Thomas S. Kaplan

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Thomas Scott Kaplan (born September 14, 1962 in New York City ) is an American entrepreneur, investor , philanthropist and art collector .

While studying history at the University of Oxford , Kaplan was doing analyzes of listed companies. After graduating, he entered the raw materials business with venture capital from George Soros . Through a series of successful investments, each of which Kaplan ended with a profit, he became a billionaire in 2003 and has since appeared in several fields as a patron and benefactor.

Kaplan has been interested in big cats and wildlife conservation since childhood , and he admired the Dutch painter Rembrandt van Rijn and his work. Since 2006 Kaplan and his wife Daphne Recanati have been supporting non-profit organizations that are committed to protecting big cats and other endangered groups of animals. With their Leiden Collection , the Kaplan-Recanati couple own the largest private collection of Dutch painting and Rembrandt's works.

Kaplan is a member of the US Think Tanks Council on Foreign Relations and the international advisory board of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University . Since 2017 he has been the founding chairman of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), a Geneva-based organization founded on the initiative of France and the United Arab Emirates for the protection of cultural assets in armed conflicts.

Life

Youth and family

Thomas Kaplan grew up as the son of Jason "Jay" Kaplan and Lillian Jean Berger in a Jewish family in Fort Lauderdale , Florida . As a schoolboy he traced the tracks of bobcats and was interested in the fauna of his homeland and their protection. At the age of six, after visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and looking at Rembrandt van Rijn's painting Aristotle with a bust of Homer, he developed a great interest in the work of the Dutch painter. Two years later, at the request of his parents, he chose Amsterdam as a holiday destination.

Kaplan completed part of his schooling at a Swiss boarding school. He earned a bachelor's, master's and a Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Oxford. in history. Kaplan's dissertation was on Britain's counterinsurgency in the Malaya Federation during the Cold War and the policy implications of the rubber and ore trade.

Kaplan met Daphne Recanati on a business trip to Israel in 1991, who had attended the same Swiss boarding school as he himself. Recanati is a daughter of the Israeli artist Mira Recanati and the Israeli entrepreneur and philanthropist Leon Recanati. The couple married in November 1999 and have three children.

Entrepreneur

During his doctoral studies, Kaplan carried out analyzes of Israeli companies listed in the United States. Through his future mother-in-law, Mira Recanati, he met the Israeli investor Avi Tiomkin, who accepted him as a junior partner in his company in 1991. When Tiomkin decided in 1993 to focus his investments on Israel, Kaplan left the company and went into business for himself.

Encouraged by Marc Faber , who viewed precious metals as insurance against central bank monetary policy, Kaplan concentrated on investing in the commodities sector. In 1993 he founded with registered capital of George Soros , the Apex Silver Mines to take advantage of the gap between supply and demand on the metal markets. Apex Silver Mines quickly developed into an internationally active prospecting and development company with a focus on production of silver , zinc and lead . During Kaplan's time as chairman and CEO of the company, a prospect for silver, zinc and lead was developed in San Cristóbal, Bolivia , which is one of the largest in the world. In 2004 Kaplan Apex Silver Mines left to pursue new exploration projects . In 2003 a Kaplan-controlled company became the largest investor in Southern African Resources Plc (later African Platinum Plc). In 2007 Kaplan sold its shares in the course of the acquisition of African Platinum by Implats .

Also in 2003, Kaplan and his nephew Guma Aguiar (born 1977, missing in 2012, declared dead in 2015) founded Leor Energy, a Houston , Texas- based company for the exploration and exploitation of gas reserves in the United States. Leor Energy quickly became the fastest growing private oil and gas exploration company in the United States. In November 2007 the principal rights to Texas land and gas reserves were sold to a subsidiary of the Canadian Encana Corporation for US $ 2.55 billion . Kaplan's business relationship with his nephew continued and ended in 2012 when Aguiar was declared insane in a legal dispute with Kaplan and disappeared from his yacht the following day.

Since 2000, Kaplan had anticipated the rise in the price of gold and invested heavily in gold . After selling his shares in African Platinum and Leor Energy, he concentrated on the exploration and production of precious metals. Thomas S. Kaplan is the chairman and CIO of The Electrum Group LLC, a New York City-based investment , business advisory, and wealth management company whose business is focused on the natural resources and raw materials sector . The Forbes Magazine led Kaplan to 2017 on its list of the world's billionaires .

philanthropist

Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn , Gerard Dou , ca 1652, oil on silver-copper alloy, oval, 10.2 × 8.2 cm, The Leiden Collection

In 2003 the Kaplan couple bought their first Dutch old master with the painting Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn by Gerard Dou . Through numerous other purchases, the Kaplans became the owners of the largest private collection of Dutch painting of the Golden Age and the works of Rembrandt. For more than ten years, the Kaplan couple appeared at art auctions and as lenders for art exhibitions only anonymously and through agents. The Leiden Collection has had a public presence since 2017 . Parts of the collection are exhibited in major international museums and the majority of the objects in the collection are described by leading art historians on their website.

In 2006 Thomas Kaplan, his wife and the American zoologist Alan Rabinowitz (1953–2018) founded the non-profit Panthera Corporation for the worldwide protection of big cats and their habitats. Kaplan is the chairman of the organization. Together with Daphne Recanati Kaplan, he supported the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford with a generous foundation. This research facility conducts field studies, including long-term observation of Cecil and other lions in the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe. The chaplains founded the Orianne Society, whose mission is to protect endangered amphibians and reptiles. These include protective measures for the eastern indigo snake ( Drymarchon couperi ) and their habitats in the southeastern United States. As part of their effort, the chaplains funded the purchase of approximately ten square kilometers of land on the Ocmulgee River in southern Georgia. The Orianne Indigo Snake Preserve protects the winter quarters of the Eastern Indigo Snakes.

