Who Is Martin Shkreli and What is His Net Worth?

What is Martin Shkreli’s Net Worth?

The Albanian-American businessman, former hedge fund manager, renowned entrepreneur and convicted felon Martin Shkreli is worth $70 million.

Who Exactly is Martin Shkreli?

Born on April Fool’s Day in 1983, Martin Shkreli grew up in Brooklyn with his parents who are immigrants from Albania and Croatia. At the age of 16, he dropped out of the prestigious Hunter high school in New York. He interned for Cramer, Berkowitz & Co., founded by CNBC’s “Mad Money” host Jim Cramer and subsequently started working at the company. In 2004, he received a business degree from New York’s Baruch College and also started learning about the healthcare business while at Intrepid Capital Management.

In his quest to make a name as an entrepreneur, Martin founded MSMB Capital Management in 2009.

His Career Highs and Lows

He became the co-founder of a pharmaceutical company, Retrophin LLC in 2011. Martin Shkreli grew his business in the healthcare industry by increasing the prices of drugs in the US. He obtained a manufacturing license of several life-saving medicines, including pyrimethamine, and shot its prices up to 5,455% with his eyes on the money. In September 2015, Martin was at the centre of widespread criticism when his company obtained the manufacturing license for the antiparasitic drug known as Daraprim and raised its price by a factor of 56 (from US$13.5 to US$750 per pill). This earned him some nasty names and he was often referred to as “the most hated man in America” and “Pharma Bro.”

Shortly after starting up Retrophin, Martin made a really bad bet shorting a biotech company called Orexigen Therapeutics. He lost $7 million for his hedge fund and suffered $1 million in other trading losses too. With under $60,000 of assets left, MSMB halted all trading.

His first run-in with the law took place in 2000 when he told Cramer’s fund to short a biotechnology stock, as revealed in an interview with Bloomberg. As expected, the stock fell, and Cramer’s fund profited from it. However, Martin was investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) for the well-timed bet, but he was later cleared of any wrongdoing.

Between February 2011 and September 2014, federal prosecutors deduced that Shkreli and an associate funneled money out of Retrophin to pay off debts owed by MSMB as well Martin’s personal debts. In December 2012, the Feds also revealed that Martin made a series of fake, backdated transactions to make it look like MSMB Capital had invested in Retrophin.

With time, Retrophin investors began to grab what was happening. Between February 2013 and March 2014, Shkreli forced Retrophin to settle with the investors for $11 million. However, he didn’t ask the board’s approval, according to the prosecutors. Also in 2013, Retrophin’s auditor questioned the settlements, coming to the conclusion that they weren’t the company’s responsibility. Notwithstanding, Martin continued the settlements which he disguised from the auditor in the form of sham “consulting” agreements.

In September 2014, Martin Shkreli was axed from Retrophin’s Board as the CEO while a lawsuit of $65 million was filed against him after breaching his duties of royalty. Apparently, going against company policies helped grow Martin Shkreli’s assets. He went on Twitter at the time to say that the directors were “insane” to fire him.

Notwithstanding, Martin Shkreli didn’t allow the whole drama with Retrophin to take him backward. Thus he formed Turing Pharmaceuticals in February 2015, a company that bought the rights to market Daraprim, a toxoplasmosis treatment used by AIDS patients. After hiking the price of the drug, Martins became popular as the “most hated man in America.” He, however, defended the price hike, claiming that his company needed to profit from the drug.

In November 2015, Shkreli bought KaloBios Pharmaceuticals. The company owned the rights to a drug called Benznidazole, which is used to treat Chagas disease. Shares of KaloBios soared 400% after Shkreli took over the company. That same month, Turing cut the price of Daraprim by half for hospitals.

Later in 2015, Martin was arrested for securities fraud, a crime to which he had maintained he is innocent. His lawyer said Shkreli “strongly denies the charges,” and posted $5 million in bail.

Consequently, shares of KaloBios (KBIO) took a nosedive to 50% following his arrest, and trading was halted all day before Martin officially stepped down as CEO of Turing. Notwithstanding, this didn’t have much influence on Martin Shkreli’s net worth.

How Much Is He Worth Now?

Considered the world’s most hated man, Martin Shkreli’s net worth is looking very attractive while he is just in his thirties. No doubt, his bizarre business strategy has brought him a lot of negative-fame, but it also put a lot of money in his bank account. You can’t argue with 70 million dollars. His company Turing Pharmaceuticals is surely going to get rich off the medicines it produces for rare diseases, but the entire biotech industry is put in an uncomfortable position because of this man.

Even though his company is worth over $500 million, Shkreli is considered one of the worst CEOs in the biotech industry.

Does He Have A Girlfriend or Wife?

It is no surprise that this controversial businessman has so far not been linked to any girlfriend nor wife. However, reports early in 2017 claimed that the notorious pharma-bro was “seriously involved with a 20-year-old nursing student identified as Elizabeth O’Connor from Westchester County, but we cannot exactly confirm that Shkreli who has at different times been tagged the “world’s most hated person”, a “chauvinist maniac” and a “douchebag” is currently in any relationship.

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