Joseph Safra dies: who was the richest banker in the world

A Jew, Safra was born in 1938 in Lebanon and immigrated to Brazil in the 1960s to continue his father’s business. The family had more than a century of experience in the banking industry.

In 1969 he married Vicky Sarfaty, with whom he had 4 children and 14 grandchildren.

Under him and his brother Moise, Banco Safra became the sixth largest bank in Brazil. In 2006, he bought the shares that belonged to his brother and began to control the financial institution alone. Moise died in 2014 at the age of 79.

Currently, Joseph’s sons run different companies of the Safra Group.

Throughout his professional life, Safra surprised the market with important acquisitions.

In 2012, it announced the purchase of Swiss bank Sarasin for US $ 1.1 billion, adding US $ 107 billion to its client base in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

In addition, he bought an office building on the famous Madison Avenue in New York, in the United States, for $ 285 million and the iconic Gherkin Building in London, in the United Kingdom, for about $ 1,150 million.

In 2014, it acquired Chiquita, one of the largest banana producers in the world, together with Cutrale, a leader in orange production in Brazil.

But not all of his movements were precise.

One of its worst bets occurred during the wave of privatization of Brazilian telephony in the late 1990s, when Safra, in alliance with the American telephone company BellSouth, created BCP, the first company allowed to explore a spectrum of the cellular network. in Brazil, ending the then monopoly of the Telebrás system.

The first years were resoundingly successful, but revenues fell and the company made a mistake by betting on a different technology than what would become predominant in the cell phone market.

Operating in the red, BCP accumulated debt and ended up selling for around US $ 650 million to the group of Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim, Claro’s controller, who saw it as an opportunity to enter the São Paulo market.

In his personal life, like the rest of the family, Safra excelled in discretion: he gave few interviews to the press and never attended social columns.

In the workplace, on the other hand, he was considered a risk-averse investor, a ruthless worker and a stern boss – phone calls to executives in the middle of the night to wrap up operations became “legend” in the market as well. like the jewels he presented to his wives. as a way of apologizing for the overtime they made their husbands work.

Safra used to cultivate a close relationship with his employees, who called him by his first name and “Seu José”.

Outside of the financial sector, he was also recognized in the philanthropic arena with donations to hospitals, museums, and the Jewish community.

“He was a great banker, a true entrepreneur who built the Safra Group in the world, achieving success due to his seriousness and business vision. He was a great leader and highly respected inside and outside the organization ”, reads the statement released by Grupo Safra.

“He lived an exemplary, simple and reserved life, without ostentation, away from the general exhibition. He always said that he was very proud of the Brazilian citizenship and of supporting Corinthians.”

“Throughout his life he was a lover of the arts and a great philanthropist, always committed to maintaining the tradition of devotion to worthy causes, which is his hallmark. It helped many people and supported countless social, religious and cultural causes, such as the construction and renovation of hospitals, kindergartens, museums and religious temples of all faiths, ”the statement concluded.

In 2015, the last name Safra was scratched when it was mentioned in the operation PF Zelotes (Federal Police) – which investigated an alleged corruption scheme in the Administrative Council of Tax Appeals (Carf) -, in SwissLeaks and in the list of clients of the consultancy of former minister Antônio Palocci, who would be the target of the Lava Jato operation. Palocci accused Banco Safra of paying “box two” (transfers outside official accounts) in electoral campaigns.

In April 2016, Safra was finally prosecuted for active corruption by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF), but the court initiated criminal action against him in December of the same year.