Marc Rich fled the Holocaust with his parents for America to
become the most successful and controversial trader of his time and a fugitive
from U.S. justice, enjoying decades of comfortable privacy at his sprawling
Villa Rosa on Lake Lucerne.
Belgian-born Rich, whose trading group eventually became the
global commodities powerhouse Glencore Xstrata, died in hospital from a stroke,
spokesman Christian Koenig said.
At the cream-painted, red-roofed villa, with views of the
nearby mountains and grounds sloping down to the banks of the lake, security
guards and other staff could be seen but there was no sign of family members.
"He will be brought to Israel for burial," Avner
Azulay, managing director of the Marc Rich Foundation, said by telephone. Rich
will be buried on Thursday at Kibbutz Einat cemetery near Tel Aviv.
Many of the biggest players in oil and metals trading trace
their roots back to the swashbuckling Rich, whose triumph in the 1970s was to
pioneer a spot market for crude oil, wresting business away from the world's
big oil groups.
To his critics, he was a white-collar criminal, a serial
sanctions breaker, whom they accused of building a fortune trading with
revolutionary Iran, Muammar Gaddafi's Libya, apartheid-era South Africa,
Nicolae Ceausescu's Romania, Fidel Castro's Cuba and Augusto Pinochet's Chile.
In interviews with journalist Daniel Ammann for his
biography, "The King of Oil", the normally obsessively secretive Rich
admitted to bribing officials in countries such as Nigeria and to assisting the
Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad.
Explaining Rich's route to riches in an interview with
Reuters in 2010, Ammann said: "He was faster and more aggressive than his
competitors. He was able to recognize trends and seize opportunities before
other traders. And he went where others feared to tread - geographically and
morally."
A U.S. government web site once described Rich more simply,
as "a white male, 177 centimeters in height ... wanted by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Customs Service and the U.S. Marshall
Service." In 1983, he was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list indicted for
tax evasion, fraud and racketeering. At the time, it was the biggest tax
evasion case in U.S. history.
TRUST, LOYALTY AND SECRECY
Rich, who valued trust, loyalty, secrecy and persistence,
always insisted he did nothing illegal and among those who lobbied Clinton on
his behalf for his pardon were Israeli political heavyweights Ehud Barak and
Shimon Peres.
On learning of the indictment plans, Rich fled to
Switzerland to escape the charges, which included exploiting the U.S. embargo
against Iran, while it was holding U.S. hostages, to make huge profits on
illicit Iranian oil sales.
"Marc Rich is to asset concealment what Babe Ruth was
to baseball," said Arthur J. Roth, New York state commissioner of taxation
and finance.
He remained under threat of a life sentence in a U.S. jail
until Clinton pardoned him during the last chaotic days of his presidency, a
move that provoked moral outrage and bewilderment amongst some politicians.
Clinton later said he regretted granting the pardon, calling
it "terrible politics."
"It wasn't worth the damage to my reputation," he
told Newsweek magazine in 2002.
Rudolph Giuliani, a former New York mayor and a prosecutor
on the Rich case, said: "I'm shocked that the president of the United States
would pardon him."
Clinton said the fact that Rich's ex-wife, Denise, had
donated funds for his presidential library was not a factor, but he had acted
partly in response to a request from Israel.
"ARTISTRY OF A POOL SHARK"
In one biography, "Metal Men: Marc Rich and the
10-billion-dollar Scam," author A. Craig Copetas described Rich as "a
beautifully sinister executive who could frame deals with the artistry of a
pool shark".
Rich inherited his business acumen from his father, who
became a millionaire by setting up an agricultural trading firm after
emigrating to the United States.
Rich, who was born Marcell David Reich in Antwerp on
December 18, 1934, started his career at Philipp Brothers, a top global
commodities trader after World War Two.
Posted to Madrid in the late 1960s, he found ways to bypass
the "Seven Sisters" major oil companies which controlled world oil
supplies, and is credited with inventing spot oil trading, which involves sale
or purchase for immediate delivery.
While at Phibro, Rich foresaw the huge price increases
imposed by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries in 1973, earning
big profits for the firm. However, he became infuriated by his pay and trading
strictures.
He left in 1974 with a fellow graduate of the Phibro
mailroom, Pincus "Pinky" Green, and set up Marc Rich and Co AG in
Switzerland, a firm that would eventually become Glencore Xstrata Plc.
ANGER AND AMBITION
His aim, according to Copetas, was "to grind Philipp
Bros. into oblivion," and he poured all his anger and ambition as well as
his charm and gracious client demeanor into the new venture.
It became a highly successful trading firm and a much feared
adversary in energy, metals, minerals, grains and sugar markets.
Rich later sold that company, which became Glencore
International AG, and set up the Marc Rich Group. Rich was known for charitable
donations through his Doron Foundation and to Zurich's Jewish community.
Glencore Xstrata Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg said.
"He was a friend and one of the great pioneers of the commodities trading
industry, founding the company that became Glencore."
As well as his villa on the Swiss lake, Rich maintained
houses in Marbella in Spain and in Israel.
Rich described himself as a keen tennis player, skier,
alpinist and patron of the arts. Those who knew him said in private Rich was
calm and charming with a sense of humor.
In later years, Rich's fortune dwindled after his property
portfolio was hit by the Spanish housing crisis.
"I invested a lot of money there and because of the
crisis also lost a lot, at least on paper," he told Swiss economic
magazine Bilanz. Forbes put his wealth at $2.5 billion.
Rich told one magazine that he had a "strange
feeling" about an investment with financier Bernard Madoff and "got
out with everything", although he said he lost some money through
"indirect participation".
Rich once told Fortune magazine he was a normal person with
an image problem. "I've been portrayed in a horrible way," he said,
"as a workaholic, a loner, a money machine. It's not a true picture."
Ken Hill, a U.S. Marshall who hunted Rich around the world
for more than a decade, once said Rich profited from greed.
"The smoking gun is greed," he said. "This is
what Marc thrived on - the greed of those who had commodities and were in
positions of influence and power."
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