Teddy Sagi ( he, טדי שגיא; born 1971) is an Israeli billionaire businessman based in London and Cyprus. Sagi is the founder of the gambling software company
Playtech
Playtech plc is a gambling software development company founded in 1999. The company provides software for online casinos, online poker rooms, online bingo games, online sports betting, scratch games, mobile gaming, live dealer games and fixed-o ...
and owner of London's
Camden Market
The Camden markets are a number of adjoining large retail markets, often collectively referred to as Camden Market or Camden Lock, located in the historic former Pickfords stables, in Camden Town, London. It is situated north of the Hampstead R ...
. His personal wealth is estimated at US$5 billion, with interests in real estate, gambling software, payments processing, and digital advertising.
Personal life
Sagi was born in 1971 in
Tel Aviv
Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the G ...
, the only child of Ami Sagi, a businessman who owned a travel agency, and his wife Lizi, a cosmetician who sold make-up.
He grew up in Tel Aviv's
Shikun Lamed neighborhood.
In 1996 Sagi received a nine-month prison sentence after being convicted in Israel of bribery and fraud.
In 2009 Sagi obtained Cypriot citizenship as part of a '
golden visa
Immigrant investor programs are programs that allow individuals to more quickly obtain residence or citizenship of a country in return for making qualifying investments.
Broadly, the programs offer either citizenship by investment ("golden pass ...
' scheme by Cyprus government. As Cyprus is part of the European Union, Sagi obtained a
Passport of the European Union.
In 2013, ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'' reported that Sagi had "been based in Cyprus for some years".
Since 2010, Sagi has been living with Yael Nizri, the 2006
Miss Israel
Miss Israel ( he, מַלְכַּת הַיֹּפִי, , ) is a national beauty pageant in Israel. The pageant was founded in 1950, where the winners were sent to Miss Universe. The pageant was also existing to send delegates to Miss World, Miss I ...
, and they have two daughters together. Sagi owns the most expensive home in Israel, located in
Herzliya
Herzliya ( ; he, הֶרְצְלִיָּה ; ar, هرتسليا, Hirtsiliyā) is an affluent city in the central coast of Israel, at the northern part of the Tel Aviv District, known for its robust start-up and entrepreneurial culture. In it h ...
. The home, which he bought in 2010, lies in the wealthy neighborhood of
Herzliya Pituah
Herzliya Pituach ( he, הרצליה פיתוח) is an affluent beachfront neighbourhood in the western part of the city of Herzliya, Israel, in the Tel Aviv District. It has about 10,000 residents. Home to many wealthy Israelis, it is known for it ...
on Galei Techelet Street, Israel's most expensive street. It is a 2,000 square meter house on a half-acre lot on the shore, and has a fitness room, wine cellar, sealed room, and an elevator to the beach. Sagi also owns two penthouses in Herzliya, and other homes in Tel Aviv (including an apartment in the
Tzameret Towers
Tzameret Towers, also known as Akirov Towers, are three 34-story residential towers in Tel Aviv, Israel.
History
The first two towers were completed in 2003, and the third in 2006. The towers were designed by Moore Yaski Sivan Architects. Tower ...
purchased from former Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Barak
Ehud Barak ( he-a, אֵהוּד בָּרָק, Ehud_barak.ogg, link=yes, born Ehud Brog; 12 February 1942) is an Israeli general and politician who served as the tenth prime minister from 1999 to 2001. He was leader of the Labor Party until Jan ...
), London's
Knightsbridge
Knightsbridge is a residential and retail district in central London, south of Hyde Park, London, Hyde Park. It is identified in the London Plan as one of two international retail centres in London, alongside the West End of London, West End.
...
, Cyprus, and Berlin.
Career
On 2 January 2022, ''Forbes'' listed his net worth at US$5.7 billion.
Playtech
Sagi founded
Playtech
Playtech plc is a gambling software development company founded in 1999. The company provides software for online casinos, online poker rooms, online bingo games, online sports betting, scratch games, mobile gaming, live dealer games and fixed-o ...
in 1999. It was floated in 2006 on the
London Stock Exchange
London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pau ...
at a price that valued the business at approximately £550 million. He has since scaled down his holdings to 4.6%, as opposed to 81% at the time of its IPO. He has since invested in hi-tech companies and real estate.
Hi-Tech
SafeCharge
Sagi was majority shareholder (with 68% control) of the company, which is a credit card clearing company for the online gambling industry.
Primarily based in Bulgaria, SafeCharge was traded on London's
AIM, with a market cap of £385 million. The company was listed on the
Alternative Investment Market
AIM (formerly the Alternative Investment Market) is a sub-market of the London Stock Exchange that was launched on 19 June 1995 as a replacement to the previous Unlisted Securities Market (USM) that had been in operation since 1980. It allows ...
(AIM) of the London Stock Exchange.
In 2019, Nuvei Corporation announced its acquisition of SafeCharge, and agreed to pay $889 million in cash for it. In August 2019, Nuvei completed the acquisition.
Kape Technologies plc
Kape Technologies is a
United Kingdom-based cybersecurity software company. Kape owns VPN services and cybersecurity tools, including CyberGhost, Private Internet Access (PIA), ZenMate, and
Intego
Intego is a Mac and Windows security software company founded in 1997 by Jean-Paul Florencio and Laurent Marteau.
The company creates Internet security software for macOS and Windows, including: antivirus, firewall, anti-spam, backup software a ...
.
[.]
In late 2012, Sagi acquired the start-up company
Crossrider for $37 million. The company went public on AIM at a value of $US 250M. Crossrider started off by making a
software development kit
A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...
