FB Roundup: Rodolphe Saadé, Robert Miller, Keshub Mahindra
Saadé family makes ‘exceptional’ donation to the Louvre museum
The Saadé family, the French billionaires behind the container shipping firm CMA CGM, have made a major donation to the Louvre museum.
As reported by Bloomberg, “The ‘pivotal’ backing will allow the country’s biggest art repository to move ahead with a plan for a new department dedicated to Byzantine and Christian art of the Orient. Neither the company the family controls nor the museum would specify the size of the donation, saying only that it is ‘exceptional’ enough to support creating a new department.”
The philanthropic donation will allow for a permanent home for “a collection of 20,000 objects that the Louvre already owns or is in the process of acquiring to be displayed on a rotating basis in a series of rooms starting in 2027”, according to a museum spokesperson.
“The donation reflects the family’s deep Mediterranean roots,” said Tanya Saadé Zeenny, the daughter of the company’s late founder, Jacques, citing her father’s immigration to France from war-torn Lebanon in the 1970s before starting the family’s shipping firm in 1978 in Marseille.
Rodolphe Saadé, the current chairman of CMA CGM, has been busy raising the group’s public profile in recent years, including purchasing a growing media empire and accompanying President Emmanuel Macron as part of a business delegation on foreign trips.
The Saadé family is worth about $22 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Duty-free billionaire Robert Miller’s family office is disbanding its own investment team
The family office of American-British billionaire, entrepreneur and co-founder of DFS (Duty Free Shops) Warren Miller is reportedly winding down its in-house investment team in favour of handing its $2 billion USD investment portfolio to external managers.
According to people familiar with the matter, the family office is winding down its 20-year-old investment office, the Hong Kong-based SAIL Advisors Ltd.
Harold Yoon, SAIL’s chief investment officer, and Adrian Ng, who looked after its private equity and venture capital investments, were among those whose regulatory licenses with the firm were removed recently, according to public data.
Miller’s family office is now said to be in talks with firms including Blackstone to take over its existing investments.
Miller co-founded duty-free shopping giant DFS in Hong Kong with Charles Feeney. The latter died at 92 in October, having given away nearly all of his $8 billion fortune, according to The Washington Post.
According to Bloomberg, “SAIL was set up in 2003 to make investments for his family office and external investors. Then called Search Investment Group, Miller’s family office has since been renamed the Mari-Cha Group.”
Born in the U.S. but a Hong Kong resident since 1960, 90-year-old Miller set up his family office in the early 1970s, according to the company’s website.
Mahindra & Mahindra proposes sale of ‘small number’ of family shares
Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, a family-run Indian multinational automotive manufacturing corporation headquartered in Mumbai, India, has initiated a sale of up to 9.3 million shares in its group subsidiary firm Prudential Management and Services Pvt Ltd.
Representing about 0.75% of the family’s stake in the company, the deal is expected to fetch up to $17,777 million USD.
According to a family statement, “Mahindra & Mahindra said that the family proposes to sell a small number of shares held by Prudential Management and Services in Mahindra & Mahindra… the Mahindra family has no intention to sell further shares in the company in the foreseeable future.”
According to public data, M&M’s promoter group holds a 19.32% stake in the company of which Prudential Management and Services Private owns 11.64%. Kotak Mahindra Capital is the advisor for the deal.
“Post transmission of shares of PMSL held by the former Chairman of M&M, Late Mr. Keshub Mahindra (who passed away on April 12, 2023), to his family members, the family is looking for liquidity for specific needs, and hence proposes to sell a small number of shares held by PMSL in M&M. The family shall continue to retain the status of Promoter Group of M&M and there is no intention to sell further shares in the foreseeable future,” the company said.
Until his passing, Keshub Mahindra was chairman emeritus of the Mahindra Group, a diversified Indian conglomerate with interests spanning automobiles, software services, hospitality, aerospace and defense. He was the son of K C Mahindra, the co-founder of the Mahindra Group, and served on the boards of many companies including Tata Chemicals, Steel Authority of India, Indian Hotels Company Limited, ICICI Bank, and Tata Steel.
