In a remarkable turn of events, Joe Lewis, an 86-year-old billionaire with a penchant for flashy trades and acquisitions, has surrendered to US authorities in New York. The Bahamas-based investor, known for his business ventures ranging from currency trading to owning a football club, stands accused of insider trading that spanned almost a decade.
The unsealed indictment sheds light on Lewis, portraying a man who allegedly used inside information obtained from investing in public companies to provide trading opportunities to his friends, romantic partners, and personal pilots. Lewis’s lawyer, David Zornow, vehemently defends his client, claiming that the charges are ill-conceived and asserting Lewis’s impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishments.
One of the allegations within the documents pertains to Lewis lending $500,000 each to two of his private pilots so they could purchase stock in Nasdaq-listed Mirati Therapeutics. Suspicion arose when one of the pilots texted a friend, suggesting that Lewis had insider information due to his investment and advising them to invest as well. Prosecutors also claim that Lewis received non-public information about “positive developments” in a clinical trial from an employee of the hedge fund through which he held a significant shareholding in Mirati.
In a separate case, Lewis allegedly received confidential information about the Australian Agricultural Company’s losses resulting from flooding in Queensland. He purportedly advised his pilots to sell their AAC stock before the company publicly announced the news, indicating that Lewis had a prior heads-up. Similarly, Lewis is accused of sharing insider information about Solid Biosciences with his girlfriend during a stay at a Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul. The girlfriend then purchased shares in the biotechnology company and sold them at a significant profit after the clinical trial information was disclosed.
Although Lewis is widely recognized as the majority owner of Tottenham Hotspur, a prominent football club based in London, he relinquished control of the club in 2022. Tottenham, held by ENIC, a Bahamas-based company, comments that the legal matter is unconnected to the club.
Born in an east London pub in 1937, Lewis dropped out of school at 15 and ventured into the family catering business. Eventually, he moved to the Bahamas in 1979 for a change of tax regime. His Tavistock Group owns stakes in numerous companies across different countries, as well as valuable art pieces by celebrated artists like Picasso and Matisse.
Lewis gained recognition in the foreign exchange market for his trades, especially his successful bet against sterling during Britain’s exit from the European exchange rate mechanism in 1992. While he has faced criticism for his involvement in Black Wednesday, Lewis has maintained that he simply followed the market’s direction, proving the politicians wrong and emphasizing the free flow of cash.
Despite his reputation as a shrewd trader, Lewis experienced a significant loss of $1 billion after investing in Bear Stearns before the financial crisis in 2007. Nevertheless, former traders describe him as an East End geezer with a knack for risk-taking in an unforgiving market.
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