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Thomas Kaplan

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Thomas Kaplan
Born1962 (age 61–62)
NationalityAmerican
Alma materBA, MA, PhD Oxford University
Occupation(s)Investor, conservationist, philanthropist
SpouseDafna Recanati
Children3
Parent(s)Jason Kaplan
Lillian Jean Kaplan
RelativesLeon Recanati (father-in-law)

Thomas S. Kaplan (born 1962) is an American entrepreneur, natural resources investor, philanthropist and art collector. An admirer of Rembrandt, Kaplan is known as the world's largest private collector of the Dutch master's works.

He is the chairman and chief investment officer of The Electrum Group LLC, a New York City-based investment, advisory and asset management firm with a focus on the natural resources sector.

Early life and education

Born in New York City, Kaplan was raised in a Jewish family[2] in Florida, the son of Lillian Jean and Jason "Jay" Kaplan.

In his youth, he developed a passion for wildlife conservation and for Rembrandt, which decades later inspired him, respectively, to found the felid conservation group Panthera,[3] and to establish The Leiden Collection, the world's largest private grouping of works from the Dutch Golden Age.[4] At Oxford University, Kaplan earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in history.[5] He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Malayan counterinsurgency and the manner in which commodities influence strategic planning.[6] While earning his PhD, he worked as an analyst covering Israeli companies publicly traded in the US.[6] On a business trip, he met his future wife, Dafna Recanati (the daughter of Israeli investor Leon Recanati), who had attended the same boarding school as Kaplan.[6] Dafna's mother, artist Mira Recanati, introduced him to Israeli investor Avi Tiomkin, who hired him as a junior partner in 1991. Kaplan had impressed Tiomkin by correctly predicting Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait several years before it took place.[6] When Tiomkin decided to concentrate his investments solely in Israel in 1993, Kaplan moved on to pursue his own entrepreneurial ventures.[6]

Career

Inspired by Marc Faber, who held that precious metals were insurance against the "monetary foolishness" of central governments, Kaplan focused on natural resources investing.[6] In 1993, he founded Apex Silver Mines to capitalize on the improving supply/demand fundamentals of metals.[7] While he was chairman and chief executive officer of Apex, his team discovered and financed the San Cristobal deposit in Bolivia, now one of the largest producers of silver and zinc in the world.[8][9] Kaplan retired from Apex Silver at the end of 2004 to focus on his new exploration projects.[6]

In 2003, a company related to Kaplan became the largest investor in African Platinum Plc (then known as Southern African Resources Plc), enabling it to explore and develop one of the largest platinum group metals projects in South Africa. In 2007, Kaplan sold his position in African Platinum as part of a transaction in which the company was acquired by Impala Platinum Limited, at a valuation of $580 million.[10]

Also in 2003, Kaplan founded Leor Exploration & Production LLC,[11] which became the fastest-growing privately held hydrocarbon exploration and production company in the United States. In 2007, Leor’s natural gas assets were sold to EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. for $2.55 billion.[12][13]

Kaplan first began investing heavily in gold in 2000. Since the sales of African Platinum and Leor in 2007, Kaplan has focused on the Electrum Group. Its exploration arm, Electrum Ltd., which he co-founded with Dr. Larry Buchanan, owns a diversified international portfolio of gold exploration assets. Its other entities hold significant interests in several publicly traded companies, including NovaGold Resources Inc.[14][15] and Gabriel Resources Ltd.,[16] two companies that own several of the largest proven gold resources in the world.[17][18] Among its private interests, the Electrum Group is the controlling shareholder of Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining Corporation, which owns the Sunshine Mine in Idaho, the most prolific silver mine in US history,[19] as well as the Los Gatos silver-zinc deposit in Mexico, which it is developing in partnership with Dowa of Japan.[20]

As a leading investor in gold, Kaplan is credited with correctly predicting that gold prices would increase. His investment strategy and commitment to gold led Bloomberg Businessweek to refer to him as "Gold's Evangelist."[6]

