The Sapir Organization
| Tamir Sapir | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Temur Sepiashvili 1946/1947 Tbilisi, Georgian SSR, USSR |
| Died | September 26, 2014 (aged 67) |
| Residence | Kings Point, New York, U.S. |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Occupation | Businessman, investor |
| Net worth |
 US $ 1.4 billion (est.)(February 2010) |
| Spouse(s) | Bella Sapir (divorced) Elena Ponomareva |
| Children |
with Bella: --Alex Sapir --Zina Sapir Rosen --Ruth Sapir with Elena: --Zita Sapir --Eli Sapir |
Tamir Sapir (Russian: Тимур Сапир, birth name Temur Sepiashvili, Georgian: თემურ სეფიაშვილი); 1946/1947 – September 26, 2014) was an American businessman and investor from the former Soviet republic of Georgia who made millions bartering fertilizer and oil with the Soviets in the 1980s; he took most of his money and put it into New York real-estate. He was included in The 400 Richest Americans List of September 2008 (#246), with a net worth of $1.9 billion. In March 2010, he ranked 721st on Forbes' list of billionaires, with a net worth of $1.4 billion.
Temur Sepiashvili was born to a Jewish family in Tbilisi. His father was a major in the Soviet Army. In the early 1970s he studied journalism at Tbilisi State University but left to earn money to support his family because of his father's death.
He took a job processing emigration applications for Soviet Jews and in 1973, he immigrated to Israel with his wife around the time of the Yom Kippur War. He changed his last name to Sapir while in Israel and moved to the United States first to Louisville, Kentucky where he learned English and worked as a bus driver, janitor and a loader; and then to New York City where he worked as a taxicab driver. He then opened an electronics store with fellow immigrant Sam Kislin catering primarily to Russian clientele.
Sapir made contacts with the Soviet contingent to the United Nations in New York, and started trading electronics, clothing, and footwear for Soviet oil and oil products which he then sold to American companies. Investing the profits in Manhattan real estate in the 1990s, which was then in a slump, he became a billionaire by 2002. Sapir has been referred to as America's "billionaire cabbie".
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