copetas - metal men; marc rich and the $10 billion scam (1985)

[...]... helped another daisychainer avoid paying taxes by handling money for them They fingered xii [e-reads] New Introduction to Metal Men Messrs Rich and Green “It was the first time I had ever heard the name Marc Rich, ” Mr Weinberg said At about the same time, another legal issue boiled up out of the Mideast From 1974 on, Mr Rich s companies purchased Iranian oil, often in barter deals for weapons and other... xviii [e-reads] Prologue I had friends in the trading business, and we had arranged to meet some people who worked at Marc Rich International, Rich s American company Marc Rich entered the office lobby as we were about to board an elevator “That’s Marc Rich, ” said one of the traders “They say he’s worth $10 billion. ” The meeting would have remained forgettable, except that one year later Marc Rich was... their profit and power come from the influence they wield buying, selling, and supplying the Earth’s geology to industry and individuals The drama of their lives is directed by the cost and the availability of metals like copper, tin, and tantalum, and by ocean ships stuffed with fossil fuels and strange-sounding lumps of earth called ferro molybdenum, wolfram trioxide, and chambishi cobalt Their edge... overspeculate on what the market has to offer They take exaggerated chances, do everything possible to be in on a quick-kill scheme and metal dealing is guerrilla economics of the highest order: behind -the- lines business, in and out Fast 9 [e-reads] A Craig Copetas Metal Men Rich did the unexpected for the sheer joy of seeing if he could get away undetected He played by his own rules because the standard rules... transform them ultimately into the Los Angeles Raiders of professional trading Marc Rich was the apotheosis of a blood -and- guts trader, a financial gladiator whose interest rested in the spoils of battle Within seven short years, Rich masterminded a $15 -billion- a-year trading business by specializing in metal, inventing spot oil, dabbling in grain, sugar, and weapons In the process, he assumed 50 percent... 1973, Messrs Rich and Green walked away from Philipp Brothers and started Marc Rich AG, the Swiss trading company that would become the cornerstone of Mr Rich s empire The company that was financed through a $2 million loan arranged by Rich s father through a Bolivian bank and a $1 million cash injection by Jacques Hacheul, a Philipp Brothers trader who had joined them in the mutiny But the startup... member of the board of Phibro-Salomon, the holding company that owns Philipp Brothers, the world’s largest and most powerful metal- trading juggernaut Metal traders have a built-in talent to sense opportunities that other businessmen cannot see Traders are a bunch of cowboys, highly individualistic and generally adding little to an organization as a whole.” 5 [e-reads] A Craig Copetas Metal Men The esoteric... haunt Mr Rich: a promise from Iranian Senator Ali Rezai to help set up a series of oil deals in his country With offices in London and Zug, Switzerland — and armed with client lists from Philipp Brothers — Mr Rich quickly turned his company into a feared rival in the rough -and- tumble business of trading oils, grains, metals and other commodities Philipp Brothers never recovered from the blow But Mr Rich s... understanding and utilization of the labyrinthine complexities of tax loopholes and exotic financial havens in places such as Panama, Liberia, and Switzerland Of the eighty naturally occurring metals buried in the Earth, forty are of critical industrial importance Only nine of these metals—which the metal men supply uniquely—are openly brokered and monitored on exchanges; the rest are dealt under the. .. [e-reads] Prologue Prologue “White knights shine too brightly on the battlefield They get knocked off too easily.” — Lee Marvin I t would have been impossible to write from the outside about fugitive American trader Marc Rich and the men who absolutely control the market for the Earth’s natural resources Beyond the unique experience of living and working among metal traders, the secretive nature of their .