Dan Gertler, whose grandfather co-founded Israel’s diamond exchange in 1947, arrived in Congo in 1997 seeking rough diamonds. The 23-year-old trader struck a deep friendship with Joseph Kabila, who then headed the Congolese army and today is the nation’s president. Since those early days, Gertler has invested in iron ore, gold, cobalt and .
Diamonds have been a backdrop to Gertler’s life since his childhood in affluent northern Tel Aviv, where he had a secular upbringing. His mother ran a pop-music radio station, and his father was a goalkeeper for Maccabi Tel Aviv, a top-division pro soccer team, before becoming a diamond dealer.
As a youth, Gertler got up at 5 a.m. to learn how to polish gems before heading to school. He joined his grandfather, Romanian emigre Moshe Schnitzer, at business meetings to watch him negotiate diamond deals. When Schnitzer died in 2007, Benjamin Netanyahu, who’s now Israel’s prime minister, gave a eulogy.
Gertler, sitting below a stained-glass dome at his office in one of the Israel Diamond Exchange’s four towers in Ramat Gan, just east of Tel Aviv, turns wistful when he talks about Schnitzer. He recalls a business lesson his grandfather imparted: “He told me: ‘Dan, you meet your bankers and you ask for credit only when you don’t need it. Just to secure it. Because when you need it, it is too late.
At age 22, Gertler started buying rough diamonds so he could work with larger volumes, he says. Gertler flew between war-torn nations such as Liberia and Angola and the major diamond centers in the U.S., India and Israel, buying and selling gems, he says.
“From the beginning, he went his own way,” says his uncle, Shmuel Schnitzer, 63, who was president of the World Federation of Diamond Bourses from 2002 to 2006.“The guy has guts. This is the basic thing about him.”
Gertler broke with his family’s secular tradition when he and Anat decided to adopt an ultra-Orthodox lifestyle. They’ve banned television and computers from their five-story, terraced house in Bnei Brak, whose crisp stone finishing and verdant shrubbery lining each floor contrast with the neighbors’ concrete apartment buildings.
Gertler, meanwhile, won back a near monopoly of Congo’s diamond trade. One of his companies, Canada-based Emaxon Finance International Inc., paid $15 million in cash and loans to the country’s state-owned diamond miner, known as MIBA, for a four- year contract to sell 88 percent of its production.
Congo was desperate for investment at the time, Frazer says. “It’s not like he crowded out a lot of other investors,” she says. “There weren’t many.”
Kabila, who had formed a government in which former rebel chiefs were cabinet ministers as part of the peace deal, tried to kick-start Congo’s economy. The ministers signed dozens of deals to exploit the country’s natural resources with foreign companies, many of them at prices that undervalued the assets, according to reports by the World Bank and the Congolese Parliament.
In 2006, Kabila’s People’s Party for Reconstruction and Development, with a platform of rebuilding the country’s war- ravaged infrastructure, was elected in Congo’s first free elections in four decades, certified by the UN.
Gertler’s dealings can be wildly profitable. In one case, he earned a 500 percent return in just six months without risking a single penny as the middleman in a deal for Societe Miniere de Kabolela & Kipese SPRL, or SMKK, which owns a copper and cobalt deposit in the heart of Katanga’s richest mining zone.
In 2009, SMKK was half-owned by the state’s Gecamines, short for La Generale des Carrieres & des Mines , and half-owned by ENRC, the Kazakh-founded mining company that’s listed on the London Stock Exchange. ENRC wanted to acquire all of SMKK but didn’t exercise its right of first refusal to buy the government’s stake, according to the joint-venture agreement.
Instead, ENRC made a deal with a company controlled by Gertler’s family trust -- Emerald Star Enterprises Ltd., based in the British Virgin Islands. On Dec. 21, 2009, ENRC paid the Gertler firm $25 million for an option to buy the remaining 50 percent stake of SMKK, according to filings ENRC made with the London Stock Exchange.
Gertler didn’t even own the asset he was selling the option on -- at least not yet.
Hidden Billionarie
Hidden billionaire or Secret Billionarie is an individual who has a net worth of $1 billion or more and who hasn’t appeared on a major international rich list.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Wednesday, December 5, 2012
Hidden Billionarie Alvaro Saieh
Alvaro Saieh, 62, became a billionaire after his shares of Corpbanca (CORPBANC), Chile’s sixth-biggest lender, jumped 63 percent in 2009, more than doubling the following year. His 63 percent stake is now worth more than $2.1 billion.
Saieh, who earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago and traces his roots to Palestine, formed his company by leading the takeover of century-old Banco de Concepcion in 1995 and using it to buy up rivals.
