22 Facts About Thomas Kaplan

Thomas Scott Kaplan was born on September 14,1962 and is a Franco-American businessman, philanthropist and art collector.

Thomas Kaplan is the world's largest private collector of Rembrandt's works.

At Oxford University, Thomas Kaplan earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in history.

Thomas 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, Thomas Kaplan moved on to pursue his own entrepreneurial ventures.

Thomas Kaplan retired from Apex Silver at the end of 2004.

In 2003, a company related to Thomas Kaplan became the largest investor in African Platinum Plc.

In 2007, Thomas 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.

Since the sales of African Platinum and Leor in 2007, Thomas Kaplan has focused on the Electrum Group.

Thomas Kaplan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

In 2022, the Recanati-Thomas Kaplan Applied History Initiative was created at the Cambridge Middle East and North Africa Forum, a think-tank based at the University of Cambridge, "to inform Middle East policy with deep historical insight".

In 2018, along with French philosopher and activist Bernard-Henri Levy, Thomas Kaplan co-founded Justice for Kurds, a New York-based, not-for-profit advocacy group that seeks to educate and raise public awareness about the Kurdish cause in the US and globally.

Thomas Kaplan served as president and chairman of the board of directors of the 92nd Street Y, a prominent Jewish community and cultural center in New York City.

In Florida, where Thomas Kaplan grew up, he and his wife funded the Lillian Jean Thomas Kaplan Renal Transplantation Center at the University of Miami, as well as prizes and grants for renal science research focused on polycystic kidney disease.

In 2015, after the passing of his boyhood friend, Simon Marsh, Thomas Kaplan parted with the two Spitfire Mark I fighter planes that he and Marsh had as partners restored with Historic Flying of Duxford, Cambridgeshire.

In 2017, Thomas Kaplan became the chairman of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas, a Geneva-based foundation dedicated to the implementation of preventive, emergency response, and restoration programs for cultural property in danger of destruction, damage or looting.

In July 2015, a trophy hunter killed Cecil the lion, who was being studied by the WildCRU's Thomas Kaplan-funded Hwange Lion Research Project in Zimbabwe.

On November 12,2018, at the inaugural Paris Peace Forum, Thomas Kaplan launched the Indian Ocean Tortoise Alliance, a Seychelles-based initiative dedicated to the conservation of the Aldabra tortoise and its rewilding in the other countries where it previously existed.

In March 2014, Thomas Kaplan was awarded the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre national de la Legion d'honneur of France, the country's highest civilian distinction.

In March 2017, Thomas 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.

In September 2018, Thomas Kaplan was awarded the rank of Officer in the Order of Orange-Nassau for his efforts in disseminating Dutch culture and building bridges between people through art.

Thomas Kaplan is married to Dafna Recanati Thomas Kaplan, daughter of Israeli artist Mira Recanati and investor Leon Recanati.