Nurse charged in Monaco banker's death

The Monaco authorities have charged one of banker Edmond Safra's nurses with arson resulting in the death of the Lebanese financier and another of his nurses.

Mr Safra's death has deprived the financial world of one of its most intriguing, reclusive and successful figures. Not since Alfred Herrhausen, chairman of Deutsche Bank, was blown up in his car in Frankfurt a decade ago has a senior banker died such a violent death. Mr Herrhausen's death has been attributed to the Red Brigade.

Mr Safra's nurse, Mr Ted Maher, 41, had confessed to setting a waste paper basket on fire, said Mr Daniel Serdet, the general prosecutor of Monaco this week.

Mr Serdet added that Mr Maher, described as a former US Green Beret, who has been treated in the Princess Grace hospital for knife wounds, had admitted lying about being attacked by two intruders.

Unlike Mr Herrhausen, Mr Safra was not a public figure. Nor was he a symbol likely to attract hostility from radical protesters.

Last week's murder was all the more remarkable because it took place in one of the most secure cities in the world, and because Mr Safra had always made great efforts to ensure his security.

Mr Safra, founder of the Republic New York banking group, died of asphyxiation along with nurse, Viviane Torrente, in the fortified bathroom of his Monte Carlo penthouse where they had taken refuge thinking they were under threat from intruders.

Mr Maher's confession, if confirmed at trial, would provide great relief to the authorities of Monaco, which prides itself on being one of the world's safest places for the wealthy. There was speculation last week that the presumed attack on Mr Safra might have been linked to organised crime.

Mr Maher has said his intention was not to threaten Mr Safra's life but to settle a dispute with another nurse employed by Mr Safra.

Bankers who knew Mr Safra said that he had always feared being murdered or kidnapped and was constantly surrounded by bodyguards as he and his wife Lily, a wealthy Brazilian heiress, flitted between their various homes in New York, London, Geneva, Monaco and Sao Paulo.

Mr Safra's interest in his own security was legendary. A helicopter carrying wealthy house hunters once flew close to his house on Cap Ferrat, along the Riviera from Monaco. Mr Safra was reputed to have phoned up France's interior minister to find out who was aboard, and ensure his airspace was not infringed again.

Mr Safra certainly lived as if he had enemies. Bryan Burrough, author of Vendetta, a book about the banker, notes that Mr Safra liked to say: "You have thousands of vultures that are always trying to eat you. If you are not strong, they'll eat you up."

Mr Safra was a notorious worrier and highly superstitious. Yet his killing came at an unlikely moment, since he was was preparing to bow out after half a century in banking.

Mr Safra had set in train the handover of his two biggest banks - Republic New York Corporation in the US and Safra Republic Holdings in Europe - to HSBC, Europe's biggest bank. He was suffering from Parkinson's disease and since he had no children he could not pass on the business to a son, as his father, Jacob Safra, had done in his case.

Mr Safra built three banks in his career and his banking prowess was compared with US banking dynasties like the Morgans and Rockefellers. He was publicly admired by most of the world's top bankers. Sir John Bond, chairman of HSBC, said that the Safra banks embody "the spirit and integrity of Edmond and the franchise he has built". One banker said Mr Safra was the only Arab Jew who dealt fairly with both communities without antagonising either side.

Yet there has always been speculation about Edmond Safra. His banks are among the world's largest bank note traders, a business that lends itself to money laundering. They are also big participants in the gold market - another business where there is a premium on anonymity. The US authorities have always given Mr Safra's banks a clean bill of health when it came to their surveillance systems for guarding against customer money-laundering.

Mr Safra's obsession with secrecy, combined with professional jealousy among some competitors, are among the reasons why the Safra name has held its allure. His career also lent itself to intrigue. He was born in Syria into a Sephardic Jewish family whose banking empire began during the Ottoman Empire.

The Safra family was involved in financing the caravan trade between Aleppo, Constantinople and Alexandria. Edmond Safra was not Jacob Safra's oldest son. But he inherited the family bank nevertheless and learnt his banking following his father round the souks of Beirut.

He was known as a ruthless businessman. But he was also a shy man who shunned publicity, and a generous philanthropist. Mr Safra's decision to sell his banking empire to HSBC Holdings in a $10.3 billion (€9.16 billion) deal was seen by many as the end of an era for a private banker, whose prowess has sometimes been compared with US banking dynasties like the Morgans. Others saw it as a sign that his professional style was no longer suited to today's more competitive markets.

The banks in Mr Safra's empire tend to be highly capitalised and have extremely liquid balance sheets. The puzzle for many bank analysts has been how they have continued to generate above-average profits. For years, bankers have envied Mr Safra's ability to hold on to his extraordinarily loyal client base, while apparently offering below average interest rates on their savings.

Over the years Mr Safra acquired a reputation as a banker with the Midas touch, founding not one, but three successful banks in different corners of the globe. The first was in Brazil, where Mr Safra established himself in Sao Paulo at the age of 24, laying the foundations of what would become the Geneva-based Trade Development Bank. In 1962 he sold the Brazilian operations to his brothers. Four years later, Republic National Bank opened in New York with Robert Kennedy to cut the ribbon.

Republic shook up the sleepy New York banking market, winning business by offering customers free gifts in return for making deposits. At one point, this gift programme made it the largest single distributor of colour televisions in the US.

For more than 50 years in banking Mr Safra appeared to have been able to steer clear of most of the banking "black holes", including the developing countries debt crisis, injudicious leveraged buy-outs, and investment banking follies.

Indeed, Republic National Bank's risk-adjusted capital ratios are twice as high as required by bank regulators.

That made it all the more surprising last year when Republic became one of the biggest casualties of the Russian debt default. The bank had a bigger exposure to Russia, in proportion to its size, than any other US institution. It had to shut down its brokerage unit after losing money on hedge funds. Last month, Mr Safra agreed to accept a $450 million reduction in the price he was to receive for his stake in Republic New York.

The reduction was agreed after it emerged that the bank had been a custodian for controversial notes sold to Japanese investors by an investment firm. It was yet another sign that Mr Safra's legendary ability to survive the storms of the world's financial markets had begun to desert him.

Mr Safra had always given the impression that he wanted not only to carry on his father's legacy, but to build a banking dynasty. In a rare interview a couple of years ago in Bilanz, a Swiss business magazine, he said: "In the past I said I wanted to build banks that would last a thousand years. Now I say that I want my banks to last ten thousand years."