The son of Sephardic Jews from Lebanon was considered “the richest banker in the world”.
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As the “Banco Safra” reports in Sao Paulo, the founder and patron of the house died there of “natural causes” last Wednesday. Joseph Safra was 82 years old. Born in Lebanon in 1938, Safra came from a Sephardic dynasty of bankers and wholesalers in Aleppo that had already financed caravans in the Ottoman Empire. He has built up an imposing empire around institutions such as the Safra National Bank of New York, Bank J Safra Sarasin AG and the Brazilian flagship Banco Safra SA. His real estate holdings of over two billion dollars included the 660 Madison Avenue office building in Manhattan and The Gherkin in London designed by Sir Norman Foster. “Bloomberg News” estimates Safras net worth at nearly 18 billion dollars.
The family moved to Brazil after the war, where Safra began his career in Banco Safra, which his great-uncle Ezra had founded. Joseph and his relatives founded banks all over the world, following a conservative philosophy: every foundation should be built as solidly as a ship for the high seas; Banks are to be cared for like small children. In 2011 Safra took over the Swiss private bank Sarasin for 2.1 billion dollars.
Safra also emerged as a philanthropist and provided significant support to the “Albert Einstein” and “Sirio-Lebanes” hospitals in Sao Paulo, but also financed numerous synagogues. In the USA, his foundation cooperated with the Michael J. Fox Foundation and supported important institutions in the health sector, including the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, the Henry Ford Health Systems and the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.
His brother Edmond was murdered in an arson attack in Monaco in 1999. The case made headlines around the world at the time. This is probably one of the reasons why Joseph Safra has avoided the media even more than before. In recent years he has increasingly suffered from health problems and has largely handed over management to his sons Jacob, David and Alberto. However, Alberto left the family business last year and founded his own company (Link).
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