Buffett to Jhunjhunwala: 15 most successful investors of all time

There are two quick ways to get rich. Either you work hard to earn money, or you make your money work hard for you. The second one appears simple, but investing in stocks or companies is by no means an easy job. There are countless considerations and infinite risks to take care of. Warren Buffett is one of the best examples of a successful investor. Here's a list of individuals who made their fortunes in the stock market

Warren Buffett
 
Warren Buffett is the most celebrated investor of all times. The investor's track record is unparalleled.
He started at the age of 20 when he purchased a Sinclair Texaco gas station as a side investment. In 1962, Buffett became a millionaire because of extensive profits from his partnerships. He then invested and later took control of the textile manufacturing firm, Berkshire Hathaway.
From 1965 to 2017, Berkshire Hathaway's rising market value generated a 20.9% annual return compared with the S&P 500's 9.9%, resulting in a cumulative gain of 2,404,748% versus the market's 15,508% return.

George Soros
 
George Soros is a Hungarian-born US-based business magnate and a prominent philanthropist. He started his career as a railway porter and a waiter before taking up a job at Singer & Friedlander Bank in London.
Soros skyrocketed to fame in September 1992, when he wagered $10 billion on a single bet against the British pound. This single currency speculation netted the investor a whopping sum of $1 billion in profits in a single day, and a total of nearly $2 billion over time.
Much of his wealth comes from hedge fund management, however, as Soros Fund Management LLC commands $26 billion in assets. Besides, investing in all major tech companies like Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Soros Fund Management has recently invested in cryptocurrency exchange platforms.

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud
 
Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud, dubbed as the Arabian Warren Buffett,  parlayed a 1979 inheritance of $15,000 into a $23 billion business empire. He established a number of business ventures, initially focusing on construction and real estate. Over time, his investments rapidly grew and eventually led to the formation of Kingdom Holding Company, which invested in banking, telecommunications, broadcasting & media, entertainment, hospitality, computers and electronics, agriculture, restaurants, upscale fashion, retailing, supermarkets, tourism, travel, and automotive manufacturing.
Alwaleed was arrested on November 4, 2017, in a major crackdown on alleged corruption and was released after 83 days. In this period, his profits and investment witnessed a dip.  

Carl Icahn

Carl Icahn is one of Wall Street's most successful figures with holdings in about 10 business segments including automotive, energy, gaming, real estate and food packaging. He has a majority or controlling positions in various corporations, including RJR Nabisco, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Fairmont Hotels, Blockbuster and Kerr-McGee. Icahn Enterprises had revenue of $19.4 billion in 2017.

Alisher Burkhanovich Usmanov

Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov is an Uzbek-born Russian business magnate who owns 48% of USM Holding company. The Russia-based entity controls Metalloinvest, Russia's largest iron ore producer, and mobile phone company MegaFon.
He's invested in Alibaba, Airbnb, JD.Com and Spotify, and controls Kommersant, a Russian newspaper.
Usmanov's first big tech investment was a stake in Facebook Inc. In recent years, he invested in India's largest online retailer Flipkart, Chinese smartphone producer Xiaomi Corp. and regional Uber clones -- Ola Cabs in India and Didi in China. He recently exited his stake in Arsenal Football Club.

Ronald Perelman
 
Ronald Perelman is chairman and owner of MacAndrews & Forbes, a closely held investment firm with stakes in a group of businesses including Humvee maker AM General, film services provider Deluxe Entertainment and payments business Harland Clarke. He is also the largest shareholder of cosmetics company Revlon. He invested in a wide range of companies that encapsulate daily products, cosmetics, automobiles, entertainment, security, gaming, apparels, banks, and publishing sector.
 

Mikhail Prokhorov

Russian billionaire Mikhail Prokhorov made most of his wealth by becoming country's leading industrialist, owning major stakes in MNCs mostly in the metals and mining sector. One of the company he heavily invested in was Norsik Nickel, which eventually became one of the largest producer of nickel and palladium in the world. He has stakes in Russian aluminum, power, insurance, banking and media companies. Prokhorov founded Onexim Group, a Moscow-based company with interests in banking, insurance, energy and sports. He controls the Brooklyn Nets, the National Basketball Association team, and the Barclays Center, the Nets home arena. Prokhorov also holds stakes in the Renaissance Capital and VTB banks.

