Tamir Sapir was the founder of the Sapir Organization, a real estate investment firm based in New York City.
15 Facts About Tamir Sapir
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Tamir Sapir became a billionaire in 2002, with his wealth peaking in 2007 at US$2 billion, according to Forbes.
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Tamir Sapir's father was a major in the Soviet Army.
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Tamir Sapir 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.
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Tamir Sapir 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, borrowing money for his medallion.
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Tamir Sapir then opened an electronics store with fellow immigrant Sam Kislin, Joy Lud International Distributors on Fifth Avenue, catering primarily to a Russian clientele.
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Tamir Sapir made contacts with the Soviet contingent to the United Nations in New York, and started trading electronics, clothing, and footwear for exclusive rights to sell Soviet oil and oil products which he then sold to American companies.
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Tamir Sapir brought a lawsuit in Russia against a Moscow oil refinery after it violated the terms of a contract by failing to transfer oil products for delivered equipment.
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Tamir Sapir won the case in 2005, but received none of the $28 million the Moscow company was ordered to pay.
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Tamir Sapir was a financier and development partner for the construction of the Trump SoHo in Manhattan in 2006.
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In 2006, Tamir Sapir named his son Alex the chairman and president of the Tamir Sapir Organization.
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Tamir Sapir had 6 grandchildren: Ariana Barinstein, Gabriel Barinstein, David Rosen, Raquel Rosen, Sebastian and Timur Sapir.
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Tamir Sapir was a member of the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan.
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Tamir Sapir built the Congregation of Georgian Jews synagogue in Rego Park, Queens.
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Tamir Sapir's three-mansion estate, The Fountains, was an expanded version of a 1928 mansion.