John W. Henry

John William Henry II (born September 13, 1949) is an American businessman and the founder of John W. Henry & Company, an investment management firm. He is the principal owner of Liverpool Football Club, the Boston Red Sox, The Boston Globe, co-owner of RFK Racing and former owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins. As of October 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth to be US$5.7 billion.

Henry was born to John William Henry Sr. and Lois Henry (née Osborne) on September 13, 1949, in Quincy, Illinois. His parents were soybean farmers, and he split his time growing up between Illinois and Arkansas.

At age 15, his asthmatic condition prompted his family to move to Apple Valley, California, where Henry attended and graduated from Victor Valley High School in Victorville, California.

Henry then attended but did not graduate from four separate colleges and universities, Victor Valley College, and then University of California, Riverside, University of California, Irvine, and UCLA, where he majored in philosophy.

He attributes not graduating to the time he spent performing and touring with two bands, Elysian Fields and Hillary.

Henry started trading corn and soybean futures to learn the basics of hedging the price risk of holding an inventory of these commodities, whether in storage or out in the field. In 1976, a commodities broker at Reynolds Securities asked him to advise other farmers, but he declined. After spending a summer in Norway with his first wife, Mai, Henry developed a mechanical trend following method for managing a futures trading account. He tested his trend-reversal method—which was never out of the market but always held a position (either long or short) in every one of the markets in the account's "basket" of commodities—"using his own money," according to his marketing materials from 1983.

When that test proved successful, he founded John W. Henry & Company in 1981, opened a small office across the street from the airport in Irvine, California, and began marketing his management to the largest commodity brokerage firms in America. That proved so successful by 1983 that he moved to considerably larger quarters at Fashion Island in Newport Beach. In 1989, Henry moved to Westport, Connecticut.

JWH was established in 1981 and began taking retail clients in 1982. The firm's management methods make mechanical, non-discretionary trading decisions in response to systematic determinations of reversals in each market's direction, with the explicit intention of precluding not only human emotion, but also any subjective evaluation of factors outside of price behavior, such as the fundamentals, to trigger each decision to be long or short each market, or not.

In March 2025, Boston magazine estimated Henry's net worth at $5.5 billion, but also reported that his firm had experienced recent difficulties.

On November 9, 2012, the firm announced that it would stop managing clients' money by December 31, 2012, and Henry confirmed that total assets under the firm's management had fallen from $2.5 billion in 2006 to less than $100 million as of late 2012.

Four-time World Series champion as principal owner of the Boston Red Sox

2024 Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement, presented by guitarist and founder of Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page

In May 2007, Henry filed for divorce in Florida from second wife, Peggy Sue Henry. Court documents showed that she had asked for child support and alimony, and disputed her husband's claim that the couple had prenuptial agreement. The two had been married for 13 years, and had a daughter.

Also in 2007, Henry bought the Brookline home of Frank McCourt, the former owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He had the home demolished and replaced it with a 35,000-square-foot mansion.

Henry was briefly portrayed by Arliss Howard in the 2011 film Moneyball, which follows Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane and his quest to build a winning team in 2002. Towards the end of the film, Beane travels to Boston's Fenway Park where he meets with Henry, who wants Beane to become the new GM of the Red Sox.

The film depicts Beane turning down a five-year, $12.5 million contract with the Boston Red Sox and returning to the Oakland Athletics, but adds that the Red Sox, despite failing to hire Beane, implemented many of his "Moneyball" ideas and went on to win the 2004 World Series, marking the first Red Sox championship in 86 years.