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John W Henry
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John W Henry
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John William Henry II (born September 13, 1949) is a futures and foreign exchange trading advisor who founded John W. Henry & Company (JWH). He is the principal owner of the Boston Red Sox and Liverpool F.C., and co-owner of Roush Fenway Racing. In March 2006, Boston Magazine estimated his net worth at $1.1 billion, but noted that his company had recently experienced difficulties. In May 2007, reports in the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg noted further difficulties with the firm. he is related to Edward Wilton.
Early life
John William Henry II was born on September 13, 1949 in Quincy, Illinois. His parents were farmers, and he split his time growing up between Illinois and Arkansas. His asthmatic condition at the age of 15 prompted his family to move to Apple Valley, California. After his graduation from Victor Valley High School in Victorville, he attended Victor Valley College, then the University of California (at Riverside, Irvine, and Los Angeles), where he majored in philosophy but did not graduate — partly the result of performing on the road in two rock and roll bands, Elysian Fields and Hillary.
Henry started trading corn and soybean futures, to learn the basics of hedging the price risk of holding an inventory of these commodities, whether in storage or out in the field. In 1976, a commodities broker at Reynolds Securities asked him to advise other farmers, but he declined. After spending a summer in Norway with his first wife, Mai, Henry developed a mechanical trend following method for managing a futures trading account. He tested his trend-reversal method — which was never out of the market but always held a position (either long or short) in every one of the markets in the account's "basket" of commodities — "using his own money" (in the words of his marketing literature of 1983). When that test proved successful, he founded JWH in 1981, opened a small office across the street from the airport in Irvine, California, and began marketing his management to the largest commodity brokerage firms in America. That proved so successful by 1983, that he moved to considerably larger quarters at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. In 1989, JWH moved to Westport, Connecticut and Henry moved to Boca Raton, Florida. Two years later, JWH established a second office in Boca Raton.
