March Rich is a swashbuckling oil trader who fled to exile in Switzerland after being accused of widespread, illegal dealing with Iran and tax evasion. Later on he was pardon by Bill Clinton. He died on 26th June, having attained 78 years.
Source: Wikimedia Commons. Marc Rich
One of the richest commodity traders Marc Rich died out of stoke. He left a legacy as history’s most successful commodity trader. As a billionaire, he mastered the market of zinc, aluminum and silver he is also credited for promoting the spot market for oil beyond the control of petroleum giants.
He was commonly known as El Matador due to his sharp acumen and steel nerves. He was very capable of making things which are illegal to become legal. During his business career he broke more laws than he was able to obey.
In 1983 he was indicted by a US court of law on 65 counts. One of them was that he was trading with Iran even when the country was holding US citizens as hostages. He also evaded paying taxes on numerous occasions. This daring nature might have enabled him to become one of the richest commodity traders in the world.
Rich was an enigma when it comes to business. He always complicated regulations which were in place and ended up selling his oil for a margin as high as 400 per cent. He used his schemes to make as much as $100 million in profits and was accused of failing to pay $48 million as taxes to the US government.
When he was taken to court, he paid the government approximately $200 million in penalties but escaped to Switzerland to avoid criminal prosecution in the United States of America (USA). The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) listed him as the “most wanted” person and the Internal Revenue Service offered a bounty of $500,000 for anyone who will help capture Rich. All along he remained to be the world’s leading trader on minerals and metals and as a result lived in opulence and became a very famous fugitive.
Marc Rich was a very popular figure in many parts of the world. The head of Mossad ShabtaiShavit, the Israel Intelligence service expressed his gratitude for Mr. March Rich’s generosity because his agents were allowed to use his offices around the world. He also financed airlifts of Jews from Yemen, Ethiopia and other countries.
Bill Clinton granted Mr. Marc Rich a presidential pardon. He said he had based his decision on some tax experts who advised him that his tax-reporting tactics were fair and reasonable. American Intelligence agents did not succeed in capturing Mr. Marc Rich nor did he return to the United States to be prosecuted. He later attained Israel, Belgian and Spanish citizenship.
He was born on December, 18, 1934 as Marcell David Reich in Antwerp, Belgium. This is where is father was a door-to-door salesman for factory merchandise. Mr. March Rich’s family migrated to United States of America (USA) in earlier 1940s. They settled in Kansa’s city where the family opened a jewelry business. They also Americanized their family name to Rich. In 1950’s the family moved to Queens. This is where Rich’s father started a factory which manufactured burlap bags.
Mr. Marc Rich attended the Rhodes School in Manhattan. He learnt to speak French, Yiddish and German. His former school mates report that Rich was the “quietest kid” in his class.
After high school, Rich attended New York University from where he dropped out before graduating. At the age of 18, he got a job to work in the mailroom of Philipp Brothers. This was the world’s largest company trading in raw materials. He was nicknamed “the business machine” due to his dedication to trading. He made huge profits by buying large amounts of Mercury which was used to manufacture batteries for the army in preparation for the Korean War.
In 1967, he became the head of the Madrid office for Philipp. While working there he started developing a model that allowed immediate delivery of oil after an order has been made as opposed to the long-term contracts which were preferred by large petroleum companies.
Mr. Rich and his partner Pinky left Philipp in 1974 and started their own commodity trading firm called Mark Rich AG. The company had its offices in a safe place in Switzerland. From this location, he moved around the world selling oil from the Communist Russia to South Africa apartheid government. He sent Venezuelan and Russian oil to Cuba ignoring the American ban. Cuba sold him sugar in exchange. This is the firm that later changed its name to Glencore International. In 1993, Mr. Rich sold his 51 percent share in the company.
Marc Rich was a trader made of different stuff. He traded with Iran despite the fact that they held American hostages for 444 days. He also traded with Libya under Col. Muammar Qaddafi, Cuba, undemocratic Latin America countries, Romania and South Africa during apartheid.
He was always in favor of Cuban cigars and loud ties. He was a great art collector and interacted with Henry Kissinger as well as Placido Domingo among others. He had private homes in Israel, Switzerland and Spain.
Private Life
In 1966 Mr. Rich married Denise Joy. This was a song writer for Patti LaBelle and Aretha Franklin. The couple divorced in 1996. That was after 30 years of marriage. He remarried in 1998 and divorced in 2005.
As one of the richest commodity traders, Marc Rich lived a grandiose lifestyle while in exile. This was reported in a publication by the Fortune magazine in 1988. He was smoking his cigars and drinking wine with great people in Switzerland.
Mr. Rich always scanned the globe to see crises when they were coming. He always made profit out of wars and shortages. This is when he pounced in and made huge profits. He is credited with the buying and selling of oil like any commodity.
This is how the oil spot market was created. When people accused him of profiteering, he called it service charge.
He always worked as a free agent. This is how he grew from strength to strength and hence became one of the richest commodity traders in the world. He was in charge of finding sellers and buyers while his partner ‘Pinky’ organized all shipping. This was surely a winning team. They started working together at Philipp and after outgrowing their employer they started a new company.
Marc Rich was always a master in what he did. He always kept below the radar. He soon became the world’s richest commodity traders and was leading in oil trading too. In 1980 he received a turnover of $15 billion. I 1980-81 he violated American’s domestic price controls by simply re-labeling oil from Texas oil fields as new found and hiking the price as a result. It was generally accepted that new oil was more expensive than oil from old oilfields. Out of such action, he made $105 million and shipped the money abroad evading taxes.
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