Idan Ofer (Hebrew: עידן עופר; born 1955) is a London-based Israeli business magnate and philanthropist, with interests in shipping, drilling and mining. He is the founder of Tanker Pacific and the Principal of the Quantum Pacific Group, a holding company. He is the majority shareholder of Pacific Drilling, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Israel Corporation, listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, as well as Kenon Holdings, listed on both stock exchanges. He made the largest donation to a British business school ever in 2013.
Early life
Idan Ofer was born in 1955. His father, Sammy Ofer, was an Israeli shipping magnate originally from Romania. His mother, Aviva Ofer, lives in London. He has a brother, Eyal Ofer.
Ofer graduated from the University of Haifa in Haifa, Israel, with a degree in Economics and Shipping. He then received a Master’s in Business Administration from the London Business School in the 1980s.
Career
He started his career by expanding the family shipping business in Hong Kong in the 1980s. He then worked in Singapore and the United States. In 1989, he was the founder of the Tanker Pacific, now the largest privately owned tanking fleet globally.
He is the Principal of the Quantum Pacific Group, a Guernsey-based holding corporation. He is also the majority shareholder of Pacific Drilling, a public company listed on the New York Stock Exchange, and the Israel Corporation, the largest public holding listed on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange. He served as the Chairman of the Israel Corporation from 1999 to 2010, and as a member of its Board of Directors from 1999 to 2013. He has served on the Advisory Boards of Synergy Ventures and Aspect Enterprise Solutions. He was an investor in Better Place, an electric car company which went bankrupt in May 2013.
In 2014, he established Kenon Holdings as a spin off from the Israel Corporation. It is a holding company primarily focused on growth-orientated businesses in the automotive and energy industries. It inherited some of the investments previously held by the Israel Corporation, such as Qoros, a joint project created in partnership with Chery Automobile that manufactures automobiles aimed towards a ‘young, internationally-minded’ market in China. Other investments include Zim Integrated Shipping Services and IC Power. It also includes Inkia Energy, a Peruvian energy company and subsidiary of the IC Power. Meanwhile, the Israel Corporation retains investments in Oil Refineries and Israel Chemicals.
He serves on the Advisory Board of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Dean’s Council of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. With Richard Branson and others, he is a co-founder of the Carbon War Room, a think tank on climate change based in Washington, D.C.. According to The Financial Times, he is “a Tel Aviv liberal in the mould of the old Israeli Labour party.”
Shortly after his father’s death in 2011, he inherited half his father’s fortune. Additionally, he inherited half of his father’s “vast collection” of modern art. As a result, by 2013, he was the richest man in Israel. According to Forbes, Idan Ofer has a net worth of $4.1 billion, as of January 2015.
Idan Ofer net worth: Idan Ofera is a London-based Israeli business magnate and philanthropist who has a net worth of $5.9 billion dollars. Born in Tel Aviv, Israel, Idan Ofer is the son of Sammy Ofer. Sammy Ofer, along with his brother, Yuli Ofer, founded Ofer Brothers Group, a holding company, in the 1950s. The company went on to grow exponentially over the course of the next fifty years, expanding into technology, real estate, and multi-media ventures. After the death of both Sammy Ofer and Yuli Ofer in 2011, Idan and his brother Eyal, inherited equal portions of the Ofer Brothers Group, which has since been dissolved. They also own Zim Integrated Shipping Services, one of the most wide reaching shipping companies in the world. Mr. Ofer also manages Quantum Pacific Group, the Ofer subsidiary of Israel Corporation, as well as serving as Chairman of the California-based electric car company, Better Place. He is also the primary overseer of Pacific Drilling SA.
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