Meet Jordan Belfort the real Wolf of Wall Street

background-aboutjordan

Yacht, private plane, women, drugs, millions of money – the former stockbroker Jordan Belfort had it all and lost it all.

“It’s easy to get rich. It has to be, because the world is just too expensive. There was a time when I was making more than $50 million a year, but I paid the price for throwing my ethics into the trash. I wish I could go back in time and tell the Jordan Belfort of the early 1990s—you, know, the one you see in the movie The Wolf Of Wall Street – that giving in to greed and corruption isn’t the way to make money. I may have been the wolf, but I didn’t start out that way” –  begins the conversation Jordan.

In late 1980’sJordan founded Stratton Oakmont, the bucket shop stockbroker firm based in suburban on Long Island. A thousand hungry young brokers were simply handed a script written by Belfort himself and told to read it down the phone as they cold-called potential share buyers. Using this formula combined with hard sale tactics, Stratton Oakmont grew to become the largest and most influential firm of the late 1980’s and 1990’s. During the firm’s short life, Stratton Oakmont took over 35 companies public including the high profile IPO of Steve Madden Shoes. At its peak, Stratton Oakmont was estimated to have employed 1,000 stock brokers and was involved in stock issues totalling more than $1 billion.

How did it all start?

Jordan: “Before I partied like a rock star and became the ruthless wolf, I was a truly a good man (laughing). I was raised with high ethical standards by loving parents and my moral compass was firmly pointed in the right direction. I may have been young, and even better looking than Leonardo DiCaprio (watch your back, Leo!), but I knew I was going to be a success. When I began working for one of Wall Street’s biggest firms, I thought my future was set. As I see now I was so naïve. My first day at work was literally the day the stock market crashed and instead of the towering skyscrapers of Wall Street I found myself in a small brokerage firm in Long Island.”

Jordan: “Yes, I did. But believe me, for many people, this could have been the ending of their story, but not mine. I was able to take the business ideas of the major firms and mix them with the sensibilities of a smaller firm to create the largest independently owned brokerage firm in the country. Money was rolling in.”

In 1991, Forbes magazine described Belfort as a “kind of twisted Robin Hood who takes from the rich and gives to himself and his merry band of brokers”. In reality, some of the investors were not rich but totally broke.

Belfort was earning $50 million a year. Reportedly making $12 million in three minutes! As the ultimate compliment, the Mafia were sending people to Stratton Oakmont on “work placements” to learn how it was done.

“Money isn’t bad. Money doesn’t change you. – continues Jordan. “But I gave in to greed and avarice, and my moral compass began spinning off its axis. I was 24 years old and making more than $50 million, but something had changed. I was taking people with little or no selling skills and turning them into closers that pulled in thousands and thousands of dollars. But I began doing whatever it took to make money. I was partying hard, but I began manipulating stocks. I was a greed fuelled animal with sharp teeth and a feral growl that made people tremble.”

In 1997, Stratton was kicked out of the National Association of Securities Dealers for defrauding customers and the firm was ordered to be liquidated. The Mafia vow of silence. But the broker boys proved not nearly so tough when the FBI came knocking.

Belfort gave evidence against his colleagues and, after admitting charges of money laundering and securities fraud in 1999, served only 22 months of a four-year sentence in 2004. Belfort says that he had to reach a deal because he could have got 30 years if it had gone to trial.

“You can’t take advantage of people and break all the rules without paying the price. The Wolf was caught in a trap and I was sent to prison for almost two years for securities fraud and money laundering. The cars, boats and in many cases friends that I had acquired over the years were suddenly gone and I was left with nothing but a cell and my own thoughts. A man has a lot of time to reflect on his past in prison.”

Prison proved fruitful for Jordan. Encouraged by cellmates to write a book about his life, Belfort found inspiration in a prison library copy of Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe’s satire about a Master of the Universe Wall Street yuppie whose “childish sense of self entitlement” matched his own.

“I wrote The Wolf of Wall Street when I got out, not only as a cautionary tale, but also to show that you can be at the bottom of the barrel and still come back stronger than ever before.”

Now at 51 Belfort works as a motivational speaker. He insists that he is a completely reformed and penitent man, and lives in a modest three-bedroom house in Manhattan Beach, a relatively inexpensive part of Los Angeles. He says he has nothing left from the bad old days. 50% of everything he earns is going to the investors he defrauded. In five years, he has paid back $14 million of the $110 million he owes.

Jordan:”People have asked me if I could really change. Can a leopard change its spots? I don’t like that analogy. I was once good man, but became warped; and now many years later, I’ve been able to find that goodness again. The wolf is gone, but that doesn’t mean I don’t like being rich – I believe in ethics and making money the right way – and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be rich too.”

“Everyone who was being thrown out of the securities industry was becoming one,” he says, his voice rising in disbelief. “Anyone could be a mortgage broker. Even me.” After the drugs and the madness, a final thought from the Wolf.

Jordan Belfort is coming to London  on the 28th of May. Click the banner below to book your tickets.

Affiliate_JB0514_700x190

Be first to comment

Leave a Reply