David Tepper

David Tepper is among the few hedge fund managers who has delivered strong returns in the years since the worldwide financial crisis. Tepper co-founded Appaloosa Management, a Florida-based investment advisor with $17 billion in assets under management.
Since it started in 1993, the flagship fund has focused on stocks and bonds of distressed companies, and has averaged 30% annual returns. His bets on Conseco and Marconi also led to huge profits for the company's hedge funds. In 2009, Tepper's hedge-fund earned about $7 billion by buying distressed stocks (including Bank of America), and then profiting from the recovery of those stocks almost a year later. He bought the Carolina Panthers for $2.3 billion in July 2018.
 

Philip Anschutz

Anschutz is a US-based billionaire entrepreneur who owns or controls many companies in a variety of businesses, including energy, railroads, real estate, sports, newspapers, movies, theaters, arenas and music. Anschutz owns Anschutz Corp, a closely held conglomerate that controls the Los Angeles Staples Center and Kings hockey team. It also has a stake in theater operator Regal Entertainment. Other investments include a concessionaire for hotels and national parks, and Colorado water rights. 

Stephen Schwarzman

Stephen A. Schwarzman and his partner Pete Peterson started The Blackstone Group with just $400,000 on the company's balance sheet. Schwarzman serves as the chairman and CEO of The Blackstone Group, which is the world's largest independent alternative asset management firm. Initially a boutique merger-and-acquisition advisory business, Blackstone grew into the world's largest buyout firm, with over $450 billion in assets.

August von Finck, Jr.
 
August von Finck Jr. inherited his grandfather's business, Wilhelm von Finck, set up in 1870. But he rose to fame with his own peerless investment practices. He acquired larger shares of Merck, Finck & Co. Munich Re and Allianz from his father and then sold family-owned bank Merck Finck to Barclays for $150 million in 1990.
Now, Von Finck owns Finck'sche Hauptverwaltung, a Munich-based investment firm. The closely held business owns stakes in Swiss industrial inspection company SGS, insulation manufacturer Von Roll and the Moevenpick hotel and restaurant chain. His 15% stake in Switzerland's Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS), the world's leading testing and certification organisation, alone is worth over $2 billion.

Suleyman Kerimov

Suleyman Kerimov is among Russian's wealthiest businessmen and has built a diverse portfolio of international holdings and investments that have brought him immense success as a businessman, investor and philanthropist. In 1995, Kerimov was appointed by Soyuz Finz, a banking and trading company, to be CEO, where he diversified the company's investment holdings and corporate buyouts.
Kerimov's personal investment activities made him buy out the partners of Fedprombank and also to purchase 50% of the shares in Vnukovo Airlines. He held significant shares in a number of investment companies, such as Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Credit Suisse and managed to survive their crashes during the financial meltdown of 2008-09.
 

Guo Guangchang

Guo Guangchang is often dubbed as China's Warren Buffett. Guo is the chairman and largest individual shareholder of Fosun International, an investment firm with revenue of $13 billion in 2017. In 1992, Guo founded Guangxin Technology Development Company, which was among the first to use scientific methods in market research in mainland China.
Since 1994, Guo has been the chairman of Fosun Group and invested in insurance, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, property, steel, mining, retail, services, finance and other investment, and asset management, creating one of the largest non-state owned enterprises in China.
The Shanghai-based company has also invested in lifestyle brands Cirque du Soleil and Club Med.

Yuri Milner

Yuri Milner is Russia's most influential tech investor and founded investment firm Digital Sky Technologies (Mail.ru Group) and DST Global. Through DST Global, Milner invested in Facebook, Zynga, Twitter, Flipkart, Spotify, Zocdoc, Groupon, JD.com, Xiaomi, OlaCabs, Alibaba, Airbnb, WhatsApp, NuBank, Wish and many others.
Milner's personal investments also include a stake in 23andMe, Habito, Planet Labs, minority stake in a real estate investments start-up, Cadre, founded by Donald Trump's son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner.
He later sold those stakes, but invested in new startups like Spotify and Airbnb. The Hong Kong-based venture capital group has retained stakes in Alibaba and Xiaomi.

Rakesh Jhunjhunwala
 
Ace investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala began investing in 1985 when the Bombay Stock Exchange Index was at 150; it now trades over 38,700.
Dalal Street's big bull Rakesh Jhunjhunwala began trading with just Rs 5,000 in the 80s. His biggest holding is an 8% stake in watch and jewellery maker Titan, worth more than $900 million. In 2017, four of Rakesh Jhunjhunwala's stock picks - Titan Company Ltd, Delta Corp Ltd, Dewan Housing Finance and Escorts Ltd - doubled investors' wealth. His favourite Titan Company Ltd's shares returned 161%, Delta Corp Ltd's shares returned 170%, Dewan Housing shares returned 142% and Escorts Ltd's shares surged by 158%.