Michael Sinocrot
Michael Sinocrot (Arabic: ميشال سنقرط; b. 28 February 1931 in London) is a British–Palestinian billionaire and former business executive. He served as president and CEO of Sinocrot Global Group from the 1969 retirement of his father Haitham Sinocrot until 1998, when he retired and was succeeded by his eldest son Ibrahim. Michael Sinocrot led the transformation of his father's Sinocrot Shipping Company from a modest but successful international shipping service into the massive multinational conglomerate it is today, overseeing Sinocrot's progressive expansion into multiple new industries over a period of nearly three decades. Considered the most successful businessman in the Arab Union, Michael Sinocrot has authored six bestselling books on investing and business strategy, and was the Arab Union's wealthiest private individual from 1977 to 2010.
Between his 1998 retirement and 2016, Sinocrot donated over 90% of his total personal fortune to various domestic and foreign charities, the largest single sum (US$10 billion) going to the International Progressive Foundation, a major Arab Union charity which supports multiple progressive movements and political parties across the globe and carries out ambitious humanitarian and philanthropic projects for disenfranchised communities at home and abroad; following his massive donation, Sinocrot also sold all his company's shares to other charities for mere pennies on the dollar, subsequently dropping to 23rd place among the Arab Union's wealthiest private citizens, with his late 2020 net worth estimated at US$2.21 billion compared to an estimated net worth (adjusted for inflation) of US$88.7 billion upon his 1998 retirement. In 2016, Sinocrot purchased a rural villa near the Sicilian town of Cattolica Eraclea, which has since remained his primary residence. He was granted permanent resident status by Italy in 2018. In April 2020, the Michael Sinocrot Women's & Children's Hospital was opened in Aleppo by the Maronite Church, to whose hospice foundation Sinocrot had donated US$1 billion in early 2016.