Rembrandt and the Old Masters

Kaplan's passion for the Dutch masters began in his early childhood.[4] Kaplan and his wife, Dafna Recanati Kaplan, began to collect the art of the Dutch Golden Age in 2003. Their Leiden Collection is now among the largest private assemblages of Dutch art in the world, and numbers more than 250 paintings and drawings, most of which are included in a free, high-resolution online catalogue.[21][22] The Kaplans' intention was to establish a "lending library for old masters", including loans for special exhibitions as well as loans to bolster long-term installations.[23]

The Collection focuses on Rembrandt and his School, illuminating the personalities and themes that shaped the Golden Age over five generations. How the Collection developed is explained in Kaplan's personal account of the journey: "A Portrait in Oil".[24] At the core of the Collection is a group of eleven paintings and two drawings by Rembrandt himself, and key members of his circle including his teacher, Pieter Lastman, and studio-mate Jan Lievens.[25]

Philanthropy

Conservation

Kaplan is the executive chairman of Panthera Corporation, a charity which he and his wife co-founded in 2006. Panthera is devoted to preserving the big cats and their ecosystems and has been recognized as a leading force in felid conservation.[26][27] Conservationist Doug Tompkins has referred to Panthera as "the foremost big cat conservation organization in the world," with National Geographic saying Panthera "represents the most comprehensive effort of its kind in wildcat conservation."[28] For his work as an environmentalist, Kaplan was the recipient of the "Hero of the Year Award" by the IWFF in 2012.[29]

Kaplan and his wife Dafna helped establish a globally recognized felid conservation program at Oxford University in collaboration with Dr. David MacDonald. In 2009, the couple endowed the Recanati-Kaplan Center at Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, the WildCRU, and the university's Postgraduate Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice, which offers young conservationists from developing countries access to training at Oxford. In February 2012, Oxford's WildCRU was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education in recognition of WildCRU's outstanding work in wildlife and environmental conservation.[3][30]

The Kaplans also founded the Orianne Society, focused on the conservation of the eastern indigo snake and its habitat, the last remaining long-leaf pine forests of the Southeastern United States.[31] As part of this effort, the Kaplans created the Orianne Indigo Snake Preserve in Georgia through the purchase and donation of 2,500 acres of the snake’s winter habitat.[3] In recognition for their work in wildlife conservation, in 2014 the Kaplans were awarded the New Species Award, and the naming of the newly discovered Orianne's Tree Snake, by the African Rainforest Conservancy.[32]

On June 1, 2014, in what Kaplan described as "a turning point for global cat conservation,"[33] environmental philanthropists from China, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States formed a Global Alliance with Panthera, committing an initial $80 million over the succeeding ten years to conserve the world's wild cats and their ecosystems. Among the initial partners with the Kaplans was Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi. The Global Alliance's commitment provides cornerstone funding for Panthera's $200 million initiative for wild cats.[34][35]

Medical research

The Kaplans have funded the Lillian Jean Kaplan Renal Transplantation Center at the University of Miami as well as a variety of prizes and grants for medical science research.[36] In 2012, the Kaplans created the Daisy and Paul Soros/Recanati-Kaplan Family Assistant Professor in Preventive Cardiology at Weill Cornell Medicine, a position held by Dr. Bassem Masri.[37]

Academia and public policy

Kaplan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[38] He also belongs to the International Council of the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University,[39] where Kaplan, scholar Graham Allison and American General David Petraeus created the Recanati-Kaplan Foundation Fellows Program. Intended to "intersect history with policy, intelligence, strategic studies, and maybe a little common sense," the program brings together intelligence officers from several countries.[40]

Community and culture

Kaplan served as president (2009–2012) and chairman of the board of directors (2012–2015) of the 92nd Street Y, a prominent Jewish community and cultural center in New York City. His wife Daphne and Robert Gilson conceived of the Recanati-Kaplan Program for Excellence in the Arts, which funds scholarships based on artistic merit for children and teens to study at the 92Y's School of the Arts.[41]

