Raj Rajaratnam biography

Synopsis

Early Life and Career

Raj Rajaratnam was born on June 15, 1957, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. He earned an undergraduate degree in engineering at the University of Sussex in England in 1980, and a master's in business administration from the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School in 1983.

Rajaratnam began his career in finance as a lending officer at Chase Manhattan Bank, where he made loans to high-tech companies. He shifted his focus to investments in the electronics industry at banking boutique Needham & Co., where he started in 1985. At Needham he began a hedge fund that mainly invested in technology stocks. He would later buy the fund, and rename it Galleon. Rajaratnam quickly rose through the ranks, becoming head of research in 1987. In 1991, by the age of 34, Rajaratnam was named president of Needham.

The technology boom of the 1990s put Rajaratnam on the fast track to success. Galleon brought in extraordinary returns, its main fund rising 93 percent in 1999. Rajaratnam developed a reputation as an aggressive buyer and seller with a robust personality. He saw his personal fortune grow immensely and, in 2009, Forbes magazine ranked him the 236th richest American, with an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion. Rajaratnam is also believed to be the world's richest Sri Lankan.

The billionaire became known for his charitable giving, setting up a local charity after the 2004 tsunami in Sri Lanka, and giving millions of dollars to other causes related to his home country. Rajaratnam also donated $30,800 to Barack Obama's presidential campaign.

Legal Troubles

Yet Rajaratnam's rise to fame and fortune was not without problems. A series of legal challenges began in 2001, when a former Intel employee, Roomy Khan, admitted to giving Galleon confidential information about Intel. Khan pleaded guilty to the federal fraud charge.

In 2004, the Internal Revenue Service discovered that Rajaratnam and another Galleon executive created a sham tax shelter in 1999 to hide $52 million of income. Later, a panel of arbitrators found that the Galleon executives were not aware of the purpose of the tax shelter, but not before Rajaratnam had paid $20 million in taxes, penalties and interest. More importantly, Rajaratnam was now on the federal government's radar. A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation in 2005 found that Galleon had repeatedly violated stock-trading rules.

Despite facing legal battles associated with Roomy Khan, Rajaratnam continued to do business with her, briefly hiring her at Galleon. In 2007, Khan agreed to let the F.B.I. tap her cellphone, giving the federal government access to conversations between Khan and Rajaratnam. These taped conversations would prove to be the key to a massive case the F.B.I. was building against Rajaratnam, with Khan as the central witness.