The Reichmanns: Family, Faith, Fortune, and the Empire of Olympia and York ANNOTATION
The epic rise and spectacular fall of the devoutly religious and secretive family that was one of the ten richest of the world. The Reichmanns is filled with fascinating characters, epic scope, and an illuminating look at the world of the ultra-orthodox. 16 pp. of photos. 608 pp. Author tour. Targeted ads. Online promotion. 35,000 print.
FROM THE PUBLISHER
Beginning in eighteenth-century rural Hungary, The Reichmanns illuminates the origins of the family and of Jewish ultra-Orthodoxy. Bianco paints a vivid picture of this lost world of small Jewish villages and the entrepreneurial young men who built the initial Reichmann wealth. Unlike many other Jews - and unlike the Rothschilds, Warburgs, and other great Jewish families - the Reichmanns resisted assimilation, and they never modified their strict adherence to Jewish law. Some of the family relocated to Austria, and Bianco gives us a vibrant portrait of the Vienna of Freud's time, a bustling urban center that at first welcomed the Reichmanns but whose increasing anti-Semitism eventually forced them out. Fleeing the Nazis, the Reichmanns landed in Paris, and when it fell, they made a daring escape to North Africa. They settled in Tangier, the free-for-all International Zone characterized primarily by its utter absence of commercial restraints. There, among the Nazi agents and Allied spies, the modern family's patriarch, Samuel Reichmann, built a fortune as a currency trader. After Tangier, the family emigrated to Canada, where Samuel and Renee's sons built their own empire. From their first small office buildings on the outskirts of Toronto to New York skyscrapers and their stunning triumph in building the World Financial Center, Olympia & York seemed infallible. Then came Canary Wharf, a property development project on London's East End. Paul risked everything on Canary Wharf, and when the project finally imploded, the family had lost ten billion dollars. The Reichmanns, who had risen so far over the centuries, were ruined.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly - Cahners\\Publishers_Weekly
Departing the Canary Wharf development expanse on the Thames, Prince Charles said to Paul Reichmann, "I understand that your mother is chairman of your company. How does that work for you?" Wryly, Reichmann answered: "You could say we had the same problem." According to Bianco, however, had Ren�e Reichmann, then nearly 90 and in Toronto, still been active, the family empire might have been spared billions in losses that resulted from her son's too lofty ambition. The shrewd, feisty matriarch left Hungary with her husband, Samuel Reichmann, to run an egg-distribution business in Vienna; they then fled with their children when Hitler came. Settling in the international zone of Tangier, across from Gibraltar, Samuel Reichmann turned his entrepreneurial skills to currency trading while his wife worked at rescuing Jews under the Nazi heel, audaciously slipping back to engineer escapes or to arrange for food shipments. Without ever meeting the Caudillo, she managed entry visas via Spain through Generalissimo Franco. "[T]his ultra-Orthodox refugee and brutal fascist dictator," quips Bianco, a senior writer for Business Week, "made one of history's oddest couples." When Tangier was absorbed into postwar Muslim Morocco, many Jews exited, among them the Reichmanns. They began anew in Canada, bolstered by bulging Swiss bank accounts. In Montreal, their wall-and-floor tile firm would metamorphose into a construction and real estate octopus. Five enterprising Reichmann sons branched out into the U.S. and across the Atlantic. While huge commercial complexes like Manhattan's World Financial Center arose, managerial oversight diminished as acquisitive ardor grew. By the early 1990s, a worldwide drop in property values plunged Canary Wharf and related investments into bankruptcy. Yet the brothers-"the Rothschilds of the New World"-are reemerging, as are their 99 children and grandchildren, many still sternly traditional in their faith. Bianco's enormous, vivid chronicle ends there, but the saga of the Reichmanns, from their 18th-entury shtetl beginnings to their tangled business dealings of the 1990s, continues.
Publishers Weekly
Departing the Canary Wharf development expanse on the Thames, Prince Charles said to Paul Reichmann, "I understand that your mother is chairman of your company. How does that work for you?" Wryly, Reichmann answered: "You could say we had the same problem." According to Bianco, however, had Rene Reichmann, then nearly 90 and in Toronto, still been active, the family empire might have been spared billions in losses that resulted from her son's too lofty ambition. The shrewd, feisty matriarch left Hungary with her husband, Samuel Reichmann, to run an egg-distribution business in Vienna; they then fled with their children when Hitler came. Settling in the international zone of Tangier, across from Gibraltar, Samuel Reichmann turned his entrepreneurial skills to currency trading while his wife worked at rescuing Jews under the Nazi heel, audaciously slipping back to engineer escapes or to arrange for food shipments. Without ever meeting the Caudillo, she managed entry visas via Spain through Generalissimo Franco. "[T]his ultra-Orthodox refugee and brutal fascist dictator," quips Bianco, a senior writer for Business Week, "made one of history's oddest couples." When Tangier was absorbed into postwar Muslim Morocco, many Jews exited, among them the Reichmanns. They began anew in Canada, bolstered by bulging Swiss bank accounts. In Montreal, their wall-and-floor tile firm would metamorphose into a construction and real estate octopus. Five enterprising Reichmann sons branched out into the U.S. and across the Atlantic. While huge commercial complexes like Manhattan's World Financial Center arose, managerial oversight diminished as acquisitive ardor grew. By the early 1990s, a worldwide drop in property values plunged Canary Wharf and related investments into bankruptcy. Yet the brothersD"the Rothschilds of the New World"Dare reemerging, as are their 99 children and grandchildren, many still sternly traditional in their faith. Bianco's enormous, vivid chronicle ends there, but the saga of the Reichmanns, from their 18th-century shtetl beginnings to their tangled business dealings of the 1990s, continues. Illustrations not seen by PW. Author tour. (Feb.)
Kirkus Reviews
A tremendous, all-encompassing biography of one of the most powerful and secretive family dynasties of the 20th century.
The Reichmanns descend from Hungarian-Jewish scions who, according to legend, purposely took the name Reichmann ("rich man") in hopes that it would prove prophetic. The Reichmann elders, Samuel and Renee, were forced to flee Hungary as the Nazis approached, and settled first in Tangier. Bianco lays to rest some of the more noxious stories of their life there—notably that Samuel traded currency with the Nazis—and reveals the extent to which their charitable contributions aided Jews in concentration camps. Using the family fortune, Renee was able to obtain lists of Jews deported to ghettos or camps, and personally organized thousands of packages of food to be sent to them. The Reichmann children—Eva, Edward, Louis, Albert, Paul, and Ralph—inherited this sense of moral obligation and dedication to business. After the war the family moved to Canada, where they established themselves as a powerful, wealthy, and deeply devout Jewish dynasty. After cornering the ceramic-tile market, Paul Reichmann formed Olympia & York, which owned buildings internationally and would, by the 1980s, become the biggest landlord in Manhattan. Paul, described by a colleague as "the Einstein of buildings," had ever more grandiose dreams for his real-estate empire. But the vast, ill-fated Canary Wharf project in London and the precipitous decline in Manhattan real estate cost the family billions; Olympia & York failed in 1992. A complex loan collapse could not be repaired—one restructuring meeting was attended by 400 bankers from 91 banks—and Paul Reichmann eventually, if not gracefully, bowed out of the US operation (which reportedly is functioning again). The family's heritage is the real story here, and Bianco's prose is captivating.
Fascinating and always smart, this is a stylish and intriguing look at the powerful intricacies of family, religion, and wealth.
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