’s big profits in 2024. Despite the recent returns, Key Square saw a decline in assets under control. Management to $577 million as of December 2023 from a peak of $5.1 billion at the end of 2017, the report said.
Under a prior agreement to return his money, Soros got most of his capital back from KeySquare in 2018 and no longer has any funds managed by Bescent, sources told Reuters.
KeySquare did not immediately comment on the Reuters story.
Besant’s experience in finance helped him receive positive feedback from Wall Street after he was nominated to lead the Treasury Department. But what is most important for Besant is that his experience helped him gain the trust of the president-elect.
“Scott is widely respected as one of the world’s leading international investors, geopolitical and economic strategists,” Trump said in a statement posted on social media on Friday. “Scott’s story is the story of the American dream.”