James Chanos, president of Kynikos Associates, is the world's biggest short-seller. While short-sellers are rarely popular among politicians and CEOs, the current economic crisis is a salubrious business environment for professional bears like Mr Chanos. A second-generation Greek-American whose father owned a chain of dry cleaners in Milwaukee, Mr Chanos studied economics at Yale before beginning his career in finance, working first in Chicago then moving to New York.
Now 50, he is best known for his prescient shorting of Enron and the work he did to expose that company's fraudulent accounting. In a video interview earlier this week with FT.com, Mr Chanos said he is bearish on healthcare, defence and for-profit education companies. He warned that the hedge fund industry needs to get used to the idea that there will be "lean years" as well as fat ones: his own fund, he said, has shrunk from $7bn to $6bn because cash-strapped investors are treating it "like an ATM".
