Thomas Kaplan

Thomas S. Kaplan (born 1962) is an American entrepreneur, natural resources investor, philanthropist and art collector. He is the chairman and chief investment officer of The Electrum Group LLC, a New York City-based investment, advisory and asset management firm with a focus on the natural resources sector.

Early life and education

Born in New York City, Kaplan was raised in Florida. In his youth, he developed a passion for wildlife conservation (which he later revisited as the founder of the felid conservation group Panthera). At Oxford University, he earned bachelor's, master's and doctoral degrees in history.^[2][3] He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the Malayan counterinsurgency and the manner in which commodities influence strategic planning.^[4] While earning his PhD, he worked as an analyst covering Israeli companies publicly traded in the US.^[4] On a business trip, he met his future wife, Dafna Recanati (the daughter of Israeli investor Leon Recanati), who had attended the same boarding school as Kaplan.^[4] Dafna's mother, artist Mira Recanati, introduced him to Israeli investor Avi Tiomkin, who hired him as a junior partner in 1991. Kaplan had impressed Tiomkin by correctly predicting Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion of Kuwait several years before it took place.^[4] When Tiomkin decided to concentrate his investments solely in Israel in 1993, Kaplan moved on to execute his own entrepreneurial ventures.^[4]

Career

Inspired by Marc Faber, who held that precious metals were insurance against the "monetary foolishness" of central governments, Kaplan focused on natural resources investing.^[4] In 1993, he founded Apex Silver Mines to capitalize on the improving supply/demand fundamentals of metals.^[5] While he was chief executive officer and chairman of Apex, Kaplan's team discovered and financed the San Cristobal deposit in Bolivia, now one of the largest producers of silver and zinc in the world.^[6][7] Kaplan retired from Apex Silver at the end of 2004 to focus on his new exploration projects.^[4]

In 2003, a company related to Kaplan became the largest investor in African Platinum Plc (then known as Southern African Resources Plc), enabling it to explore and develop one of the largest platinum group metals projects in South Africa. In 2007, Kaplan sold his position in African Platinum as part of a transaction in which the company was acquired by Impala Platinum Limited, at a valuation of $580 million.^[8]

Also in 2003, Kaplan founded Leor Exploration & Production LLC,^[9] which became the fastest-growing privately held hydrocarbon exploration and production company in the United States. In 2007, Leor’s natural gas assets were sold to EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. for $2.55 billion.^[10][11]

Kaplan first began investing heavily in gold in 2000. Since the sales of African Platinum and Leor in 2007, Kaplan has focused on the Electrum Group. Its exploration arm, Electrum Ltd., which he co-founded with Dr. Larry Buchanan, owns a diversified international portfolio of gold exploration assets. Its other entities hold significant interests in several publicly traded companies, including NovaGold Resources Inc.^[12][13] and Gabriel Resources Ltd.,^[14] two companies that own several of the largest proven gold resources in the world.^[15][16] Among its private interests, the Electrum Group is the controlling shareholder of Sunshine Silver Mining & Refining Corporation, which owns the Sunshine silver mine in Idaho, the most prolific silver mine in US history,^[17] as well as the Los Gatos silver-zinc deposit in Mexico, which it is developing in partnership with Dowa of Japan.^[18]

His view on gold has not changed.^[19] On February 25, 2009, he commented in Marc Faber’s Gloom, Boom & Doom Report: “Some will say that $800 gold seems expensive. I would suggest the contrary: that a few years from now, sub-$1000 gold will feel like a true gift... The forced liquidation of leveraged positions of all kinds in late 2008 and early 2009 has presented an extraordinary opportunity to build long gold positions at low prices… [I]t should not be a surprise to see gold set new highs against all currencies, including a strong dollar, and an acceleration of the most enduring bull market in the world.”^[20]

In a January 2011 op-ed in the Financial Times’ Market Insights column, Kaplan discussed the Prudent Man construct as a tool to evaluate the benefits and risks of investing in gold. In that piece, he explained that a variety of factors – including the supply of and demand for gold, the devastation of financial industry and government balance sheets and the fact that gold is not tied to another person’s ability to pay – are causing asset managers and general banks to begin readmitting “gold back into the select group of prudent asset classes.” According to Kaplan, these developments suggest “interesting times ahead” for those who own the precious metal. Therefore, “the Prudent Man rule may well be golden indeed.”^[21]

