The billionaire, financier and philanthropist said on Wednesday that while the collapse of the international banking system took him - and scores more - by surprise, he had a feeling trouble was brewing and took steps to safeguard his fortune.

Accomplishment

"I would say I was able to protect my capital, and get a rate of return that is satisfactory in normal times," he said on Wednesday. "I think in the current environment, to be simply in positive territory is itself an accomplishment."

In 2008, Forbes magazine estimated Soros' fortune to be US$9 billion.

Soros - one of the few tycoons at this year's World Economic Forumwhose stature has been enhanced by the crisis - returned to Davos a year after urging a massive regulation through a "new sheriff" for global finance, an idea that has become increasingly in vogue in the wake of the financial meltdown.

He said the current climate was actually worse than the Great Depression comparison that many are using. He invoked 1944, when he was a teenager and Nazi Germany occupied his native Hungary.

"We need to create money," he said. "The fiscal stimulus is an important part, but it is not the only thing that needs to be done."

No strong growth predicted

The US economy, meanwhile, will not return to strong growth for at least 10 years, he predicted.

"It would be very difficult for the United States to grow by three per cent in a year over the next decade," he said.

He called on the US to augment its stimulus packages with a rescue of the housing market by bringing mortgage costs and foreclosures down, and raising the amount of credit available to homeowners. US banks need US$1.5 trillion in recapitalisation, he said, but acknowledged such a bailout was unlikely.

"That means the government would have a majority share in the banking system," Soros said. "This is called nationalisation. It is politically unacceptable."

The result, unfortunately, is that the banking system will continue to suffer this year. Soros predicted that the banks which weathered the crisis well in 2008 - not investment banks laden with securities but those 'heavy' in consumer and business loans - will be the most troubled in 2009.

As for the British pound, which Soros and other speculators in 1992 forced out of a system pegging it to other European economies, he admitted.