Called “the poster child of greed” by Bernie Sanders (the American politician), named “the most hated man in America” by The Daily Beast in 2015 and known as a “pharma bro”, Martin Shkreli is one of America’s most controversial businessmen.
Although he is currently imprisoned in the Metropolitan Detention Center, Brooklyn for securities fraud-related offenses, Martin has enjoyed enormous success as an entrepreneur and has served as CEO of several companies ranging from hedge funds to pharmaceutical companies and software development.
Martin Shkreli is a born businessman, he started investing in well-established companies like Compaq and Amazon from the age of 12. He considers Bill Gates his greatest influence and mentor. Shkreli has been described as brilliant, quirky, fascinating, gruesome, malevolent and utterly convincing by people who have come into contact with him.
Martin Shkreli Biography, Parents
Martin Shkreli was born on the 17th day of March 1983 at Coney Island Hospital, Brooklyn; to Albanian parents. He has 3 siblings – two sisters and one brother; and his parents had to do odd jobs in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn to support themselves.
Shkreli attended the prestigious Hunter College High School – a high school for gifted students in Carnegie Hill, New York. Over time, he became disenchanted with school and dropped out in 2000 at age 17 to mysteriously intern at Cramer Berkowitz, a Wall Street hedge fund run by ex-CNBC financier Jim Cramer.
Although Shkreli started out in the mailroom, he was quickly noticed by Jim Cramer for his knack for spotting petty biotech scams. He came to the attention of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in 2003 for making accurate predictions about the failure of certain biotech companies (including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals) in the stock market, causing hedge funds to Cramer Berkowitz to make huge profits in these stocks.
He was suspected of having had sources inside some of these companies and also considered a “mole” for Cramer Berkowitz. However, after proper investigation, the Securities and Exchange Commission could not prove any shady transactions. Martin then attended Baruch College and graduated with a BBA in finance and economics in 2004.
Professional career
Martin Shkreli worked at Cramer Berkowitz for approximately four years and after his stint at Cramer Berkowitz hedge fund ended, he became a financial analyst for Intrepid Capital Management and UBS Wealth Management. Due to the success and influence he had at Cramer Berkowitz, Shkreli decided to start his own hedge fund named Elea Capital Management. But he quickly folded after a lawsuit against Lehman Brothers.
Martin Shkreli had made a 2.6 million USD bet via Lehman Brothers that the market would go down. However, the reverse was the case, so Lehman Brothers sued Martin Shkreli for his failure to cover the “put option trade” when his prediction failed to materialize. Shkreli refused to pay and threatened to file for bankruptcy and although Lehman Brothers won the lawsuit and was supposed to be paid 2.3 million USD, during the global economic crisis of 2008 they went underwater before able to collect the money owed to them. Therefore, the verdict was overturned.
MSMB
In 2009, Martin Shkreli co-founded another hedge fund called MSMB which is simply a combination of his initials, Martin Shkreli and that of his childhood friend Marek Biestek. Shkreli and Biestek were notorious for shorting biotech stocks and lambasting biotech companies on social media, pointing out their weaknesses and shortcomings for the sole purpose of causing stock plunges.
In February 2011, Martin Shkreli founded a pharmaceutical company called Retrophin (a subsidiary of MSMB) with the aim of providing treatments for rare diseases. He would go on to sell the stocks of Ordemanden Therapeutics that same year. It ended up being a disastrous move as he lost around $8 million which left MSMB nearly bankrupt with a measly $60,000 in assets left in the company’s name.
MSMB had to suspend all forms of commerce. Nevertheless, Shkreli continued to send business reports to investors insinuating that all was well with their investments and that they were making maximum profit with MSMB. This information was later released by the FBI. They also revealed that Shkreli forged documents by backdating them to imply that MSMB had invested in Retrophin but instead Shkreli had actually siphoned money from Retrophin to pay off his personal debts as well as debts owed by the management of the capital of MSMB.
