Early Life, Marriage and Career
Marcell David Reich was born in 1934 in Antwerp, Belgium. His parents were working-class Jews who emigrated with their son to the United States in 1941 to escape the Nazis. Rich attended high school at the Rhodes Preparatory School in the Manhattan borough of New York City. He later attended New York University, in Manhattan, but dropped out after one semester to go work for Philipp Brothers (now known as Phibro LLC). He worked as a commodities trader for his father, who sought to build an American manufacturing fortune through burlap-sack production.
Marc Rich married Denise Eisenberg, a songwriter and an heiress to a New England shoe manufacturing fortune, in 1966. They divorced in 1996; she continues to use the name Denise Rich. They had three children, one of whom, Gabrielle Rich Aouad, predeceased her parents.
He worked with Philipp Brothers, a dealer in metals, learning about the international raw materials markets and commercial trading with poor, third-world nations. One of his biggest market coups came during the 1973-1974 Arab oil embargo, when he used his Middle Eastern contacts to circumvent the embargo and buy crude oil from Iran and Iraq. After purchasing the crude for roughly US$12 per barrel, Rich doubled the price and sold it to supply-starved U.S. oil companies. In 1974 he and co-worker Pincus Green set up their own company.
Rich has been credited with having created the spot market for crude oil in the early 1970s, revolutionizing commodity trading. His tutelage under Philipp Brothers afforded Rich opportunities to strike deals with various dictatorial régimes and embargoed nations, such as Iran, using a special relationship with Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution which saw the overthrow of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran. Despite the American embargo, Iran would become Rich's most important supplier of crude oil for more than 15 years.
His company, Marc Rich Real Estate GmbH, is involved in large developer projects (e.g., in Prague, Czech Republic). Rich was accused of being involved with the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. Rich and Marvin Davis bought 20th Century Fox in 1981. With Rich a fugitive, Davis sold Rich's interest to Murdoch for $250 million in March 1984.
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