• Bankers estimate Hwang had a fortune approaching $20 billion
• SEC looking into the Archegos fiasco, which has stung banks

(Bloomberg) — 

It was another Friday morning, 7 o’clock, and a familiar scene was unfolding again inside Archegos Capital Management, an obscure family office that would go on to shake the financial world.

In the days before the pandemic, 20 or 30 people would squeeze together around the long table and, over coffee and Danishes, listen to recordings of the Bible, according to people who were there.

First might come the Old Testament, perhaps Isaiah or Lamentations. Then came the New, the Gospels, which called out to the listeners drawn from a path known more for its earthly greed than its godly faith: Wall Street.

Hitting the play button and then receding into the background was the host, Bill Hwang, the mysterious billionaire trader now at the center of one of the biggest Wall Street fiascos of all time.

The story thus far — of a mind-boggling fortune made in stealth and then wiped out very publicly in a blink — has sent shock waves through some of the world’s mightiest banks. Estimates of the potential size of his position before it imploded have spiraled toward $100 billion. The Securities and Exchange Commission is looking into the disaster, which has set teeth on edge in trading rooms across the globe.

But those accounts tell only part of the story. Interviews with people from inside Hwang’s circle, Wall Street players close to him and documents associated with his multimillion-dollar charitable foundation fill in missing puzzle pieces — ones that haven’t been reported previously.

The picture that emerges is unlike anything Wall Street might suspect.

There are, in a sense, not one but two Bill Hwangs.

Christian Capitalist

One of them walks for hours through New York’s Central Park listening to recordings of the Bible and embraces a new, 21st-century vision of an age-old ideal: that of a modern Christian capitalist, a financial speculator for Christ, who seeks to make money in God’s name and then use it to further the faith. A generous benefactor to a range of unglamorous, mostly conservative Christian causes, this Hwang eschews the trappings of extravagant wealth, rides the bus, flies commercial and lives in what is, by billionaire standards, humble surroundings in suburban New Jersey.

Then there’s the other Bill Hwang: a former acolyte of hedge fund legend Julian Robertson with a thirst for risk and a stomach for volatile markets — a daring trader who once lost a fortune betting against German automaker Volkswagen AG while running a hedge fund that was supposedly focused on Asian stocks.

This is also the Bill Hwang who then went on to quietly become one of the most successful alumni of Robertson’s vaunted Tiger Management. This one masks his dangerous leveraged bets from public view via financial derivatives, was once accused of insider trading and pleaded guilty in 2012 to wire fraud on behalf of his hedge fund, Tiger Asia Management.

That same Bill Hwang, it turns out, is also a backer of one of Wall Street’s hottest hands of late, Cathie Wood of Ark Investments. Like Hwang, Wood is known to hold Bible study meetings and figures into what some refer to as the “faith in finance” movement.

And here, at last, is where the Bill Hwangs collide. The fortune he amassed under the noses of major banks and financial regulators was far bigger and riskier than almost anyone might have thought possible — and these riches were pulled together with head-snapping speed. In fact, it was perhaps one of the greatest accumulations of private wealth in the history of modern finance.

And Hwang lost it all even faster.

Breakneck Speed

Archegos — a Greek word often translated as “author” or “captain,” and often considered a reference to Jesus — was believed by many traders doing business with the firm to be sitting atop $10 billion of assets. That figure, representing Hwang’s personal fortune, was actually closer to $20 billion, according to people who did business with Archegos.

To put that figure in context: Bill Hwang, a name few even on Wall Street had heard until now, was worth more than well-known industry figures like Ray Dalio, Steve Cohen and David Tepper.

Even more remarkable is the breakneck speed at which Hwang’s fortune grew. Archegos started out in 2013 with an estimated $200 million. That’s a sizable fortune but nowhere near big money in the hedge fund game.

Yet within a decade, Hwang’s fortune swelled 100 times over, traders and bankers now estimate. Much of those riches accrued in the past 12 to 24 months alone, as Hwang began to employ more and more leverage to goose his returns, and as banks, eager for his lucrative trading business, eagerly obliged by extending him credit.

Hwang’s success enabled him to endow his own charity, the Grace & Mercy Foundation, which had almost $500 million of assets as of 2018, according to its most recent tax filing.

One institution close to Hwang, and a beneficiary of his foundation, is The King’s College, a small Christian school in the heart of New York’s Financial District.

In a statement to Bloomberg, the college said it was grateful for his generosity and that “our prayers are with Mr. Hwang and his staff.”

McDonald’s Job

The story of both Bill Hwangs begins in South Korea, where he was born Sung Kook Hwang i