Arab Americans

Fayes Sarofim

Fayez Sarofim (Arabic: فايز ساروفيم‎) (born 1929 in Egypt) is a Coptic American heir to the Sarofim family fortune, fund manager for a number of Dreyfus family stock funds, an original and second largest shareholder of Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) and part owner of the NFL team Houston Texans; ranked 6th Most Valuable NFL team worth $1.2 billion. He is divorced with five children, and lives in Houston, Texas. With an estimated current net worth of $2 billion, Sarofim is ranked by Forbes as the 273-richest person in the world, in 2013. His investment firms oversees over $30 billion in assets.

Biography

Fayez Shalaby Sarofim was born in 1929 in Cairo, into Egyptian nobility. As the son of an Egyptian aristocrat and agricultural magnate, Sarofim lived a life among Egypt’s political and wealthy elite, in modern Heliopolis. As a Bey equivalent to European peerage title Marquess, Sarofim’s father held large feudal and Egyptian cotton estates throughout North Africa. Sarofim came to the United States in 1946 and became a naturalized American citizen in 1961. Earning degrees from the University of California Berkeley, and Harvard Business School. Sarofim founded Fayez Sarofim & Company, a Houston investment firm, in August 1958. In 1997, he was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame. Sarofim is ranked third on the most influential Egyptian Americans. The Sarofim family is recorded in Burke’s Peerage and the ‘Imperial and Asiatic quarterly review and oriental and colonial record’.

Philanthropy

His philanthropic efforts provide vital assistance to critical institutions and programs in a number of fields. Sarofim is a major contributor to the Houston Ballet and the Museum of Fine Arts, a favorite of his daughter Allison. He has provided support to Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, the Texas Children’s Hospital and theUniversity of Texas Health Science Center at Houston for construction of the $120 Million environment friendly, Fayez S. Sarofim Research Building. Sarofim also has made financial gifts to the Houston Grand Opera, the Houston Symphony, donating high seven figures to the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, creating the 2600 seat, Sarofim Hall, designed for touring Broadway shows, the Alley Theatre, and the Los Angeles Opera.

Party Affiliation

• Republican/Democratic
• Has funded both parties over the years.