As a leading investor in gold, Kaplan is credited with correctly predicting that gold prices would increase. His investment strategy and commitment to gold led Bloomberg Businessweek to refer to him as "Gold's Evangelist."^[4] In a May 2010 profile piece in the Wall Street Journal, Kaplan said, “I’ve reached a point where I feel the only asset I have confidence in is gold,” adding, “You’ve got a perfect storm with no apparent solution. If the world does well, gold will be fine. If the world doesn’t do well, gold will also do fine … but a lot of other things could collapse.”^[22]

Kaplan's robust presence in the gold market was recognized in a December 2010 Wall Street Journal article, which described Kaplan along with other investors including John Paulson, David Einhorn and John Burbank. The article stated that Kaplan is “making a bigger wager on gold than almost any investor,” noting that he believes junior miners provide the “greatest leverage to a bull market” and that the world is “entering an era defined by the scarcity value of great precious-metals assets.”^[23]

In a 2015 interview in the "Octavian Report," Kaplan reaffirmed his bullish views on gold, stating, "As a secular trend, I see a great many similarities between the Dow in the 1980s and where we are today in gold. During the 1980s, if one bought the DJIA at 1,100, 1,200, or 1,300, it didn't have a material impact on long-term returns. At any of those levels it was a great buy. I feel the same for gold. If one gets that one last leg down to complete the cycle, so much the better. But prices are headed much, much higher after this correction is over. I've been in this movie before."^[24] Kaplan further reinforced this stance in an article he authored for the January 2016 issue of the Gloom, Boom and Doom Report entitled "The Tortoise and the Hare." "Having a second bite of the apple," he wrote, "is not reserved just for those who bought Apple. It can be had by carefully selecting an equity in an unpopular asset class with a global brand recognition greater even than Apple itself: gold."^[25]

Philanthropy

Conservation

Kaplan is the executive chairman of Panthera Corporation, a charity which he and his wife co-founded in 2006. Panthera is devoted to preserving the big cats and their ecosystems and has been recognized as a leading force in felid conservation.^[26][27] Conservationist Doug Tompkins has referred to Panthera as "the foremost big cat conservation organization in the world," with National Geographic saying Panthera "represents the most comprehensive effort of its kind in wildcat conservation."^[28]

Panthera created and maintains the largest protected jaguar corridor in the Americas.^[29][30] In particular, the work of Panthera’s CEO, Dr. Alan Rabinowitz, and Kaplan to balance the preservation of the jaguar corridor in Brazil with sustainable ranching was the focus of a January 2011 profile by CBS's 60 Minutes.^[31] In that piece, Kaplan outlined his thesis for utilizing sustainable ranching and community development to protect the apex predator and its environment: "There is no better way to stop poaching than to make the local community say: 'Hey, wait a minute, our children have medicine and education because of the jaguar.' When you show that, you have won their hearts and their minds. Then you have won the war."^[32] For his work as an environmentalist, Kaplan was the recipient of the "Hero of the Year Award" by the IWFF in 2012.^[33]

Kaplan and his wife Dafna helped establish a globally recognized felid conservation program at Oxford University in collaboration with Dr. David MacDonald. In 2009, the couple endowed the Recanati-Kaplan Center at Oxford University's Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, the WildCRU, and the university's Postgraduate Diploma in International Wildlife Conservation Practice, which offers young conservationists from developing countries access to training at Oxford. In February 2012, Oxford's WildCRU was awarded the Queen's Anniversary Prize for Higher Education in recognition of WildCRU's outstanding work in wildlife and environmental conservation.^[3][34]

In July 2015, a male lion named Cecil, one of those being studied by the WildCRU's Hwange Lion Research Project, was killed in Zimbabwe by a trophy hunter. The killing of Cecil led to an public outcry across the world. The Hwange project had been funded by the Kaplans directly and through Panthera's Project Leonardo. "For us, Cecil was like part of the family, so we don’t take this lightly," Kaplan said. "Cecil became a symbol while he was alive, but in death, he may very well have become the iconic representation of the precarious plight of his species." The campaign to highlight the plight of African lions brought considerable attention to the WildCRU and Oxford, prompting Professor MacDonald to remark to Forbes Magazine, "I think it’s also obvious that Tom and his wife Daphne have given more to big cat conservation than probably anybody else in history."^[35]

The Kaplans also founded the Orianne Society, focused on the conservation of the eastern indigo snake and its habitat, the last remaining long-leaf pine forests of the Southeastern United States.^[36] As part of this effort, the Kaplans created the Orianne Indigo Snake Preserve in Georgia through the purchase and donation of 2,500 acres of the snake’s winter habitat.^[3] In recognition for their work in wildlife conservation, in 2014 the Kaplans were awarded the New Species Award, and the naming of the newly discovered Orianne's Tree Snake, by the African Rainforest Conservancy.^[37]

Regarding his wildlife conservation work with big cats and snakes, Kaplan said, "If you want psychic gratification, one of the greatest ways is to know that you’ve made a real contribution to saving a species from blinking out during your lifetime."^[3] Kaplan cites American media mogul and philanthropist Ted Turner as one of the great inspirations of philanthropy and as a role model in saving imperiled species.^[38]

On June 1, 2014, in what Kaplan described as "a turning point for global cat conservation,"^[39] environmental philanthropists from China, India, the United Arab Emirates and the United States formed an unprecedented new Global Alliance with Panthera, committing an initial $80 million over the succeeding ten years to conserve the world's wild cats and their ecosystems. The initial partners with the Kaplans are Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; Jho Low, Director of Jynwel Charitable Foundation Limited of Hong Kong; and Hemendra Kothari, Chairman DSP Blackrock India and the Wildlife Conservation Trust. The Crown Prince's personal commitment to the Panthera alliance is managed through the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, established by the Crown Prince in 2009. The Global Alliance's commitment provides cornerstone funding for Panthera's $200 million initiative for wild cats.^[40][41]

Medical

The Kaplans have funded the Lillian Jean Kaplan Renal Transplantation Center at the University of Miami as well as a variety of prizes and grants for medical science research.^[42] In 2012, the Kaplans created the Daisy and Paul Soros/Recanati-Kaplan Family Assistant Professor in Preventive Cardiology, a position held by Dr. Bassem Masri.^[43]

Academia and public policy

Kaplan is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations^[44] as well as the International Council at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs,^[45] where Kaplan, scholar Graham Allison and decorated American General David Petraeus created the Recanati-Kaplan Foundation Fellows Program. Intended to "intersect history with policy, intelligence, strategic studies, and maybe a little common sense," the program brings together intelligence officers from several countries. According to the Belfer Center, "Each fellow undertakes rigorous research projects, doing in-depth studies of everything from combatting terrorism to leading more effective organizations. They meet in small sessions with leaders in the intelligence field—directors and former directors of CIA, NSA, DIA—and other foreign and domestic intelligence agencies... Recanati-Kaplan Fellows are the best of the best: As the Center’s website notes, applicants must come with the personal recommendation of their agency heads."^[46]

Community

Kaplan is also active in community philanthropy. After having served as its president (2009-2012) and chairman of the board of directors (2012-2015), Kaplan serves as chairman of the Talks and Conversations committee of the 92nd Street Y, a prominent Jewish community and cultural center in New York City. His wife and Robert Gilson conceived of the Recanati-Kaplan Program for Excellence in the Arts, which funds scholarships based on artistic merit for children and teens to study with the 92Y's renowned School of the Arts.^[47]

Spitfire restoration

In 2015, after the passing of his boyhood friend, Simon Marsh, Kaplan parted with the two Spitfire Mark I fighter planes that he and Marsh had as partners restored with Historic Flying of Duxford, Cambridgeshire.^[48] The first of the planes, Spitfire N3200, was gifted in the presence of Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford, where it had last flown as the personal aircraft of the Commander of 19 Squadron, Geoffrey Dalton Stephenson, later personal pilot to King George VI.^[49][50] The second, Spitfire P9347, flown by Captain Peter Cazenove over Dunkirk, was sold at auction at Christies London, where it achieved a record price for any spitfire at auction, the proceeds of which were donated for the benefit of the RAF Benevolent Society, Panthera, Oxford's WildCRU and Stop Ivory.^[48][51]

Distinctions

In 2014 Kaplan was decorated as a member of the Order of the Légion d'Honneur of France. In presenting the decoration, the French Ambassador to the United States, François Delattre, said of Kaplan: "Through your multifaceted life and your support for an incredible array of causes, I believe you are the very definition of a game changer and Renaissance man - a young Renaissance man: as Chairman of the Y, as an environmentalist in Brazil, as an entrepreneur, a historian, a philanthropist, an art collector and a politically engaged individual."^[52][53]

Personal life

He is married to Dafna Recanati Kaplan, daughter of Israeli artist Mira Recanati and businessman Leon Recanati. They have three children.^[4][54]

References

External links

• http://www.panthera.org/
• http://www.oriannesociety.org/
• http://www.92y.org/