American hedge fund manager John Arnold is the founder of Centaurus Advisors, a firm that focuses on natural gas trading. In 2013, he held the Number 503 position on Forbes List of Billionaires. His net worth that year was listed at $2.8b.
Arnold began his career as an oil analyst for Enron, and was quickly promoted to assistant trader. He moved further up at the company and by 2001 was credited for making three-quarters-of-a-billion dollars profit for it, taking home a personal bonus of $8m. A colleague at the time termed Arnold “the king of natural gas.” However a year later Enron collapsed.
Arnold took the profits he made at Enron to set up Centaurus. That company resulted in approximately $3b in assets under management and in 2005 it returned around 150%. Further, it was estimated that in 2009 Arnold made $900m. In May of 2012, at the age of 38, he announced his retirement from running the hedge fund so that he could devote his time to his philanthropic works through the Linda and John Arnold Foundation. Arnold has a Bachelor of Arts/Science from Vanderbilt University, is married and has two children.