The billionaire charged with insider trading

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Ethan Wu (0:38)

Thank Pushkin.

This is a market show, but behind the markets, there are human beings. And those human beings, sometimes they get in some trouble. That is the tale of Joe Lewis, the legendary currency trader and British billionaire, who this week was charged by US authorities with insider trading. Today on the show, we discuss the type of trading you really shouldn't do. This is Unhedged, the markets and finance show from the Financial Times, Anne Pushkin. I am reporter Ethan Wu, joined today in the New York studio by legal correspondent, Joe Miller.

Joe Miller (1:17)

Lovely to be here, Ethan.

Ethan Wu (1:18)

Joe, we talk about market moves, we talk about trades.

This is something different. This is the type of thing you really shouldn't do if you want to be a market participant in the long term, allegedly.

Joe Miller (1:27)

Yeah, let me tell you, this is really different even for a legal correspondent who's seen his fair share of insider trader indictments in the last few months. For a start, we're looking at an 86-year-old billionaire here, and one of our colleagues shortly after the indictment dropped just G-chatted me saying, I need to understand why you would commit insider trading in your 80s.

Ethan Wu (1:50)

You get bored after retirement. What do you have to do?

Joe Miller (1:54)

Yeah, this is an unusual insider trading charge. Usually when you see these kinds of indictments, they involve some young traders on the floor of an investment bank who have a little bit of knowledge that no one else has and share it with their friends and make a quick buck or two. Here we've got an 86-year-old billionaire sharing tips about his private plane and his yacht.

Ethan Wu (2:13)

Yeah, it certainly is very different. But let's back up and do some basics.

Who is Joe Lewis?

Joe Miller (2:20)

Well, Ethan, if you were a fan of Tottenham Hotspur, you would know who he is. Or indeed, if you knew anything about British soccer.

Ethan Wu (2:27)

If I knew what Tottenham Hotspur was, it'd be a very different show.

Joe Miller (2:31)

Yeah, well, I must declare a bias. I was born within spitting distance of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Northeast London.

Ethan Wu (2:37)

For the American listeners, this is a soccer team.

Joe Miller (2:39)

This is a football team.

And I support their archrivals' arsenal. So we just have to get that out of the way. But Joe Lewis, so he bought into Tottenham Hotspur in 2001 when he bought a controlling stake off Sir Alan Sugar. And he's since put the club in a trust whose ultimate beneficiaries include members of his family. But he actually made his reputation and his fortune, as you mentioned, as an FX trader, as a currency trader. He was one of the people who bet against the pound in the 90s, a famous trade that George Soros made a lot of money on. He was among those. And he's been living in the Bahamas for decades, and he sort of moved on from currency trading and owns enormous portfolio of real estate, biotech companies, golf courses, all sorts of businesses around the world.

He's quite reclusive, a bit of a wallflower, not an awful lot known about him, but we certainly know what his interests are and how big his empire is.

Ethan Wu (3:37)

I wanted to flag this part that he's a quiet man. And there's this interview in the New York Times in the late 90s where he gave this amazing quote, which it's just incredible now in light of what we know from the government.

One of the rewards of your success is the quiet enjoyment of it. Being on the front page of newspapers doesn't allow for that.

Joe Miller (3:54)

I am absolutely certain his lawyers will be quoting that at trial if it gets to trial.

Ethan Wu (4:01)

Yeah. So British billionaire, 86 years old, made his money in the foreign exchange markets.

And so he was born, you write in your story, Joe, above a pub in the East End in London.

Joe Miller (4:14)

He was indeed, although I must point out, coming from the East End of London myself, that there are lots of pubs in East London.