Joseph Safra ( ar, يوسف صفرا‎; 1 September 1938 – 10 December 2020) was a Swiss-based

Lebanese Brazilian Lebanese Brazilians ( pt, Líbano-brasileiros), (Arabic: البرازيلي اللبناني) are Brazilians of full or partial Lebanese ancestry, including Lebanese-born immigrants to Brazil. According to the Brazilian Institute of Geograph ...

banker and billionaire businessman, who ran the Brazilian banking and investment empire,

Safra Group The J. Safra Group is an international network of companies controlled by the Safra family, comprising banking and financial institutions and industrial operations. It is present in the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, A ...

. Joseph Safra was the chairman of all Safra companies, among them Safra National Bank of New York and

Banco Safra Banco Safra is a Brazilian financial services company headquartered in São Paulo, Brazil. It is the seventh largest banking institution in Brazil, and the nineteenth largest in Latin America. It provides services in investment banking, pr ...

headquartered in

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaW ...

, Brazil. In August 2020, ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...

'' reported Safra's estimated net worth at US$22.8 billion, the 52nd richest person in the world and richest in Brazil.

Early life

Joseph Safra was born and raised in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

, Lebanon to a family of

Sephardic Jewish Sephardic (or Sephardi) Jews (, ; lad, Djudíos Sefardíes), also ''Sepharadim'' , Modern Hebrew: ''Sfaradim'', Tiberian: Səp̄āraddîm, also , ''Ye'hude Sepharad'', lit. "The Jews of Spain", es, Judíos sefardíes (or ), pt, Judeus sefa ...

background originally from

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to the north and east and Israel to the south, while Cyprus lie ...

and

Syria Syria ( ar, سُورِيَا or سُورِيَة, translit=Sūriyā), officially the Syrian Arab Republic ( ar, الجمهورية العربية السورية, al-Jumhūrīyah al-ʻArabīyah as-Sūrīyah), is a Western Asian country loc ...

with banking connections back to Ottoman times.Kasmira Jefford
Gherkin bought by Safra Group: Meet the Brazilian-Lebanese billionaire behind the £700m deal
''

City A.M. ''City A.M.'' is a free business-focused newspaper distributed in and around London, England, with an accompanying website. Its certified distribution was 85,738 copies a day in February 2020, according to statistics compiled by the ABC, and ha ...

'', 11 November 2014 The family's history in banking originated with caravan trade between Aleppo, Beirut,

Alexandria Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandri ...

, and

Istanbul ) , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = 34000 to 34990 , area_code = +90 212 (European side) +90 216 (Asian side) , registration_plate = 34 , blank_name_sec2 = GeoTLD , blank_i ...

during the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University ...

. The Safra family moved to Brazil in 1952.

Career

In 1955, Joseph's 23-year-old brother,

Edmond Safra Edmond J. Safra ( ar, ادموند يعقوب صفرا; 6 August 1932 – 3 December 1999) was a Lebanese-Brazilian banker who continued the family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland. He was married to Lily Watkins from 1976 until ...

, and his father,

Jacob Safra Jacob Safra ( ar, يعقوب صفرا; 1891 – 27 May 1963) was a Syrian-Lebanese banker. The Safras were bankers and gold traders engaged in the financing of trade between Beirut, Aleppo, Istanbul and Alexandria. Biography The Safra family w ...

, started working in Brazil by financing assets in

. However soon, Edmond Safra separated from his brothers Joseph and Moise and headed to

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

where he founded the

Republic National Bank of New York Republic New York Corporation was the holding company for Republic National Bank of New York, Safra Republic Holdings, and Safra Republic Bank. The company was controlled by billionaire Edmond Safra, who was killed in a fire in his Monte Carlo ...

(which he later sold to

HSBC HSBC Holdings plc is a British multinational universal bank and financial services holding company. It is the largest bank in Europe by total assets ahead of BNP Paribas, with US$2.953 trillion as of December 2021. In 2021, HSBC had $10.8 tr ...

in 1999 and donated most of his money to the Edmond Safra Foundation). Joseph Safra founded

in 1955 and today it is reportedly the 6th largest private bank in Brazil. In 2006, Joseph Safra acquired the remaining shares of Banco Safra from his brother

Moise Safra Moise Jacob Safra ( ar, موسى يَعْقُوب صفرا ; April 5, 1934 – June 15, 2014) was a Brazilian businessman and philanthropist. He co-founded Banco Safra with his brothers Edmond Safra and Joseph Safra. Early life Moise Safra w ...

. He remained the chairman of the

, offering banking services throughout Europe, North America, and South America, until the end of his life.

Property

In 2013, Joseph Safra's family acquired more than a dozen properties in the United States, primarily in New York City. They also own a portfolio of commercial real estate in Brazil. In 2014, Safra paid more than £700 million to buy The Gherkin, one of the most distinctive towers in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London f ...

. He proposed to build the

Tulip Tulips (''Tulipa'') are a genus of spring-blooming perennial herbaceous bulbiferous geophytes (having bulbs as storage organs). The flowers are usually large, showy and brightly coloured, generally red, pink, yellow, or white (usually in warm ...

, a skyscraper in London, but the city's mayor rejected it in 2019. He founded the Jewish Brazilian school of Beit Yaacov in 2001.

Business holdings

Chiquita Chiquita Brands International Sàrl (), formerly known as Chiquita Brands International Inc. and United Fruit Co., is a Swiss-domiciled American producer and distributor of bananas and other produce. The company operates under a number of ...

J. Safra Sarasin The Bank J. Safra Sarasin Ltd (previously named "Bank Sarasin & Co. Ltd", until 2013) is a Swiss private bank, founded in 1841 and headquartered in Basel. It is currently owned by the Brazilian J. Safra Group, and was formed in its present stat ...

** Safra National Bank of New York

Personal life

Safra used to live in

Geneva Geneva ( ; french: Genève ) frp, Genèva ; german: link=no, Genf ; it, Ginevra ; rm, Genevra is the second-most populous city in Switzerland (after Zürich) and the most populous city of Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Situa ...

, Switzerland. In 1969, he married Vicky Sarfati. They had four children: Jacob J. Safra, (married to , son of

Sasson Dayan Sasson Dayan is a Lebanese-born Brazilian banker and co-founder of Banco Daycoval. Biography Sasson was born on April 1, 1940 in Lebanon to a Jewish family where he worked at Casa Bancária Salim A. Dayan, a bank founded by his father. In the 19 ...

), Alberto J. Safra, David J. Safra. Jacob is responsible for the international operations while David manages Banco Safra in Brazil. Joseph Safra died on 10 December 2020 in São Paulo at the age of 82. He had

Parkinson's disease Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms beco ...

References

External links

Meet Joseph Safra, The Richest Banker On The Planet
an
The Safra Dynasty: The Mysterious Family Of The Richest Banker In The World
on

Business Insider ''Insider'', previously named ''Business Insider'' (''BI''), is an American financial and business news website founded in 2007. Since 2015, a majority stake in ''Business Insider''s parent company Insider Inc. has been owned by the German publ ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Safra, Joseph 1938 births 2020 deaths Brazilian Sephardi Jews Brazilian people of Lebanese-Jewish descent Brazilian people of Syrian-Jewish descent 20th-century Sephardi Jews 21st-century Sephardi Jews Mizrahi Jews Lebanese people of Syrian-Jewish descent Lebanese emigrants to Brazil Brazilian bankers Brazilian billionaires Safra family