Biography
Merkin's family fled Germany to escape Nazi persecution and came to New York City in 1940. Soon after coming to the United States, Merkin joined the Army as an intelligence and counterintelligence officer. After the war he purchased a seat on the New York Stock Exchange, and founded Merkin & Company, an investment firm. He met and married Ursula Breuer in 1950 in New York City and had six children, three sons and three daughters; at the time of his death, he had 20 grandchildren. He lived in New York City. Although he was known to many people as an investment banker, the actual bulk of his fortune came from his ownership of 37 per cent of Overseas Shipholding Group, which owns and manages the second largest fleet of transatlantic oil tankers in the world. Consequently, he was actually not so much a banker, as a shipping magnate.
Read more about this topic: Hermann Merkin
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