Born in Bombai (Mumbai), India, David Reuben together with his mother and brother Simon immigrated to the UK in the 1950s. The reason for them to migrate was the separation of their parents. His mother Nancy brought them to London, while she had family here. They settled in Islington, one of the London boroughs, and according to some reports they were almost destitute and had to rely on Jewish poverty in order to survive.
The Reuben family moved to the UK while the brothers were still teenagers, they received education in London. On arrival David as well as his brother Simon was sent to a state school in Islington. After completing his education at school, David, unlike his brother, who had never received formal education, started his secondary education at Sir John Cass Sixth Form College in Stepney.
When David was 17, he entered scrap metal business and started to trade, working nights while he finished college. At the same time Simon took first steps in carpets, bought out England's oldest carpet company from the receiver, made enough money from it to begin investing in property.
Consequently, David joined his brother in the investing initiative in the 1970's. They set up a company known as Trans World Group, which specialised in trading non-ferrous metals, namely in aluminium and tin out of London and copper and tin out of New York. Simultaneously they invested in property for development. By 1984, the company was worth in excess of $20 million.
In the 1990's the metal's trader, founded by two brothers, invested in Russia and Kazakhstan, which resulted in their company becoming the third largest metal producer in the world. Going to Russia's market was a risky bet in those years, while it was time when the Soviet Union collapsed, but it eventually paid them off. The company entered into tolling arrangements with factories in which they paid for and delivered raw materials in return for finished aluminium, which it then sold for profit. The company’s global sales in 1995 topped $8billion and at one point Trans-World controlled 5% of the world's aluminium output. The Fortune magazine estimates that the Reubens made over £1.5 billion from their dealings in Russia.
At their peak the Reuben brothers were Russia's biggest foreign investors. The Reubens teamed up with two other brothers Lev and Michael Cherney. By and by two men died under mysterious circumstances, the former in a car crash and the latter had his throat cut. They had done business with other New Russians, many of them were also killed. As a result many became suspicious about two brothers, while all those people had connections with the brothers at some point. Furthermore, they were involved in business with Oleg Deripaska, the oligarch friend of Nat Rothschild and Peter Mandelson. Eventually, in 1995 they become embroiled in a multi-million pound legal dispute with Oleg Deripaska, chief executive of aluminium company Rusal. The brothers claimed for $300 million for lost profits.
With the Russian growth of domestic forces in the industry, the Reubens eventually sold up for £300million to Roman Abramovich's oil conglomerate Sibneft in 2000. Another reason was that at that time Vladimir Putin came to power.
“We started in aluminium because it has not traded on the metal exchange,” says David Reuben. “Trans-World had a run of about five years before the London Metal Exchange started making its own market in aluminium. We were trading as much as 1m tonnes a year and were among the top three traders.”
For David Reuben, playing the heady game of Russian aluminium seems to have given him more satisfaction than the money he made.
“We were risk-takers. That’s why we went into Russia, and that’s why you don’t see any of the big producers, the Alcoas, the Alcans, in Russia. They are not risk-takers. It was only people like us.”
Before their divestment, in 1999 they had some disputes with the media. The reason was that the Fortune Magazine published article where the company was allegedly involved in money-laundering. In 1993 Lovells, London law firm, represented by David and Simon Reuben, approached the investigative accounting firm Kroll Associates. In the end, the company was given a clean bill of health.
After Russia, they switched their focus to London's property. The brothers set up a property investment group which so far made a number of significant investments but expanded its interests from property to other kinds of funds placement. To clearly see their company power here is a brief account of what their financial backing include by 2015:
- data centres. The Reuben brothers are owners of Global Switch, the leading large scale, carrier neutral data centre provider in Europe and Asia-Pacific. In addition to the Global Switch data centre portfolio, a portfolio of three further data centres were acquired, located in Thurrock, Milton Keynes and Bedford. Total data centre space under the Reubens’ control is now c. 3,400,000 (3.4 million) sq ft, with various initiatives already underway at Global Switch to increase the demise to over 4,500,000 (4.5 million) sq ft.
- leisure centres. Reuben Brothers now own Britain’s largest racecourse group, Arena Racing Company (ARC). What is more, Reuben Brothers own the Wellington Pub Company, which is the largest Free of Tie pub estate in the UK. They are also full owners of a number of hotels located in London, and holds 7% in Belmond, the luxury international hotel company & adventure travel operator. Reuben Brothers purchased the loans secured over three iconic global luxury hotels in June 2015. The financing is for; the Grosvenor House Hotel, the 20-story Plaza Hotel in Midtown Manhattan, the Dream Downtown in the Meatpacking New York district. In addition, Reuben Brothers entered into a 50:50 joint venture with Park Plaza Hotels Limited to develop a new apart-hotel & leisure destination under the art’otel brand in Hoxton, in the City of London. Reuben Brothers own Kristal Waters, a construction & management company of fine luxury superyachts as well.
- resources. Reuben Brothers acquired Metro in Q4 2014, a leading global warehouse operator, specializing in the storage of non-ferrous metals for the London Metal Exchange. RBR focuses on investments across the mining sector, in both developed and emerging markets. They finance the Ait Ammar Iron Ore Project, the Nkob Industrial Minerals Project and the Tuhup 2 Metallurgical Coal Project. RBR has jointly together with its partner financed Ventower Industries, recently established full service fabricator and supplier of wind turbine towers.
