Lily Safra

About Lily Safra

Birth Day: December 30, 1934
Birth Place: London, United Kingdom, Monaco
Residence: London, England
Citizenship: Monaco
Occupation: Socialite, philanthropist
Spouse(s): Mario Cohen (m. 1951; div. 1960) Alfredo Monteverde (m. 1964; suicide 1969) Samuel Bendahan (m. 1972; div. 1973) Edmond Safra (m. 1976; death 1999)
Children: 4

Lily Safra

Lily Safra was born on December 30, 1934 in London, United Kingdom, Monaco. Brazil-born, Monaco-based billionaire Lily Safra inherited most of her fortune from her fourth husband, the late Edmond J. Safra, a multibillionaire banker. Edmond's 1999 death in a fire at his Monaco penthouse made worldwide headlines and prompted conspiracy theories despite his nurse's admission of guilt. Edmond left most of his fortune to the Edmond J. Safra Philanthropic Foundation, but he also left Lily enough assets to make her a billionaire. She chairs the philanthropic foundation, which supports education, science, medicine, religion, culture and humanitarian relief in 40 countries and has reportedly donated more than $250 million since its creation in 1977. Lily's second marriage, to Alfredo Monteverde, founder of Brazilian appliance giant Ponto Frio, ended with his suicide in 1969. He left her with a stake in Ponto Frio, which she sold in 2009 to Brazilian retailer Grupo Pao de Acucar for about $340 million. In 2012 she launched a lawsuit seeking additional payment from Ponto Frio, claiming to have suffered financial damages from the manner in which payments for the deal were set up. In August 2015 a Brazilian court ruled in her favor.
Lily Safra is a member of Finance

Does Lily Safra Dead or Alive?

As per our current Database, Lily Safra is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020).

🎂 Lily Safra - Age, Bio, Faces and Birthday

Currently, Lily Safra is 89 years, 2 months and 28 days old. Lily Safra will celebrate 90rd birthday on a Monday 30th of December 2024. Below we countdown to Lily Safra upcoming birthday.

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Popular As Lily Safra
Occupation Finance
Age 89 years old
Zodiac Sign
Born December 30, 1934 (London, United Kingdom, Monaco)
Birthday December 30
Town/City London, United Kingdom, Monaco
Nationality Monaco

🌙 Chinese Zodiac Signs

Lily Safra was born in the Year of the Dog. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Dog are loyal, faithful, honest, distrustful, often guilty of telling white lies, temperamental, prone to mood swings, dogmatic, and sensitive. Dogs excel in business but have trouble finding mates. Compatible with Tiger or Horse.

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Biography/Timeline

1934

Safra was born Lily Watkins on December 30, 1934, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, daughter of Wolf White Watkins, a Czechoslovak railway Engineer who moved to South America, and Annita Noudelman de Castro, a Uruguayan of Russian-Jewish ancestry. She grew up in Rio de Janeiro but moved with her family to Uruguay.

1960

At the age of 17, she met and married Mario Cohen, an Argentine hosiery magnate of Italian-Jewish descent. They had three children. Lily and Cohen divorced in the early 1960s.

1965

In 1965, she married Alfredo "Freddy" Monteverde, formerly Greenberg. He was a Romanian Jewish immigrant who was forced to flee Europe in 1939. He was a leader in the Brazilian household appliance distribution Business, where he established the Ponto Frio brand. He and Lily adopted a child. In 1969, Monteverde committed suicide. According to biographer Isabel Vincent, Monteverde left all his assets to his wife.

1972

In 1972, Monteverde married businessman Samuel Bendahan, also a Sephardic Jew but from much more modest means. They separated after two weeks, and she divorced him after one year of marriage.

1976

In 1976, Monteverde married Edmond Safra after all. The prominent banker was of Syrian Jewish (Mizrahi) origin and a naturalized Brazilian citizen. He founded Republic National Bank of New York. The couple divided their time among homes in New York City, Monaco, Geneva, and the Villa Leopolda on the French Riviera.

1977

Lily Safra supports numerous foundations, organizations, and charities. In 1977 she, her husband Edmond Safra, and Nina Weiner founded the International Sephardic Education Foundation. She chairs The Edmond J. Safra Foundation which supports medical research and humanitarian relief. The Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics has been established at Harvard; most recently she donated over $12 million to create a cross-disciplinary research laboratory on institutional corruption.

2005

Lady Colin Campbell's novel Empress Bianca (2005) was considered to be defamatory by Safra's solicitor Anthony Julius. Reacting to the legal threat in the United Kingdom, its publishers Arcadia withdrew the book and destroyed unsold copies. A revised edition of the book was later published in the United States.

2009

In 2009, Safra was honored by the Elton John AIDS Foundation with its “An Enduring Vision” award for her long-time support. In October 2013, Safra donated $1 million in support of the foundation's grant-making programs. That same year, Safra contributed $16 million toward Edmond and Lily Safra Children's Hospital in Tel Hashomer. She also donated $5 million toward the One Laptop Per Child project.

2010

L'Homme qui marche I, a life-sized bronze sculpture of a man by Alberto Giacometti was acquired by Safra on 3 February 2010 at an auction in London for £65 million (US$104.3 million), resulting in becoming one of the most expensive works of art and the most expensive sculpture ever purchased.

2012

In May 2012, Christie's Geneva hosted an auction of 70 pieces of Safra’s personal jewelry collection. The 'Jewels for Hope' sale included 18 pieces by JAR, the largest personal collection designed by the jeweler ever to be sold. The entire profits from the sale were donated to 32 charitable institutions around the world in the fields of Health care, education, religion and culture, including the Elton John AIDS Foundation and Hope and Homes for Children in Romania.

2019

In the same year, she promised the Claude Pompidou Foundation a donation of 7 million euros for the construction and completion of the Claude Pompidou Institute for Alzheimer’s research and treatment in the city of Nice, France. The Institute was inaugurated and welcomed its first patients in 2014.

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