Spitfire restoration

In 2015, after the passing of his boyhood friend, Simon Marsh, Kaplan parted with the two Spitfire Mark I fighter planes that he and Marsh had as partners restored with Historic Flying of Duxford, Cambridgeshire.[42] The first of the planes, Spitfire N3200, was gifted in the presence of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, where it had last flown as the personal aircraft of the Commander of 19 Squadron, Geoffrey Dalton Stephenson, later personal pilot to King George VI.[43][44] The second, Spitfire P9374, flown by Captain Peter Cazenove over Dunkirk, was sold at auction at Christies London, where it achieved a record price for any spitfire at auction, the proceeds of which were donated for the benefit of the RAF Benevolent Society, Panthera, Oxford's WildCRU and Stop Ivory.[42][45]

Protection of cultural heritage and antiquities

Combining Kaplan's interests in antiquities and the Middle East, in 2017, Kaplan was asked by the leaders of France and the UAE to be Chairman of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH), a newly-formed foundation dedicated to the implementation of preventive, emergency response, and restoration programs for cultural property in danger of destruction, damage or looting. A joint initiative of the governments of France and the United Arab Emirates, its Board of Directors now includes representatives of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, Morocco and additional countries, international institutions, and private donors.[46][47]

Distinctions

In March 2014, Kaplan was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur of France, the country's highest civilian distinction. In presenting the decoration, the French Ambassador to the United States, François Delattre, said of Kaplan: "Through your multifaceted life and your support for an incredible array of causes, I believe you are the very definition of a game changer and Renaissance man - a young Renaissance man: as Chairman of the Y, as an environmentalist in Brazil, as an entrepreneur, a historian, a philanthropist, an art collector and a politically engaged individual."[48][49]

In March 2017, Kaplan was decorated as a Commandeur in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's Minister of Culture, Audrey Azoulay, at a ceremony at the Louvre Museum. The award was given in recognition of the Kaplan family’s contribution to the arts in France as well as globally.[5]

Personal life

Thomas Kaplan is married to Dafna Recanati Kaplan, daughter of Israeli artist Mira Recanati and investor Leon Recanati. They have three children.[6][50]

