The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich

founded Marc Rich + Co. Investment AG and traded in oil, metals, and grains. The company employed 150 people, mainly in Zug and London, and turned over7.5 billion. The business did not go as well as planned, however, and insiders spoke of massive losses. “We suffered from a lack of size,” a company employee explained. “We suffered as a result of the meager trading volumes.” The banks threatened to reduce the company’s line of credit when trading losses caused its equity base to melt away. Rich was forced to inject tens of millions of dollars of his own money in order to preserve the line of credit, but success continued to elude the company. Eventually, Rich liquidated a part of Marc Rich + Co. Investment AG in 2002 and sold the rest to the management. It was the end of the commodities trader Marc Rich. Together with the Marc Rich Group, Rich now invests in the financial markets and builds commercial centers and residential buildings mainly in Russia and the Czech Republic as well as in Spain, France, and Switzerland.
The Fear of Dying Poor
     
    “Why was he trying to do it all again?” one of Rich’s associates of many years asked himself and told me: “He reminds me of Lot’s wife. Marc turned around.” In the First Book of Moses, Lot’s wife ignores the angel’s command and turns around to look upon the burning city of Sodom—and is transformed into a pillar of salt. “He has to trade,” one of Rich’s close friends said of his restlessness. “It’s not about making money. People like Marc Rich don’t want to earn money just to become even richer. They do it out of passion.” There is something about the feeling of success that is highly addictive. “Success is measured fairly easily in his business. It is measured by the amount of money he makes,” Rich’s friend the hedge fund pioneer Michael Steinhardt told me. These conversations reminded me of George Mallory, the English mountain climber who died while attempting to be the first person to climbMount Everest. He is immortalized for the answer he gave when asked about his insatiable desire to climb the world’s highest mountain: “Because it is there.” When I ask Rich why it is impossible for him to stop trading, he answers, “I love business. Every dollar I make is like the very first.”
    There is, however, another reason for his obsession. “Marc is afraid he could lose his entire fortune and die poor,” a friend confided in me. It is a statement that might seem absurd at first. Rich has more money than he could ever spend—even in the course of several lifetimes. He owns real estate and works of art that, regardless of whatever happens on the stock exchange, are worth tens—if not hundreds—of millions of dollars. Rich’s fear of poverty is completely illusory, yet it is a fear that Rich shares with many refugees who have experienced what it is like to lose everything. It is also a typically Jewish fear—one the entire Rich family was well aware of. As Rich’s daughter Danielle explained, “It was always made clear to us that we were lucky for what we had and that we must not take it for granted because we could not depend on it always being there. It could be lost or taken away, just like during World War II.”
Philanthropist
     
    It was exactly this experience that also made him such a generous philanthropist. Rich has founded three charitable foundations and has donated more than150 million during the past thirty years. Over four thousand projects in the area of education, culture, social services, scientific research, and health care primarily in the USA, Israel, Spain, and Switzerland have benefited from Rich’s philanthropy. “That is a part of our Jewish culture: When you are doing well, do charity,” one of Rich’s employees told me. “Naturally there was a charity piggy bank in the company at the end of the year. We could write on a piece of paper how much we wanted to donate to a particular organization, and the company would double the sum. It was Marc’s idea.” Another of Rich’semployees remembers how he once sat down together with Rich after receiving a promotion. “After a while Marc suddenly stuck his hand in his pocket and came out with a roll of dollars. ‘You will soon be earning a lot of money,’ he told me and put the roll in my hand. ‘Start by giving this money to the first poor man on the street.’ ”
    “Wealth always means independence and comfort, of course,” Rich