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Controversial commodities trader Marc Rich dies - FT.com
©AFPMarc Rich, the colourful and controversial commodities trader and founder of Glencore who fled the US to avoid federal indictments, has died in Switzerland aged 78.
“Marc Rich died in Lucerne in a hospital as a result of a brain stroke,” said Christian König of the Marc Rich Group in a statement. He is expected to be buried in Tel Aviv on Thursday.
Ivan Glasenberg, the CEO of Glencore Xstrata, said: “We are saddened to hear of the death of Marc. He was a friend and one of the great pioneers of the commodities trading industry, founding the company that became Glencore. Our deepest sympathies and condolences are with his family at this time.”
Rich, born in Antwerp, Belgium, was an oil trader who fled to Switzerland in 1983 hours before being indicted on more than 50 charges of trading with Iran during an embargo, wire fraud, racketeering and evading more than $48m in income taxes – at time the largest tax evasion case in US history.
He remained one of the US’s most wanted fugitives until Bill Clinton pardoned him on his last day as US president in January 2001. Mr Clinton said such cases should be settled in civil not criminal courts and also cited clemency pleas from Israeli officials, including Ehud Barak, the then prime minister.
Clinton critics pointed to the large donations Rich and his then wife, Denise Eisenberg, had made to both the US Democratic party and the Clinton library.
His career began at Philipp Rothers, a metals dealer, in the early 1970s. He worked as a commodities trader for his father and then founded Marc Rich + Co in 1974, initially focusing on marketing ferrous and non-ferrous metals and minerals, and crude oil.
During the 1973-74 embargo on Arab oil he circumvented the restrictions, buying oil cheaply and selling it for almost double the price to US oil companies desperate for supplies.
Iran supplied Rich with oil for more than 15 years, both before and after the 1979 Islamic revolution. Glencore was formed in 1993 through a management buyout of Rich’s stake.
Rich diversified into myriad other sectors in the 1980s, buying 20th century Fox in 1981 with industrialist Marvin Davis. After Rich fled the US, Mr Davis sold Rich’s stake to Rupert Murdoch in 1984 for $250m.
Forbes reported in 2012 that his net worth was $2.5bn.
Rich married Ms Eisenberg, an heiress to a shoemaking fortune, in 1966. They had three children before divorcing in 1996. He is survived by two daughters, Ilona Schachter-Rich and Danielle Kilstock Rich
Rich established various foundations, among them the Swiss Foundation for the Doron Prize and the Marc Rich Foundation for Education, Culture and Welfare. He also received numerous honours for his charity work, including honorary doctorates from the Bar Ilan University, Ben Gurion University and Tel Aviv University.
Additional reporting by Javier Blas
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2013
Controversial commodities trader Marc Rich dies - FT.com
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