In December, Saieh oversaw the $1.16 billion acquisition of Banco Santander SA (SAN)’s Colombian unit, helping Corpbanca become the first Chilean financial institution to own a foreign bank.
A press official representing Saieh, who asked not to be named due to internal policy, said his closely held retail, insurance and media assets are worth $2.6 billion not including debt. SMU SA, his chain of supermarkets and retail stores, reported 2010 sales of $2.2 billion.
The number of billionaires that remain uncovered is difficult to quantify. “It’s hard to give you a number. You should question anyone who claims they can,” said Anthony DeChellis, head of Private Banking Americas for Credit Suisse in New York. “It is a very difficult thing to know.”
Saieh, who earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago and traces his roots to Palestine, formed his company by leading the takeover of century-old Banco de Concepcion in 1995 and using it to buy up rivals.
In December, Saieh oversaw the $1.16 billion acquisition of Banco Santander SA (SAN)’s Colombian unit, helping Corpbanca become the first Chilean financial institution to own a foreign bank.
A press official representing Saieh, who asked not to be named due to internal policy, said his closely held retail, insurance and media assets are worth $2.6 billion not including debt. SMU SA, his chain of supermarkets and retail stores, reported 2010 sales of $2.2 billion.
The number of billionaires that remain uncovered is difficult to quantify. “It’s hard to give you a number. You should question anyone who claims they can,” said Anthony DeChellis, head of Private Banking Americas for Credit Suisse in New York. “It is a very difficult thing to know.”
Hidden Billionarie Alberto Benavides
Alberto Benavides and his family have seen their 28 percent voting stake in Cia. de Minas Buenaventura SA, Peru’s biggest producer of precious metals, jump five-fold in a decade to $2.7 billion. Today Benavides, 91, owns $1.2 billion of the company’s stock after giving the rest in equal parts to his five children last year.
Based on an analysis of dividends, local taxes and market performance, the Benavides family probably has an investment portfolio worth at least $250 million. “We’re people who have no interest in ostentation or luxury,” Roque Benavides, who has led the company since his father retired, said in an e-mail.“We’re working people whose goal is to contribute to the social development of Peru.”
Based on an analysis of dividends, local taxes and market performance, the Benavides family probably has an investment portfolio worth at least $250 million. “We’re people who have no interest in ostentation or luxury,” Roque Benavides, who has led the company since his father retired, said in an e-mail.“We’re working people whose goal is to contribute to the social development of Peru.”
Hidden Billionarie Antonio del Valle
Antonio del Valle, 74, has turned Mexichem SAB into one of the largest chemical producers in the Americas by acquiring more than 15 competitors since 2007. The Tlalnepantla, Mexico-based company’s shares have surged more than 50-times since 2002, making his family’s 48 percent stake, which he controls, worth $3.2 billion.
Del Valle got his start in banking. He served as chief executive of Grupo Financiero Bital SA until his partners sold it to HSBC Holdings Plc in 2002, paying him in cash and shares of Mexichem -- then known as Grupo Industrial Camesa.
Mexican regulatory filings indicate the family has been able to increase its stake in Mexichem by reinvesting most of their dividends and proceeds from a 2005 stock sale back into the company.
Del Valle also owns closely held lender Grupo Financiero Ve Por Mas SAB and Elementia SA, which makes copper and aluminum products and is part-owned by Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He controls all three stakes through his holding company, Grupo Empresarial Kaluz SA. Del Valle’s personal assistant said he was unavailable for comment
Del Valle got his start in banking. He served as chief executive of Grupo Financiero Bital SA until his partners sold it to HSBC Holdings Plc in 2002, paying him in cash and shares of Mexichem -- then known as Grupo Industrial Camesa.
Mexican regulatory filings indicate the family has been able to increase its stake in Mexichem by reinvesting most of their dividends and proceeds from a 2005 stock sale back into the company.
Del Valle also owns closely held lender Grupo Financiero Ve Por Mas SAB and Elementia SA, which makes copper and aluminum products and is part-owned by Carlos Slim, the world’s richest man according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He controls all three stakes through his holding company, Grupo Empresarial Kaluz SA. Del Valle’s personal assistant said he was unavailable for comment
Hidden Billionarie Samuel Klein
Surging economic growth in Latin America is minting a new wave of wealthy tycoons. Booming consumer demand in Brazil has made Samuel Klein, an 88-year-old Polish immigrant and Holocaust survivor, and his son Michael, billionaires. In 2009, Klein sold his chain of home-appliance stores, Casas Bahia Comercial Ltda., to retail billionaire Abilio Diniz.
