Quiet end to oil king’s noisy life
MARC Rich, the so-called King of Oil, was always going to have a colourful obituary.
As the founder of what is now Glencore Xstrata, the trading and mining giant, he was a business genius who revolutionised the way the world’s raw materials were bought and sold. Yet he was even better known as the billionaire former fugitive whose pardon cast a cloud over the end of Bill Clinton’s presidency.
Rich, 78, died on Wednesday in hospital near his home in Lucerne, Switzerland, after suffering a stroke. He was to be buried in Israel today, his spokesman said. Twice married, twice divorced, Rich leaves two daughters. It was a quiet end to a noisy life.
Rich, who had a taste for Cuban cigars and eye-catching ties, was never a shrinking violet. An only child born in Belgium in 1934, his Jewish family fled to the US as refugees from the Nazis. After school in New York, he dropped out of a business degree and went to work for the commodity traders Phillips Brothers, now called Phibro, in New York.
Later sent to work in Madrid, he met Pincus “Pinky” Green, with whom he left the company in 1973 . They set up Marc Rich and Co, based in the Swiss town of Zug, attracted by its low tax rates.
There, they were the first traders to use short-term purchases to make large profits quickly, so giving birth to what is today called the spot market. By buying large volumes when the price was low, they were able to control the market when prices rose and were seen as having broken the dominance of the oil giants that had previously controlled the market.
Rich was also among the first to develop “combat trading”, a method of securing trading rights with pariah states. He is known to have traded with Iran when US embassy staff were held hostage in Tehran, with South Africa during the apartheid era and with Cuba and Libya during their US trade embargoes. — © The Daily Telegraph, London