He was best known for founding the commodities company Glencore and for being indicted in the United States on federal charges of tax evasion and illegally making oil deals with Iran during the Iran hostage crisis. He was in Switzerland at the time of the indictment and never returned to the U.S. He received a controversial presidential pardon from U.S. President Bill Clinton on January 20, 2001, Clinton's last day in office.
Born Marcell David Reich
December 18, 1934 Antwerp, Belgium
Died June 26, 2013 (aged 78) Lucerne, Switzerland; buried in Israel
Citizenship Belgium, United States, Israel, Spain
Alma mater One term, New York University (did not graduate)
Occupation Founder of Glencore
Known for Banking, trading activities
Net worth $1 billion (2010)
Spouses:
Denise Eisenberg (m. 1966-1996; divorced; 3 children)
Gisela Rossi (m. 1996-2005; divorced)
One of his biggest market coups came during the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo, when he used his Middle Eastern contacts to circumvent the embargo and buy crude oil from Iran and Iraq. After purchasing the crude for roughly US$12 per barrel, Rich doubled the price and sold it to supply-starved U.S. oil companies. Later, following the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, during the Iranian Revolution in 1979, Rich used his special relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the revolution, to buy oil from Iran despite the American embargo. Iran would become Rich's most important supplier of crude oil for more than 15 years. Due to his good relationship with Iran, Rich helped give Mossad’s agents contacts in Iran.
Glencore Xstrata plc is an Anglo–Swiss multinational commodity trading and mining company headquartered in Baar, Switzerland and with its registered office in Saint Helier, Jersey. The company was created through a merger of Glencore with Xstrata on 2 May 2013. As of 2013, it ranked twelfth in the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's largest companies.
As Glencore, the company was already one of the world's leading integrated producers and marketers of commodities. It was the largest company in Switzerland and the world's largest commodities trading company, with a 2010 global market share of 60 percent in the internationally tradeable zinc market, 50 percent in the internationally tradeable copper market, 9 percent in the internationally tradeable grain market and 3 percent in the internationally tradeable oil market.
More on Marc Rich...
In 1983 he was indicted on 65 criminal counts that included tax fraud and trading with Iran when it was holding American hostages.
One of the most serious allegations was that Mr. Rich had misrepresented the provenance of crude oil he sold in 1980 and 1981. Under complicated regulations then in place, newly found oil fetched a higher price than older oil. By illegally marking up the price of old oil and passing it through a bewildering chain of transactions, Mr. Rich sold oil at a markup of up to 400 percent. He was accused of making more than $100 million from the scheme, avoiding paying $48 million in United States taxes.
Mr. Rich paid the government about $200 million in civil penalties but fled to Switzerland to escape criminal prosecution. The Internal Revenue Service offered a $500,000 reward for his capture, and the F.B.I. put him on its “most wanted” list, along with Osama bin Laden. Even as he remained the world’s biggest trader of metals and minerals and lived in opulence, he was called the world’s most famous fugitive.
Then, on Jan. 20, 2001 — Mr. Clinton’s last day in office — Mr. Rich’s name appeared on the presidential pardon list. It immediately became the most debated White House pardon since President Gerald R. Ford gave one to Richard M. Nixon in 1974, and speculation about Mr. Clinton’s motivation was rampant.
It was soon learned that Mr. Rich’s former wife, Denise Rich, had made large donations to the Democratic Party and the Clinton library, and that Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Ehud Barak, had lobbied Mr. Clinton for the pardon. Rabbi Irving Greenberg, chairman of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, also pressed Mr. Rich’s case, on museum stationery.
When he was 18, a friend of his father’s got him a job in the mailroom at Philipp Brothers, then the world’s largest raw-materials trading company. He was referred to as “the business machine” for his dedication to trading, and made a tidy profit by buying mercury at the outset of the Korean War and selling it to manufacturers who needed it to make batteries for the Army.
By 1967 he was heading the Madrid office of Philipp and had begun to develop ways to buy and sell oil for immediate delivery, rather than relying on the traditional long-term contracts preferred by big oil companies. Some credit him with helping to start the “spot” market for crude oil. He began to buy and sell oil from Iran, then an American ally.
Mr. Rich and his partner Pincus Green, known as Pinky, left the firm in 1974, unhappy with Philipp’s conservative approach to trading and resentful of not getting bonuses. They formed Marc Rich AG, which later became Glencore International, a commodities trading behemoth. Mr. Rich sold his 51 percent stake in 1993.
After the pro-American Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was overthrown in 1979, Mr. Rich defied a United States boycott of Iran and continued buying its oil — even as 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days. He used some of the oil to supply Israel surreptitiously.
In an interview with Daniel Ammann for the book “The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich” (2010), Mr. Rich characterized his Iran deals as simply proper business. “They respected the contracts, “Mr. Rich said. “We performed a service for them. We bought the oil, we handled the transport and we sold it. They couldn’t do it themselves, so we were able to do it.”
Mr. Rich traded with Libya under Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, South Africa under apartheid (in violation of an international embargo), the Communist dictatorships of Cuba and Romania, and undemocratic Latin American countries. He often did business with countries at war.
He favored loud ties and Cuban cigars, collected Picassos and van Goghs and socialized with Henry Kissinger and Plácido Domingo. He owned half of 20th Century Fox in the first half of the 1980s. He had homes in Switzerland, Israel and Spain.
In 1966, he married Denise Joy Eisenberg, who wrote songs recorded by Aretha Franklin and Patti LaBelle. Their daughter Gabrielle died of leukemia in 1996, the same year the couple divorced.
daughters Ilona Schachter-Rich and Danielle Kilstock Rich
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