Retrophin Pharmaceuticals’ board finally caught wind of Shkreli’s shady dealings in 2013 and after a thorough audit, the board elected Shkreli as CEO and replaced him with Stephen Aselage in September 2014.
Before all of his shady deals came to light, Martin became the 23rd name on the Forbes ’30 under 30′ finance list in 2012.
2015
2015 was a very eventful year for Martin Shkreli. in February, like a bandwagon, Martin Shkreli launched another pharmaceutical company called Turing Pharmaceuticals. Turing is known for the development of three drugs, the intranasal version of ketamine (for depression), oxytocin (which facilitates childbirth) and Vecamyl (for hypertension). In August of the same year, Retrophin having replaced Shkreli, went ahead to sue him for 65 million USD for his actions.
Shkreli came up with a business plan to license off-patent drugs and try to rejuvenate them. That way his company didn’t really have to worry about trying to release new drugs and they spent less to make big profits. Under his plan, Shkreli and Turing Pharmaceuticals bought the rights to market a toxoplasmosis treatment drug (commonly used by AIDS patients) called Daraprim. Shkreli hiked the price of a Daraprim pill by a whopping 5,000% ($13-$750). He received backlash and harsh criticism for his actions, but he remained adamant and did nothing to reduce the cost of the drug.
In November, along with other investors, he bought KaloBios Pharmaceuticals because of their patented drug called Benznidazole (used to treat Chagas disease). As a result of this decision, KaloBios shares rose 400% and although he wanted to remain CEO of Turing and KaloBios Pharmaceuticals, he resigned as CEO of Turing and was fired from KaloBios after being arrested for securities fraud in December..
Despite Shkreli denying the charges leveled against him and securing $5 million US bail, that hasn’t stopped KaloBios’ shares from plunging 50%. Martin Shkreli had to resort to livestreaming his life to his 200,000 YouTube subscribers to fill his time.
Martin Shkreli 2016-2017
In 2016, Shkreli started a professional software company called Gödel Systems and tweeted that he would plead the Fifth when he was subpoenaed to appear before a House Oversight Committee.
On August 4th , 2017 after a fair trial, he was found guilty of two counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. He was found not guilty on the other five counts of fraud he was charged with and, due to his five not guilty verdicts, he granted bail, but his bail was revoked when he posted a controversial post on Facebook offering $5,000 for a shutter. Hillary Clinton’s hair.
He is currently serving time at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn and will remain there until January 16th , 2018 when his final sentencing will be known.
Martin Shkreli’s wife/girlfriend
To the best of our knowledge, Martin Shkreli is currently single and has no wife or girlfriend. It’s no big surprise his blatant and controversial lifestyle isn’t the most appealing. Other than that, Martin never really had time to do anything unrelated to business. He spent all of his time building businesses and making deals. He seems to be a bit too selfish and too ambitious to consider settling down with anyone. Also, he has more pressing matters at hand and would understandably be more concerned about his freedom.
Is Martin Shkreli dead?
The way Martin Shkreli handled business, it’s no wonder death hoaxes are flying around him. However, these are just hoaxes as he is obviously not dead as the dead are not judged.
Martin Shkreli is currently in prison and is not dead.
Net worth of Shkreli, car
Shkreli’s net worth was previously estimated at $45 million, but was later estimated to be just under $40 million because he used his $4 million e-commerce account for bail.
However, a more recent review of his assets after his trial placed his net worth at $70 million.
His wealth gave him certain propensities like collecting rare albums worth millions of dollars. He purchased a single copy of the Wu-Tang Clan album Once Upon a Time in Shaolin for an alarming $2 million and also offered to be the sole owner of Kanye West ‘s The Life of Pablo for $15 million.
Shkreli purchased a list of unreleased tracks from Lil Wayne’s Carter V album and leaked some of the tracks online, but Lil Wayne threatened to sue, so Shkreli promised to stop the leaking of the tracks. He actually bought the list of unreleased tracks from an anonymous buyer of Lil Wayne’s Bugatti.
