Edmond Jacob Safra (Arabic:ادموند يعقوب صفرا; 6 August 1932 – 3 December 1999) was a Lebanese-Brazilian billionaire banker and philanthropist ofSyrian descent. He continued his family tradition of banking in Brazil and Switzerland, and was married toLily Watkins from 1976 until his death.^[4] He died in a fire that attracted wide media interest, and was judicially determined to be due to arson.

Edmond Jacob Safra^[5] was born on 6 August 1932, inBeirut, Lebanon,^[6][7][8][9] hisfamily is ofSephardic Jewish background originally fromAleppo, Syria.^[10][11] His father,Jacob Safra, had opened the J. E. Safra Bank in 1920 inBeirut and in 1929 it became the Banque Jacob E. Safra which in 1956 changed its name to Banque de Credit National S.A.L. (BCN).^[12] By the time he was sixteen, Safra was working at his father's bank in Beirut, engaged in the precious metals and foreign exchange aspects of the business.

In 1949, the family moved from Lebanon to Italy, where he worked for a trading company inMilan. When Safra was 16, he earned $40 million during arbitrage transactions between Italian and British gold sovereigns. He used this money to obtain a financial house in Geneva, which became his Trade Development Bank, and used only ancient Arabic script for its bookkeeping.^[13] The family moved to Brazil in 1952, where he and his father founded their first Brazilian financial institution in 1955.

In 1956, Safra settled in Geneva to set up a private bank, theTrade Development Bank, which grew from an original US$1 million to US$5 billion during the 1980s. He extended his financial empire to satisfy his wealthy clients from around the world. He also founded theRepublic National Bank of New York in 1966, and later, Republic National Bank of New York (Suisse) inGeneva. The Republic Bank operated 80 branches in the New York area, making it the number three branch network in the metropolitan region behindCitigroup andChase Manhattan.

Safra's banking interests served clients in Monaco, Luxembourg and Switzerland.^[14]

From 1980 until Safra's death, Walter Weiner was Safra's attorney, and CEO of Republic National Bank of New York until 1983, when he became its chairman.^[14]

The 1983 sale of Trade Development Bank toAmerican Express for more than US$450 million proved contentious. The financier prevailed in a defamation lawsuit, winning a public apology from American Express for starting a smear campaign against him^[15] and US$8 million in damages, all of which he donated to charities.^[16][17]

In 1988, he also founded Safra Republic Holdings S.A., a Luxembourg bank holding company.^[18]

By the early 1990s, Safra's fortune was estimated at US$2.5 billion.

In 1996 Safra co-foundedHermitage Capital Management withBeny Steinmetz andBill Browder.^[19] Thehedge fund became one of the most important investment companies in Russia, and later became famous in connection with theSergei Magnitsky affair.

On 17 August 1998, Safra's Republic National Bank of New York lost 45% of its net income due to its large holding of Russian bonds after the1998 Russian financial crisis.^[14]

In 1998, Safra's bank alerted the FBI and the Swiss justice about a possible money laundering scheme involvingIMF money, theRepublic National Bank of New York and the Republic National Bank of New York (Suisse), some other unidentified outlets, and Russian officials of both the Russian Ministry of Finance and theRussian Central Bank.^[20][a][b] The IMF funds, which Italian newspaperla Repubblica estimated at $21.4 billion,^{[20][23][24][25]} are said to have caused theRussian financial crisis of 1998.^{[20][26][27][c]}

As he approached his 60s, Safra divided his time between his homes inMonaco, Geneva, and New York City and theVilla Leopolda on theFrench Riviera. Weakened byParkinson's disease, he required nursing care.^[17][31][32]

In 1999, he sold his Safra Republic Holdings and Republic New York Corporation toHSBC for $10.3 billion in cash.^[33][34] On 31 December 1999,HSBC Private Bank became the new name for Safra's former holdings.^[35]

On 2 December 1999, Edmond and Lily Safra gained Monegasque citizenship.^[31] In 1976, Safra marriedLily Watkins.

In December 1999, Safra and nurse Vivian Torrente were suffocated by fumes in a fire deliberately lit at the billionaire's Monaco home,^[36][37][38] where he apparently felt so safe that he did not have his bodyguards stay the night.^[39] On the night of the fire, Daniel Serdet, the attorney general and chief prosecutor of Monaco, stated that Samuel Cohen, Safra's personal security chief, stated that no security guards were needed.^[31][40]Safra's nurseTed Maher was arrested^[41] under suspicion of starting the fire in order to gain attention "through a daring rescue", and then losing control unintentionally.^[42] He was convicted of the crime and sentenced to 10 years in prison.^[43]

Safra left 50% of his assets to several charities.^[44]

