Nicolas Berggruen
Investor, Philanthropist
Nicolas Berggruen is an investor, philanthropist and the Chairman of Berggruen Holdings, a private company, which is the direct investment vehicle of The Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust.
Berggruen Holdings has operations in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, as well as real estate and financial investments globally. The firm and related entities have made well over 100 direct investments during the last 20 years by committing entirely its own capital across diverse industries, both public and private and focusing on building long-term value. Investments are often socially and culturally driven. The Berggruen Group has offices in New York, Berlin, Istanbul, Tel Aviv and Mumbai.
Through the Nicolas Berggruen Institute, an independent, non-partisan think tank, he encourages the study and design of systems of good governance suited for the 21st century. Mr. Berggruen is a board director of Zewail City of Science and Technology, Egypt; a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy.
Committed to leaving a legacy of art and architecture, he sits on the boards of the Museum Berggruen, Berlin, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and is a member of the International Councils for the Tate Museum, London and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has collaborated on projects with such renowned architects as Richard Meier, Shigeru Ban and David Adjaye.
Mr. Berggruen was born in Paris, where he studied at l’Ecole Alsacienne before attending Le Rosey in Switzerland. He obtained a Bachelor of Science in Finance and International Business from New York University in 1981. Prior to Berggruen Holdings, he worked for Bass Brothers Enterprises on the real estate side of this family-held investment firm, as well as for Jacobson and Co., Inc., a leveraged buyout company. In 1988, Mr. Berggruen co-founded the Alpha Group, a hedge fund operation, which was sold to Safra Bank in 2004. He is a member of the WPO-Angeleno; a board member of Promotora De Informaciones, S.A. (Prisa) and Le Monde.