Thomas Kaplan
| Thomas Kaplan | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1962 (age 54–55) |
| Residence | New York City, New York, US |
| Nationality | American |
| Alma mater | BA, MA, PhD Oxford University |
| Occupation | Investor, conservationist, philanthropist |
| Net worth |
US $ 1.3 billion (March 2013) |
| Spouse(s) | Daphne Recanati |
| Children | three |
| Parent(s) | Jason Kaplan Lillian Jean Kaplan |
| Relatives | Leon 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.
Born in New York City, Kaplan was raised in a Jewish family 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 leading felid conservation group Panthera, and to establish The Leiden Collection, the world's largest private grouping of works from the Dutch Golden Age. At Oxford University, Kaplan earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in history. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Malayan counterinsurgency and the manner in which commodities influence strategic planning. While earning his PhD, he worked as an analyst covering Israeli companies publicly traded in the US. On a business trip, he met his future wife, Daphne Recanati (the daughter of Israeli investor Leon Recanati), who had attended the same boarding school as Kaplan. Daphne'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. When Tiomkin decided to concentrate his investments solely in Israel in 1993, Kaplan moved on to pursue his own entrepreneurial ventures.
Inspired by Marc Faber, who held that precious metals were insurance against the "monetary foolishness" of central governments, Kaplan focused on natural resources investing. In 1993, he founded Apex Silver Mines to capitalize on the improving supply/demand fundamentals of metals. 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. Kaplan retired from Apex Silver at the end of 2004 to focus on his new exploration projects.
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