What is the net worth of Calouste Gulbenkian?
Calouste Gulbenkian was a British-Armenian oil magnate and philanthropist who had a net worth of $8.6 billion at the height of his life, after adjusting to inflation. Without inflation adjustment, Calouste’s fortune was estimated at between $200 and $800 million in the early 1950s.
Calouste Gulbenkian is the first person to exploit oil in Iraq. Notably, it was integral to making the oil reserves of the Middle East accessible to the West. Gulbenkian was also known for his prolific charitable work, which included the establishment of hospitals, schools, and churches.
Early life and education
Calouste Gulbenkian was born on March 23, 1869 in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire. His family is believed to be descended from the Armenian noble family Rshtunis. Gulbenkian’s father, Sarkis, was an Armenian importer and exporter of oil and owned oil fields in the Caucasus. As a young man, Gulbenkian went to the local Aramyan-Uncuyan school. After that he went to the French Lycée Saint-Joseph, then attended Robert College. In 1884, Gulbenkian gave up his studies to move to Marseilles, where he sought to improve his French speaking skills. He went to King’s College London to study Petroleum Engineering and graduated at the age of 18.
career beginnings
A year after graduating from King’s College, Gulbenkian traveled to Baku, Azerbaijan to further his understanding of the oil industry. From his studies, he wrote an article for the literary and cultural affairs magazine Revue des deux Mondes. Subsequently, the Ottoman Finance Minister, Hagop Pasha Gulbenkian, commissioned the preparation of an oil survey for Mesopotamia. Ultimately, Pasha’s survey convinced that Mesopotamia had huge oil deposits. The pasha thus obtained plots of land and established the Ottoman oil industry. Soon, Gulbenkian started his own oil business.
In 1896, Gulbenkian and his family were forced to flee the Ottoman Empire due to the Armenian Genocide. Finishing up in Egypt, Gulbenkian met the oil magnate and philanthropist Alexander Manchev, who introduced him to a number of influential contacts in Cairo. Soon, Gulbenkian moved to London, receiving British citizenship in 1902.
Mr. Five Percent
Gulbenkian made one of his first major moves in the oil industry in 1907, when he helped merge the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company with the Shell Transport and Trading Company. He later became a major shareholder of the newly created Royal Dutch Shell. Because of his policy of holding 5% of the shares of this and other oil companies he founded, Gulbenkian was dubbed “Mr. Five Bear Cent”.
Among his other accomplishments in the oil industry, Gulbenkian was the catalyst for the creation of the Turkish Petroleum Corporation, a group of Europe’s largest oil companies aiming to acquire the rights to develop oil in Mesopotamia. After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish Petroleum Company was granted exclusive rights to explore for oil in Mesopotamia. In 1929, the company’s name was changed to the Iraq Petroleum Company. Later, in 1938, Gulbenkian founded a company from Panama to keep his assets in the oil industry. This resulted in the creation of the Partex Oil and Gas Company.
(Photo by Dominique BERRETTY/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
charity
Besides the oil industry, Gulbenkian was known for his prolific philanthropic endeavours. He made many large donations to hospitals, schools, and churches, and required that 5% of his share of the oil profits should go to families in the United States. Among his many notable contributions, Gulbenkian established the St. Sarkis Armenian Church in London and was behind the creation of a library at St James’s Cathedral.
art collection
Due to the enormous wealth that he gained from his oil business, Gulbenkian amassed a large art collection. He kept the collection in a private museum in his four-story, three-cellar home in Paris. In all, Gulbenkian collected more than 6,400 works of art over the course of his life, dating from antiquity to the 20th century.y a century. He also commissioned some work, including more than 140 pieces by glass designer René Lalique. Today, most of the Gulbenkian collection is on display at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum in Lisbon, Portugal, which was founded according to his will.
government positions
After the royal counter-coup in the Ottoman Empire in 1909, Gulbenkian worked as a financial advisor to the Turkish embassies in Paris and London. When the French government fled to Vichy, he went with him and became Minister of Iran. Later, Gulbenkian became the chief financial advisor to the Turkish government, and was a director of the National Bank of Turkey.
Personal life and legacy
Gulbenkian was married to Nefert Isaiyan, with whom he had two children, named Nubar and Rita. Isaan died in 1952. Gulbenkian died three years later at the age of 86 at the luxury Aviz Hotel in Lisbon.
When he died, Gulbenkian’s fortune was between $280 million and $840 million. Some of this wealth was bequeathed to his descendants, and the rest went to the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, founded in 1956. Now among the world’s wealthiest charitable groups, the foundation is committed to promoting education, science, the arts, and philanthropy. It hosts many initiatives and institutions, including the Gulbenkian Institute of Science and the Gulbenkian Orchestra.
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