Calouste (Sarkis) Gulbenkian

Financier, industrialist, and diplomat, born in Scutari, NW Turkey. He entered his father's oil business in 1888, and became a naturalized British subject in 1902. After a lifetime of oil deals between Europe, the USA, and the Arab countries, he left $70 million and vast art collections to finance an international Gulbenkian Foundation.

Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (Scutari, Turkey, 29 March 1869–Lisbon, 20 July 1955) was an Armenian businessman and philanthropist.

He was born in Scutari, now Üsküdar and part of Istanbul, and educated at King's College London, where he studied petroleum engineering. He was involved in founding Royal Dutch/Shell, and his habit of retaining five per cent of the shares of the oil companies he developed earned him the nickname, "Mr. Five Per Cent".

When Iraq was taken from the Ottoman Empire after World War I, its oil was divided up among the western countries and controlled through the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC).

Gulbenkian amassed a huge fortune and an art collection which he kept in a private museum at his Paris home. Following his death in 1955, a museum (Museu Calouste Gulbenkian) and a charitable foundation were established in Lisbon.