Meet The 30-Year-Old Ex-Water Ski Instructor Who Made $2 Billion Trading For Dan Och
James Levin, 30, the head of a 14-person credit team for Daniel Och's Och-Ziff, had one of the most profitable trades of 2012.
According to the Journal, he bet $7.5 billion on structured credit debt instruments and it paid off big time.
His team's $2 billion gain, before fees, accounted for more than half of Och-Ziff's $3.4 billion trading gains from last year, the report said. Och-Ziff employs 468 people.
He joined Och-Ziff in 2006. Prior to that, he worked in distressed debt and statistical arbitrage investing at Dune Capital Management and Sagamore Hill Capital Management.
Levin holds a degree in computer science from Harvard.
He got his start, though, when he was a camp counselor. Levin first met Och when he taught Och's son how to water ski years ago, according to the Journal.
Here's Levin's bio page from Och-Ziff:
