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Haim Saban (born 15 October 1944 in Alexandria, Egypt) is a television and media proprietor. With an estimated current net worth of around $2.8 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 98th richest person in America.
Career
Born to a modest Jewish family, Saban fled to Israel in 1956, and eventually to the United States. He currently resides in Beverly Hills, California.
Saban started his career as a concert organizer. In France, he participated in the introduction of Japanese anime and sentai TV series in the country. He produced the scored and opening theme for UFO Robot Grendizer, Candy Candy. He also did the same work on early imported series from America such as Starsky & Hutch or Dallas.
In the United States, he became a television producer, perhaps most notable for the adaptations of Power Rangers, Masked Rider, VR Troopers and Big Bad Beetleborgs. In 2003 he headed the $5.7 billion purchase of Kirch Media Group, the then-bankrupt German media conglomerate.
In 2001, he and News Corporation sold Fox Family Worldwide for $3.2 billion to The Walt Disney Company for ABC - the network was renamed ABC Family Channel. Saban made about $1.6 billion from this sale, making it the largest transaction between a company and a private citizen ever.
In June 2006, he was part of an investor group led by Texas Pacific Group of Fort Worth, Texas and Thomas H. Lee Partners that won the bid for Univisión (NYSE: UVN), the largest Spanish-language media company in the United States. The bid was for $12.7 billion (USD) -- the network of course has been made popular thanks generally to programs produced by media giants Televisa of Mexico (NYSE: TV, BMV: TLEVISA) and by Venevisión of Venezuela. Shareholders have filed a lawsuit over the handling of the deal.
Politics
Saban has donated to the US Democratic Party and the Israeli Labor Party, he has also donated to Republicans including George W. Bush, and has business affiliations with Rupert Murdoch. In the 2001-2002 election cycle, his Saban Capital group donated over $10 million to the Democratic National Committee, the largest donation from a single source up to that time.
Saban joined Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg in endorsing the re-election of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican Governor of California, on August 7, 2006.