The Klein family received a combined 47 percent stake in Via Varejo SA (GLOB3), as the unit of Diniz’s flagship Cia. Brasileira de Distribuicao Grupo Pao de Acucar is now known. The stake is worth $2 billion today, with Samuel Klein owning 54 percent. Michael Klein, 59, who is Casas Bahia’s chief executive officer and Via Varejo’s chairman, controls the rest.
The Kleins also have cash. As part of the sale to Diniz, the family kept Casas Bahia’s property holdings. Diniz pays them 140 million reais ($78 million) a year in rent. Casas Bahia’s press office said the family was unavailable to comment.
The Klein family received a combined 47 percent stake in Via Varejo SA (GLOB3), as the unit of Diniz’s flagship Cia. Brasileira de Distribuicao Grupo Pao de Acucar is now known. The stake is worth $2 billion today, with Samuel Klein owning 54 percent. Michael Klein, 59, who is Casas Bahia’s chief executive officer and Via Varejo’s chairman, controls the rest.
The Kleins also have cash. As part of the sale to Diniz, the family kept Casas Bahia’s property holdings. Diniz pays them 140 million reais ($78 million) a year in rent. Casas Bahia’s press office said the family was unavailable to comment.
Hidden Billionarie William R. Berkley
William R. Berkley, 66, built his estimated $1.2 billion fortune by creating what became W.R. Berkley Corp. (WRB)The $4.9 billion Greenwich, Connecticut-based company has 48 operating units underwriting a spectrum of property and casualty risks, from pleasure aircraft to cyber security.
Berkley owns about 18 percent of the company, a stake worth almost $900 million today. He has also collected more than $51 million in company dividends since 1980, and has collected more than $85 million in salary and bonuses since 1993. In 2006 and 2007, Berkley earned $58 million selling shares of First Marblehead Corp., a Boston-based student loan company he has been a director of since 1995.
“He’s very private about his wealth,” said Karen Horvath, a spokesman for W.R. Berkley Corp. “He prefers not to be on any lists.”
Berkley owns about 18 percent of the company, a stake worth almost $900 million today. He has also collected more than $51 million in company dividends since 1980, and has collected more than $85 million in salary and bonuses since 1993. In 2006 and 2007, Berkley earned $58 million selling shares of First Marblehead Corp., a Boston-based student loan company he has been a director of since 1995.
“He’s very private about his wealth,” said Karen Horvath, a spokesman for W.R. Berkley Corp. “He prefers not to be on any lists.”
Hidden Billionarie Graham Weston
Graham Weston, 48, has also avoided being ranked with the world’s richest, partly by running a technology company in San Antonio, Texas -- 1,700 miles from Silicon Valley. Weston owns about 15 percent of Rackspace Hosting Inc. (RAX), a provider of Web-based information-technology systems. His stock is worth almost $1.1 billion.
The company held its initial public offering in August 2008. Rackspace shares have surged more than 12-fold since hitting a low of $4 per share in February 2009, making Weston, the company’s largest shareholder, a billionaire.
Weston loathes talking about his wealth. After seeing glitzy dot-coms fail spectacularly a decade ago he, along with his Rackspace cohorts, decided to adopt what they call a no-stars policy.
“We said we wanted to be judged on our substance, not our flash,” Weston said in a telephone interview on March 14.
Weston has put some of his money -- he’s sold about $60 million of Rackspace stock since 2008 -- into helping entrepreneurs and local students. Weston and Rackspace employees have contributed $2 million in grants to spruce up local schools, fund mentoring programs and provide supplies.
“It’s a way for a corporation to interface in a philanthropic way, not just with money but with our own enthusiasm,” Weston said. “We really adopted a new model, which is the idea that a corporation takes accountability for the success of the schools around it and gets directly involved.”
The company held its initial public offering in August 2008. Rackspace shares have surged more than 12-fold since hitting a low of $4 per share in February 2009, making Weston, the company’s largest shareholder, a billionaire.
Weston loathes talking about his wealth. After seeing glitzy dot-coms fail spectacularly a decade ago he, along with his Rackspace cohorts, decided to adopt what they call a no-stars policy.
“We said we wanted to be judged on our substance, not our flash,” Weston said in a telephone interview on March 14.
Weston has put some of his money -- he’s sold about $60 million of Rackspace stock since 2008 -- into helping entrepreneurs and local students. Weston and Rackspace employees have contributed $2 million in grants to spruce up local schools, fund mentoring programs and provide supplies.
“It’s a way for a corporation to interface in a philanthropic way, not just with money but with our own enthusiasm,” Weston said. “We really adopted a new model, which is the idea that a corporation takes accountability for the success of the schools around it and gets directly involved.”
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