Sunday, September 21, 2008
Mei Sze Chan is Billionaire Jeff Greene's Wife (Photos)
Mei Sze Chan is the wife of billionaire Jeff Greene. The 32-year-old Australian married the 53-year-old real estate investor on September, 29, 2007 before he appeared on the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in America. His most notable achievement: betting on the misfortunes of ordinary homeowners by buying credit default swaps that profited from the subprime implosion and netting $800 million in profit, boosting his already prodigious net worth to $1.4 billion.
Jeff Greene first met Mei Sze Chan, an ethnic Chinese refugee from Malaysia who first fled to Australia before heading to New York after graduating from college, at a party in the Hamptons whereupon he regaled her with talk of mortgages until sunrise. Within a month, the party-hopping real estate executive was living on his 145-foot yacht, and months later, they were married on his 27-acre Beverly Hills canyon estate, otherwise known as Palazzo di Amore. In attendance at the $1 million extravaganza were Hollywood notables like Oliver Stone, Michael Bay, and Tara Reid with boxer Mike Tyson playing the role of best man.
To implement his risky subprime bet, Jeff Greene went to Merrill Lynch and J.P. Morgan Chase, who agreed to act as counterparties for an asset-back credit default swap, which let him bet on the deterioration of a pool of subprime mortgages composed of Nevada and California loans as well as 2/28 mortgages, which combined initially low teaser rates with much higher interest rates down the line. This was the first time an individual was accepted as a counterparty to this sort of complex derivatives trade, and the success of this trade catapulted him into the billonaire's club.
Mei Sze Chan Photos
Mei Sze Chan at her wedding to Jeff Greene
Mike Tyson, Jeff Greene's best man