- shipping. Reuben Brothers own a firm RB Shipping, building vessels exclusively at premium shipyards with the latest technology and eco-saving designs. RB British Marine, a joint venture between British Marine Plc and Reuben Brothers, is a dry bulk vessel operations, management & services group, based in London, Singapore & Mumbai. It provides a holistic range of services to vessel owners, investors and cargo owners.
- aviation. Reuben Brothers acquired London Oxford Airport in Kidlington, Oxfordshire and The London Heliport in Battersea.
- venture capital. Reuben Brothers was a lead investor supporting the launch of Metro Bank, and remains today a significant shareholder. RB made a strategic investment in Rainbow Medical. In November 2006, the Reuben Brothers invested in Real Imaging in Israel, which is developing a comprehensive imaging solution for breast cancer detection.
In addition the Reuben Brothers hold quite a few number of investments in real estate either in the UK or around the world. Some key London investments include The Millbank Centre & Millbank Tower, Westminster; The John Lewis headquarters, Victoria Street; A seven floor office building on Buckingham Palace Road, Victoria; A Grade II listed building on Grosvenor Place, Belgravia; A three storey office building on Buckingham Gate, Victoria; Jubilee House, Putney; numerous prime Sloane Street shops. Thus, their London property portfolio contains more than 100 buildings and continues to grow.
One of the biggest initiatives by now is their plan to restore Picadilly 94, a down-at-heel GradeI-listed Palladian mansion.
The substantial overseas holdings are mainly in Europe. Some of these are pPrime coastline land spanning 6.3 kilometres, Ibiza Spain; The Lloyd’s Bank Headquarters, Monaco; Equity House, Jersey; a portfolio of retail investments across France; a series of developments across Romania; development projects in Prague, Czech Republic; prime development project Tel Aviv, Israel.
Apart from their investment enterprise, the Reuben Brothers founded the Reuben Foundation. Formed in 2002 with an initial endowment of $100 million, the Reuben Foundation is committed to the betterment of society in the UK and around the globe through focused charitable giving in the areas of education, health and the community.
Co-founder and investor of Trans World Group, metal trader
Co-founder and investor of Reuben Brothers
Co-founder and investor of the Reuben Foundation
Together with his brother, David has a combined net worth of $13.7 Billion and is ranked 80th and the 2nd in the list of billionaires in world and in the UK accordingly.
David's younger son is willing to make his career not in property but in politics, thus family has contacts with the Tories and made a number of donations during elections.
Despite being wealthy, David and Simon and their wife have always understood the value of money, and brought their children to be "level-headed, fully functioning members of society rather than drug-addled, overindulged brats." In accordance with several interviews, their children that in childhood the parents were never given any extravagant gifts nor they lead luxurious lives.
As a reflection of his good intentions, David and Simon Reuben founded The Reuben Brothers Foundation which is engaged in philanthropic activities.
Quotations: Jamie, a son of David: 'It was made abundantly clear that there were so many unfortunate people in the world,' agrees Jamie. 'We knew we couldn't help everybody but you were expected to help somebody. And food left on the plate was a big no-no... which is a bit of a shame,' he goes on, patting his stomach ruefully. 'We did what all our friends did: we played football, we watched TV. For holidays, the whole family would stay in our flat in Florida. We used to go to this place there called the Swap Shop, which was basically a huge flea market, where you could have candyfloss and there was a circus. We certainly didn't lead a super-rich lifestyle, oh no.'
The Fortune magazine described David at work Trans-World's London office as: "Manic. He raced from to room bellowing demands at cowering lieutenants". But close friends and relatives say that both David and Simon really like yelling but none of them bear grudges and in two minutes they can talk about holidays with you.
It must be said that usually family business can result in tensions between relatives but to quote David's niece Lisa 'I'm sure my uncle and he do have arguments but never in public. They might disagree over something but an hour later it's all forgotten. They have a unique relationship. They're almost like Siamese twins. There's no "his" or "mine".'
David and his family have never sought any publicity, they rarely give interviews and prefer to share the details about their investments on their site reubenbrothers.com
Quotes from others about the person
Ben Elliot: "I don't think Simon and David were ever really poor".
David is married and has three children, two boys and a girl.
B. in 1980
Jamie was born in 1983.
Despite his activities in property and seats in the Boards of Directors in both of father's companies, Jamie is interested more than in making money, he wants a career in politics.
B. in 1979
David and Simon do business together and share a net worth of $13.7 billion. Unlike David, Simon had never completed any formal education apart from a state school in Islington, he dropped out of several degree courses, including one in chartered accountancy, after six months. ‘It was boring,’ he explained later. Now he feels he would have preferred to have studied history or literature.Simon, meanwhile, had immersed himself in the carpet business and ultimately bought J Holdsworth & Co, England’s oldest carpet company. He acquired it from the receiver and within five years had made enough money to begin investing in property. In the 1980's he was diagnosed with cancer while he lived in America, but since he left the US and successfully recovered. He is based in Monaco now, with an elegant flat in Knightsbridge. He has wife Joyce and daughter Lisa.
