Joseph und Vicky Safra.
J. Safra Sarasin AG
- Vicky Safra, the widow of the richest banker in the world, is now the richest woman in Switzerland with a fortune of 6.8 billion euros.
- After the death of her husband, she and her four children own two banks that manage a total of 74 billion euros (90 billion dollars).
- Bank J. Safra Sarasin, which Vicky Safra and her children inherit, also has a dark history with its involvement in cum-ex stock deals.
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Before his death, the richest banker in the world, Joseph Safra, made sure that his banking empire and wealth were among the few that passed into the third generation with as little scandals as possible. His wife, Vicky Sarfaty, will continue to play a major role in this, because after Safra’s death in December 2020, she and her four children will manage a fortune of 90 billion US dollars (74 billion euros).
The 68-year-old Vicky Safra, who had the family name Sarfaty before her marriage, and her four children with the deceased banker inherited the Swiss bank J. Safra Sarasin and the Brazilian Banco Safra, which together manage a total of 90 billion US dollars, as before “Bloomberg“Reported. The assets also include two imposing properties: the well-known skyscraper “The Gherkin” in London’s financial district, as well as a high-rise in New York on Madison Avenue. In addition, half of Chiquita Brands International is owned by the Safra Group, which specializes in the global sale of bananas and tropical fruits.
Like her husband, Vicky Safra tries as little as possible to reveal herself in public. In the annual report of the J. Safra Sarasin Bank, which devotes several pages to his career after the death of Joseph Safra, it says that she married the banker at the age of 17. Her family moved from Greece to Brazil in the 1950s, where they later met Joseph Safra. “It was love at first sight that lasted until the end of his life,” reads the annual report.
Not only did they share a passion for architecture, but they were both active philanthropists in the Jewish communities to which both Vicky Sarfaty and Joseph Safra belonged. According to media reports, Vicky lives in Switzerland and has 14 grandchildren. “Forbes” estimates her fortune at 6.8 billion euros. This makes her the richest woman in Switzerland.
The drugstore entrepreneur Erwin Müller sued the Swiss private bank J. Safra Sarasin in 2017 for Cum-Ex.
Stefan Puchner/dpa
The legacy that she will now manage not only contains the success story of the Syrian Safra banking family, but also a suspected criminal past of the Swiss Sarasin Bank. At the end of December 2020, the Cologne public prosecutor sued a former customer advisor of J. Safra Sarasin Bank for allegedly participating in the so-called cum-ex deals. Stock transactions were carried out at the expense of the taxpayers and high returns were paid out to high net worth customers from the reimbursement of unpaid capital gains taxes.
The cum-ex deals started before Safra’s stake in the Swiss J. Sarasin Bank, but according to the indictment they should not have ended in 2011 at the time of the takeover. Drugstore founder and billionaire Erwin Müller and entrepreneur Carsten Maschmeyer were just a few customers from the group of the German super-rich who accepted the bank’s offer of tax-driven share deals. Erwin Müller managed to get the J. Safra Sarasin Bank to pay him damages and admit that they should have better educated the billionaire about the risks of the cum-ex deals.
Vicky Safra will hardly have to deal with this problem because she does not have an operational role at J. Safra Sarasin Bank. She is involved in the Vicky and Joseph Safra Philanthropic Foundation, the foundation that focuses on donations in the field of medical care.
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