Lebanese-Brazilian banking magnate Joseph Safra, the wealthiest man in Brazil and richest banker in the world, has died Thursday at 82.
Joseph, who had an estimated fortune of $23.2 billion, ranked 63rd on Forbes magazine’s list of the world’s wealthiest people.
Born in 1938 to a Lebanese Jewish family in Beirut, he emigrated with his family to Brazil, where his father founded what would become Banco Safra, Brazilian local private bank.
According to a statement from the bank, Joseph Safra died of natural causes.
In 1962, Joseph and his brothers took over the bank from their father, who died the following year. They turned it into a major financial group, with operations in more than 25 countries.
Joseph helped run and expand his family’s commercial and private-banking realm, catering to an affluent clientele from São Paulo to New York and Monte Carlo.
He is credited with making Banco Safra Brazil’s eighth largest bank by assets. The Swiss private banking arm of his group acquired Switzerland’s Bank Sarasin & Co in 2011, later named J. Safra Sarasin.
As a member of Brazil’s most prominent Jewish business clan, he was deeply involved in Jewish community affairs, spending a great deal of his time and fortune funding health, education and charity projects and paying for the construction of synagogues and community centers.