Kaplan is a member of the US Think Tanks Council on Foreign Relations and the international advisory board of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University . Together with the then Director of the Belfer Center, the political scientist Graham T. Allison , and the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency David Petraeus , Kaplan set up the Recanati-Kaplan Study Foundation for domestic and foreign intelligence workers. Applicants must have a recommendation from the head of their secret service.

Thomas S. Kaplan was President from 2009 to 2012 and Chairman of the Board of Directors of 92nd Street Y ( 92nd Street Young Men's and Young Women's Hebrew Association ) from 2012 to 2015 , a well-known cultural and community center on the Upper East Side of Manhattan .

Together with his childhood friend Simon Marsh, Kaplan bought two historic Supermarine Spitfires and had them restored by a company based in Duxford near Cambridge . After Marsh's death in 2015, Kaplan donated one of the two machines to the Imperial War Museum . He had the second auctioned off by Christie's in London. He donated the proceeds of 3.1 million British pounds to a charity of the Royal Air Force and several organizations for the promotion of species protection.

Since 2017, Kaplan has been chairman of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), a Geneva-based organization founded on the initiative of France and the United Arab Emirates for the protection of cultural property in armed conflict. The organization was initially funded with $ 100 million from private donors such as Kaplan, the Mellon Foundation, and government funds from France, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia. The work of the organization should be directed against the destruction, damage or theft of cultural property.

Awards

Publications

  • Thomas Scott Kaplan: In the front line of the Cold War: Britain, Malaya and South-East Asian security, 1948–1955 . Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1993.

Web links

art

Species protection

Supermarine Spitfire

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ashlea Ebeling: Tom Kaplan: Billionaire King Of Cats , Forbes Magazine website, October 8, 2013, accessed October 24, 2019.
  2. ↑ a b James Reginato: The Leiden Collection of Dutch Golden Age Paintings , Sotheby's website, April 28, 2017, accessed October 24, 2019.
  3. ↑ Arjen Ribbens: Honderden Hollandse meesters in handen van deze Amerikaanse miljardair , NRC Handelsblad online, January 11, 2017, accessed on October 24, 2019.
  4. ↑ a b Thomas S. Kaplan, Ph.D. , Website of the Panthera Corporation, with video interview (English) on species protection, accessed on October 24, 2019.
  5. ↑ a b c About the Collectors . Leiden Collection website, accessed October 24, 2019.
  6. ↑ Ornah Raviv: כשכסף וכסף נפגשים (When money and money meet) , Globes online, November 16, 1999, accessed October 24, 2019.
  7. ↑ a b c d Forbes profile: Thomas Kaplan , Forbes Magazine website , The World's Billionaires list , accessed October 24, 2019.
  8. ^ Bernard Condon: Silver Strike! , Forbes Magazine website, August 7, 2000, accessed October 24, 2019.
  9. ↑ a b Thomas Kaplan , website of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs , April 28, 2017, accessed October 24, 2019.
  10. ↑ Nathan Vardi: The Tragedy Of Guma Aguiar And A $ 2 Billion Texas Gas Fortune , Forbes Magazine website, June 28, 2012, accessed October 24, 2019.
  11. ↑ Nathan Vardi: Why are Big Hedge Funds Investing with Tom Kaplan? , Forbes Magazine website, March 24, 2010, accessed October 24, 2019.
  12. ^ Courtney Comstock, This Guy Is The Reason Paulson And Soros Invested In NovaGold , Business Insider , March 25, 2010, accessed October 24, 2019.
  13. ↑ Dominique Surh: Portrait of Dirck van Beresteyn . In: Arthur K. Wheelock (Ed.): The Leiden Collection Catalog , website of the Leiden Collection, accessed October 24, 2019.
  14. ^ Diane Garcia and Erik Stokstad: From Making a Killing to Saving a Species . Science , September 1, 2006, Volume 313, No. 5791, pp. 1226-1227, doi: 10.1126 / science.313.5791.1226 , accessed October 24, 2019.
  15. ^ Origins of the Recanati-Kaplan Program for Intelligence Officers , Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs website, Spring 2016, accessed October 24, 2019.
  16. ↑ Last of its kind Supermarine Spitfire to be auctioned for charity , Christie's website, April 27, 2015, accessed October 24, 2019.
  17. ↑ Lot 161. A Vickers Supermarine Spitfire Mk. 1A - P 9374 , Christie's website, The Exceptional Sale 2015, London, July 9, 2015, lot 161, accessed October 24, 2019.
  18. ↑ Vincent Noce: Global fund to protect cultural heritage launches with $ 75m and board led by US billionaire Thomas Kaplan , The Art Newspaper , March 20, 2017, updated March 24, 2017, accessed October 24, 2019.
  19. ↑ Florence Evin: François Hollande obtient 76 millions d'euros pour le sauvetage du patrimoine en péril , Le Monde , March 22, 2017, accessed on October 24, 2019.
  20. ^ Ambassador Delattre Honors Tom Kaplan. Speech by Ambassador François Delattre and Speech by Tom Kaplan . French Embassy website, March 5, 2014, accessed October 24, 2019.
  21. ↑ Lenka Boswijk: Thomas Kaplan ontvangt koninklijke onderscheiding , site Dutch Culture , September 6, 2018 accessed October 24 of 2019.
personal data
SURNAME Kaplan, Thomas S.
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaplan, Thomas Scott (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American entrepreneur, investor, philanthropist, and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH September 14, 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH New York City