Vicky Safra: The family of the richest Greek woman at “Knives”.

It is not a rare phenomenon for families to “break up” over money. Siblings are “at odds” over property, others with their parents because they believe they have wronged one or the other. However, when wealth is unspeakable, temptation and its corresponding controversies grow and reach other dimensions.

Somewhere here, the Safra family enters the “frame”, whose members “pulled knives” for the will of the richest banker in the world and at the same time the wife of the richest Greek woman on the planet, Fikis Safra.

According to the Financial Times, Joseph Safra has built a $25 billion global empire in banking, real estate and agribusiness. He had gone to Brazil with his father as an immigrant in 1962, married Vicki Sarfatti (née) in 1969, and they remained together until the end, raising four children and 14 grandchildren. That legacy is now the subject of a bitter legal battle

Covenant history

The world’s richest banker was bedridden in late 2019, reeling from multiple medications, while a plot unfolded to rewrite his final wills.

Just over a year later, the businessman died at the age of 82, and soon after, his middle son, Alberto Safra, learned that he had been deprived of his rightful inheritance, which had passed into the hands of his mother and two brothers.

At least, that’s the version of events as 43-year-old Alberto describes in a series of lawsuits against other family members — who vehemently deny any wrongdoing.

In legal documents filed in New York state court earlier this year, Alberto claims he was unfairly fired after disagreements with his younger brother, David, which led him to step down from running the bank that Joseph built. He claims that his father, who suffers from physical and neurological ailments, was medically unable to sign the relevant documents.

The rest of the Safra family strongly denies these allegations. They say Joseph was “fully competent” and that he disqualified Alberto from setting up a competing company, defying pleas to remain in the family business. It was this “betrayal” that prompted the late banker to change his will, according to lawyers for his widowed wife, Vicki.

“The family regrets the path chosen by Alberto, who first attacked his father when he was alive and now does so against his memory, and denies his allegations,” Joseph’s family said in a statement in response to the lawsuit.

Meanwhile, because much of Joseph Safra’s fortune passed to his wife and children during his lifetime, the family claims that Alberto received more than $3.6 billion in assets before the patriarch’s death.

According to the report, Vicky’s siblings Safra and Alberto are scheduled to present more evidence to dismiss the case by early December, after which a New York judge will decide whether it should go to trial.

In a document cited by the Financial Times, Alberto claims that his mother and siblings agreed with a doctor without his knowledge to ensure his father’s health. He also claims that other family members “cut him off” from discussions about Joseph’s care and prevented him from visiting his father.

The Safra family made their first money through banking in the 1840s, establishing Safra Freres & Cie in Aleppo, Syria, to finance camel caravans during the Ottoman Empire.

When Joseph’s father, Jacob Safra, moved to Brazil, he set up a company dealing in metals, machinery, and livestock, and later opened a bank.

Vicki Safra

Born in Thessaloniki, she immigrated to Brazil at an early age, married the richest banker in the world and is now – according to Forbes – the richest Greek woman. The reason is Vicky Safra, whose fortune is estimated at 7.4 billion dollars.

Safra, whose maiden name was Sarfati, married Joseph Safra when she was only 17 years old. Her family (Greek Jews from Thessaloniki, also with roots in Komotini, where her mother came from) immigrated to Brazil in the 1950s when she was still a child.

Now, Vicky Safra is completely out of the spotlight. When she was alive her husband also preferred to keep a low profile. He has reportedly resided in Switzerland, where one of the family’s banks is based, for most of the past decade.

She is involved in the family’s charitable work, especially with the Vicki and Joseph Safra Foundation.

Property

Control of the vast empire that Joseph had built passed to her and her children in what has been described as one of the largest transfers of wealth in history.

The family group includes Banco Safra SA, Safra National Bank of New York and J Safra Sarasin from Switzerland, with assets of more than $100 billion. Properties worth a total of $2.3 billion, including the Gherkin skyscraper in London, the building at 660 Madison Avenue in New York, a stake in banana trading company Chiquita Brands International, and a majestic 130-room mansion in São Paulo.

The wealthiest Greek woman on Earth and her children are now worth more than $16.2 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

source: after that