“A dedicated and loving father above all else. A beautiful soul who inspired me to work hard, care harder, and always remain curious,” read a caption on a Monday Instagram post by the account associated with Marianne Boesky’s art gallery.
Boesky famously declared in a 1986 commencement speech at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, that “greed is healthy,” partially inspiring Gekko’s iconic “greed is good” speech.
Nicknamed “Ivan the Terrible” on a 1986 Time Magazine cover, Boesky capitalized on the corporate takeover boom of the 1980s by using insider information to gain advanced knowledge of pending deals.
When investigators began uncovering his activities, along with those of “junk bond king” Michael Milken, Boesky agreed to cooperate with federal authorities as they investigated insider trading on Wall Street, a growing concern for the SEC by the early 1980s. He recorded calls and meetings, including with Milken, and educated investigators about stock manipulation, takeover bids, and corporate raids.
In 1986, Boesky pleaded guilty to insider trading, receiving a three-year prison sentence and a $100 million fine, half of which went towards returning his ill-gotten profits and the other half as a civil penalty. He was also barred from securities trading for life.
Born to a delicatessen owner in Detroit, Boesky began his Wall Street career as a stock analyst at New York investment bank L.F. Rothschild after graduating from the Detroit College of Law in 1964. By 1975, he had opened his own brokerage firm, Ivan F. Boesky & Company, which his wife’s family helped finance. By the spring of 1985, he was reportedly the highest-paid broker on Wall Street with a net worth exceeding $280 million (roughly $820 million in 2024).
Boesky is survived by his wife Ana, his five children, and four grandchildren.
