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Haim Saban
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Haim Saban (born 15 October 1944 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a television and media proprietor. With an estimated current net worth of around $2.8 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 98th richest person in America.
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Born to a modest Jewish family in Egypt, Saban fled to Israel in 1956. He currently resides in Beverly Hills, California, and in Israel.
Saban started his career as a concert organizer. In France, he participated in the introduction of Japanese anime and sentai TV series in the country. He produced the scored and opening theme for UFO Robot Grendizer, Candy Candy. He also did the same work on early imported series from America such as Starsky & Hutch or Dallas.
In the United States, he became a television producer, founding Saban Entertainment in 1983. Saban is perhaps most notable for the adaptations of Power Rangers, Masked Rider, VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. In 2003 he headed the $5.7 billion purchase of Kirch Media Group, the then-bankrupt German media conglomerate.
In 2001, he and News Corporation sold Fox Family Worldwide for $5.1 billion to The Walt Disney Company for ABC - the network was renamed ABC Family Channel. Saban made about $1.6 billion from this sale, making it the largest transaction between a company and a private citizen ever.
In June 2006, he was part of an investor group led by Texas Pacific Group of Fort Worth, Texas and Thomas H. Lee Partners that won the bid for Univisión, the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States. The bid was for $12.7 billion (USD)—the network of course has been made popular thanks generally to programs produced by media giants Televisa of Mexico and by Venevisión of Venezuela. Shareholders have filed a lawsuit over the handling of the deal. [1]
A Jewish refugee from Egypt who arrived penniless in Israel, Saban has strong attachment to both the United States and Israel. Saban has donated to the US Democratic Party and the Israeli Labor Party, he has also donated to Republicans including George W. Bush, and has business affiliations with Rupert Murdoch. In the 2001-2002 election cycle, his Saban Capital group donated over $10 million to the Democratic National Committee[2], the largest donation from a single source up to that time.
Saban joined Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg in endorsing the re-election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican Governor of California, on August 7, 2006.
Saban is married to Cheryl Saban (née Chackler), with whom he has two children. Through Cheryl, he is also the step-father of Tifany and Heidi Lenhart