References

  1. ^ "Thomas Kaplan". Retrieved 4 January 2018.
  2. ^ Forbes Israel: Jewish Billionaires - Profile of Thomas Kaplan April 14, 2013 (in Hebrew)
  3. ^ a b c "Tom Kaplan: Billionaire King Of Cats". Forbes. 8 October 2013.
  4. ^ a b "The Leiden Collection of Dutch Golden Age Paintings". Sotheby's Magazine. 28 April 2017.
  5. ^ a b "Thomas S. Kaplan". Panthera.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i "Gold's Evangelist". Bloomberg Businessweek. 26 August 2010.
  7. ^ "Is silver the glitter of yesterday? Or is it the new ingredient of the reasonably prudent portfolio?". The New York Times. 19 February 1998.
  8. ^ "Silver Strike!". Forbes. 8 July 2000.
  9. ^ "The contributions of San Cristobal Mine". Sumitomo Corporation. April 2010.
  10. ^ "Southern African Resources Raises £400,000 Through Private Placing". St Brides Media & Finance Ltd. 12 September 2003.
  11. ^ "The Tragedy Of Guma Aguiar And A $2 Billion Texas Gas Fortune". Forbes. 28 June 2012. Retrieved 24 October 2016.
  12. ^ "Why are Big Hedge Funds Investing with Tom Kaplan?". Forbes. 24 March 2010.
  13. ^ "EnCana to acquire partner Leor Energy's interests in highly prolific Deep Bossier gas fields of East Texas for US$2.55 billion". Encana Corporation. 5 November 2007.
  14. ^ "NovaGold Announces US$60 Million Financing with Electrum Strategic Resources". Marketwired. 2 January 2009.
  15. ^ "This Guy Is The Reason Paulson And Soros Invested In NovaGold". Business Insider. 25 March 2010.
  16. ^ "Gabriel gets help from Wall Street investor". The Globe and Mail. 28 August 2011.
  17. ^ "Donlin Gold". NovaGold.
  18. ^ "Projects". Gabriel Resources.
  19. ^ "Silver Opportunity Partners LLC Concludes Acquisition of the Assets of Sterling Mining Company". Business Wire. 12 May 2010.
  20. ^ "DOWA acquires a 30% Interest in Los Gatos Project in Mexico". Dowa Holdings. 8 June 2016.
  21. ^ "Collectors Lend Out Their Hoard". The Wall Street Journal. 17 March 2017.
  22. ^ "US collectors send Dutch Old Masters on world tour". The Art Newspaper. 30 December 2016.
  23. ^ "Billionaire's Spending Spree Creates 'Lending Library for Old Masters'". The New York Times. 8 May 2017.
  24. ^ "A Portrait in Oil". The Leiden Collection.
  25. ^ "About The Leiden Collection". The Leiden Collection.
  26. ^ "Q&A with the Chairman". Panthera.
  27. ^ "From Making a Killing to Saving a Species" (PDF). Science. 313 (5791): 1226–1227. 1 September 2006.
  28. ^ "Testimonials". Panthera.
  29. ^ "Tom Kaplan Receives 2012 IWFF 'Hero of the Year Award'". Panthera. 11 May 2012.
  30. ^ "Queen's Anniversary Prize presented". Oxford University. 24 February 2012.
  31. ^ "Conservation Initiative: Indigo News" (PDF). The Florida Wildlifer. 15 (2): 6. October 2008.
  32. ^ "African Rainforest Conservancy's 23rd Annual Artists for Africa Benefit". Black Tie Magazine.
  33. ^ "Philanthropists Pledge $80 Million for Wild Cat Conservation". National Geographic. 2 June 2014.
  34. ^ "Can Big Name Philanthropists Save The Big Cats?". Forbes. 2 June 2014.
  35. ^ "Hear Me Roar". Baku. Winter 2014.
  36. ^ "UM School of Medicine dedicates Lillian Jean Kaplan Renal Transplantation Center". University of Miami. 10 December 2002.
  37. ^ "Bassem M Masri". Weill Cornell Medicine.
  38. ^ "Membership Roster". Council on Foreign Relations.
  39. ^ "Thomas Kaplan". Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  40. ^ "Origins of the Recanati-Kaplan Program for Intelligence Officers". Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Spring 2016.
  41. ^ "Recanati-Kaplan Program for Excellence in the Arts". 92nd Street Y.
  42. ^ a b "Spitfire faithfully restored after 40 years buried under a French beach sells for world record £3.1million fee at auction - with all the proceeds going to charity". Daily Mail. 10 July 2015.
  43. ^ "'Can I have another 10 minutes?' Thrilled Prince William examines restored Spitfire". Daily Express. 9 July 2015.
  44. ^ "Shot down during the 1940 evacuation of Dunkirk and reclaimed from its watery grave, the Spitfire that filled the Luftwaffe with dread". Daily Mail. 10 July 2015.
  45. ^ "Historic Spitfire soars in record-breaking London sales". Christie's. 10 July 2015.
  46. ^ "Global fund to protect cultural heritage launches with $75m and board led by US billionaire Thomas Kaplan". The Art Newspaper. March 20, 2017.
  47. ^ "UAE and France Reunite for the Establishment of the International Alliance for Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas". PR Newswire. March 21, 2017.
  48. ^ "Ambassador Delattre Honors Tom Kaplan". Embassy of France in Washington. 8 April 2014.
  49. ^ "France Honors Tom Kaplan with the Legion of Honor". Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the U.S. 7 April 2014.
  50. ^ "When money and money meet". Globes (in Hebrew). 16 November 1999.
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