His name is Robert Alexander Belfer, and he’s a Billionaire Oil Tycoon.
Robert’s had a lot of good fortune in his life, but he's also run into some serious bad luck when choosing investments. Robert has made billions of dollars in his lifetime but seems to be a magnet for financial schemes.
Here’s a quick background on Robert’s story:
Robert’s Father was a wealthy oil industry executive and founded Belco Petroleum Corporation (a fortune 500 oil company in the 60’s).
After graduating from Harvard Law, Robert joined his dad at the Belco Petroleum Corp. and worked his way up to president of the company in 1965.
In the 1980’s, Belco Petroleum went through 2 mergers, eventually merging into a company named Enron. (mistake #1)
This merger made the Belfer family major shareholders in Enron, and by 2000, the Family’s stake in Enron was worth $2 billion. But then Enron collapsed.
After the Enron collapse, it’s estimated the family’s stake in Enron went from $2 billion down to $6.7 million. (ouch…) Luckily the Belfer family diversified into a few different assets like real estate and a new oil company, so they were doing just fine financially.
Fast forward to the early 2000’s, the Belfer family invested in Bernie Madoff’s fund (mistake #2). Luckily the family withdrew $28 million from the Ponzi scheme before it imploded in 2008, but it’s unclear how much they put into the fund, to begin with.
Now fast forward to the present day, and the Belfer family is once again wrapped up in one of the largest US financial frauds with the FTX implosion (mistake #3). It’s estimated the Belfer family held a $34.5M stake in FTX, which will likely be written off as a total loss.
This guy just can’t catch a break… 🙃
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