Safra was a major philanthropist during his lifetime, and left his wealth to the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation,^[45] which supports hundreds of projects in fifty countries around the world in the areas of education, science, medicine, religion, culture and humanitarian assistance.^[46]

In April 1992, the Syrian regime dropped the travel restrictions on Jews. Safra, whose family had old ties with the city ofAleppo, offered to transfer 4,500 Syrian Jews by plane and financed their settling in Brooklyn.^[47]

Committed to his faith, Safra believed that constructing and renovating synagogues was important in places where there was a potential for a Jewish community to flourish, and synagogues around the world bearing his father's name testify to this commitment. Many of these were built in the world's major Jewish centers, but he also helped to build synagogues in more remote communities such as Manila andKinshasa.

500 years after the last synagogue was built in Madrid he constructed a new one. He also helped to renovate and enlarge synagogues in Amsterdam, Istanbul, Naples, Budapest,Rhodes, and Vienna. Safra saved the oldest synagogue in France, inClermont-Ferrand, from destruction by buying it for the community, and he contributed to the expansion of theCannes synagogue and Synagogue Beth El in Paris.^[48] He also helped refurbish synagogues in many small French cities includingÉvian,Annemasse, and others. Among the synagogues is theEdmond J. Safra Synagogue in New York City.

In addition to supporting a number of synagogues in Israel, the tombs ofRabbi Meir Baal Haness andRabbi Shimon Bar Yohai (2nd century CE) were especially important to him, and he was a generous supporter of these pilgrimage sites. For many years onShavuot eve, the anniversary of his father's death, he would pray at the tomb of Rabbi Meir until dawn.

Many Jewish institutions and programs around the world bear his name.

During his lifetime, Safra donated millions of dollars to provide treatment for the sick. Hospitals across the globe – the Hôpital Cantonal de Genève, theHôpitaux de France, and countless institutions in the United States, for example – benefited from his generosity. He was one of the founders ofAlbert Einstein Hospital inSão Paulo, today one of South America's major medical centers. InIsrael, he initiated the construction of the Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital at theTel Hashomer hospital complex.

In the area of medical research, he was a significant supporter of theInstitut Pasteur in Paris, theWeizmann Institute in Israel, theMichael J. Fox Foundation for Parkinson's Research and a number of different centers studying specific diseases in France, the United States, and elsewhere around the world. He created the Edmond and Lily Safra Chair in Breast Cancer Research atTulane University.^[49]

In the United States, the Safra Family Lodge, hosts families and patients who are having treatment at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda MD.https://clinicalcenter.nih.gov/familylodge/index.html

In France, the Edmond J. Safra Foundation^[45] financially supportsClinatec.^[50]

Safra believed higher education was essential for every young person in the modern world, even though he himself never attended university. He provided university scholarship funds for tens of thousands of needy students through the International Sephardic Education Foundation (ISEF), an institution he and his wife established in 1977 to support deserving Israeli students.^[51]

Safra also helped universities directly, often through the support of chairs and particular programs (such as Judaic Studies). For example, atHarvard University he endowed the Jacob E. Safra Professorship of Jewish History and Sephardic Civilization, and theEdmond J. Safra Center for Ethics; and he gave significant funds for the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professorship in Latin American Studies.^[52] At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business, he created the Jacob E. Safra Professorship of International Banking and the Safra Business Research Center.

Safra was awarded Honorary Doctorates by theHebrew University of Jerusalem andYeshiva University (New York) (where he established the Jacob E. Safra Institute of Sephardic Studies) for his ongoing support of those institutions.

With respect to younger children's education, Safra was especially devoted to schools in the cities where he lived – for example, he founded Ecole Girsa,^[53] Geneva's first and largest Jewish school. He took great pride in founding theBeit Yaacov school inBat Yam. He was also one of the world's most significant benefactors ofyeshivot (religious schools training young men to be rabbis, Jewish teachers, and judges), assisting numerous institutions worldwide.^[54]

• Commandeur de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres andChevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the French government.^{[citation needed]}
• Commander of theOrder of Merit of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg,^[55]
• Commander of theOrder of Rio Branco by the government of Brazil.^{[citation needed]}

• Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics
• Clinatec
• Grand Théâtre de Genève
• Courtauld Institute of Art

• Daniel Gross,A Banker's Journey: How Edmond J. Safra Built a Global Financial Empire, New York: Radius, 2022.ISBN 978-1635767858.
• Bryan Burrough,Vendetta: American Express and the Smearing of Edmond Safra, New York: HarperCollins, 1992.ISBN 0-06-016759-9.

• Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation
• CBS News 48 Hours Mystery Murder in Monaco
• Extensive Court TV coverage of Safra's death
• Safra Synagogue Directory