(SDK) for the deployment of
browser extension
A browser extension is a small software module for customizing a web browser. Browsers typically allow a variety of extensions, including user interface modifications, cookie management, ad blocking, and the custom scripting and styling of web p ...
s to a variety of
platforms with support for monetizing extensions.
The monetization options were used by major
ad injectors which used
man-in-the-browser
Man-in-the-browser (MITB, MitB, MIB, MiB), a form of Internet threat related to man-in-the-middle (MITM), is a proxy Trojan horse that infects a web browser by taking advantage of vulnerabilities in browser security to modify web pages, modify tra ...
to change or add advertisements to what users saw.
Over time, Crossrider's services became increasingly utilized by
malware
Malware (a portmanteau for ''malicious software'') is any software intentionally designed to cause disruption to a computer, server, client, or computer network, leak private information, gain unauthorized access to information or systems, depri ...
and
adware
Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the ...
developers and the company was unable to combat misuse.
In June 2016, following the appointment of new management team, the company changed its strategy to focus to cyber-security with a focus on digital privacy and protection of digital data.
In practical terms, the company stopped its browser SDK business to focus on the
VPN
A virtual private network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network and enables users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private network. The be ...
sector, purchasing CyberGhost VPN in 2017.
In March 2018, the name of the company was changed to Kape Technologies plc. Kape then purchased VPN carriers
Zenmate in 2018 and
Private Internet Access
Private Internet Access (PIA) is a personal VPN service that allows users to connect to multiple locations. In 2018, former Mt. Gox CEO Mark Karpelès was named chief technology officer of PIA's parent company, London Trust Media. In November 20 ...
in 2019.
On September 13, 2021, Kape acquired ExpressVPN,
raising concerns based on Kape Technologies' predecessor Crossrider's history of making tools that were used for
adware
Adware, often called advertising-supported software by its developers, is software that generates revenue for its developer by automatically generating online advertisements in the user interface of the software or on a screen presented to the ...
. It also acquired the VPN review publisher ''Webselenese'' in 2021.
Stucco Media
In 2015 Sagi acquired the start-up company Stucco Media for $43 million. The acquisition was made by Market Tech, and the company is now owned by him. Stucco Media develops eCommerce website technology.
Glispa
Also in 2015, Sagi acquired the German start-up for €32 million. Glispa is an advertising company, mainly via mobile phones.
Mobfox
In November 2018, Sagi acquired the mobile advertising company Mobfox from
Matomy Media
Matomy Media Group Ltd., a publicly traded company since July 2014, is a shell corporation which was the former owner and operator of a number of performance-based and programmatic advertising solutions, which were all sold or closed by the end o ...
for $7.5 million.
Real estate
Camden Market
Camden Market Holdings, the owner of
Camden Market
The Camden markets are a number of adjoining large retail markets, often collectively referred to as Camden Market or Camden Lock, located in the historic former Pickfords stables, in Camden Town, London. It is situated north of the Hampstead R ...
, Stables Market and Camden Lock Developments was bought by Sagi in March 2014 for £400 million ($664 million) from
Bebo Kobo
Zari David "Bebo" Kovo (a.k.a. Kobo; born February 1951) is an Israeli-Bulgarian property developer, the co-founder of property company Camden Market Holdings & Developments (including Stanley Sidings and the Stables Market Property Group), with ...
(50% owner), and
Richard Caring
Richard Allan Caring (born 4 June 1948) is a British businessman. He initially built a business, International Clothing Designs, supplying Hong Kong-manufactured fashion to UK retailers. After surviving the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, he div ...
and
Elliott Bernerd
Elliott Bernerd (born 23 May 1945) is a British property developer, the co-founder of the property company Chelsfield with Sir Stuart Lipton.
Early life
He was born in Maida Vale, London on 23 May 1945, the only child of a film producer father. ...
for 2.3-2.6Bn ILS, which later turned out to be the biggest LSE IPO of 2015. Sagi has continued to buy property in the Camden Market area and as of March 2015, owns the four most important of the six sections of the market, London's second most popular tourist attraction after Buckingham Palace.
In July 2017 Sagi has completed delisting Market Tech from the
LSE LSE may refer to:
Computing
* LSE (programming language), a computer programming language
* LSE, Latent sector error, a media assessment measure related to the hard disk drive storage technology
* Language-Sensitive Editor, a text editor used ...
, at a value of 1.1Bn ILS.
Sagi intends to invest £300 million in developing the market area by 2018.
Other real estate ventures
In June 2017 Sagi acquired 44% of Brack Capital Properties N.V, which is a listed real estate company, owning and developing residential and commercial properties in Germany.
Sagi is also reported to enter the co-working share workspace sector with an international brand
LABS. The first location is slated to open in London.
In August 2015, The GoodVision Trust (beneficiary Teddy Sagi) sold a 24.79% stake of Austrian real-estate company Immobilien Invest SE to the German real-estate company
Adler Real Estate AG. The market value of these shares was 250 million euros.
In March 2020, Labtech, the property investment firm owned by Teddy Sagi, completed the sale of Holborn Links Estate for 245 million euros to investors Tristan Capital Partners and Cording Real Estate Group.
Wealth
According to Forbes, Sagi is worth $5.6 billion, and is the fourth-richest person in Israel.
He was
one of 565 Israelis listed in the Pandora Papers, published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, according to Shomrim, an Israeli investigative journalism nonprofit organization that took part in the investigation.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sagi, Teddy
1971 births
Living people
Israeli Jews
People from Tel Aviv
Israeli expatriates in the United Kingdom
Israeli businesspeople
Israeli company founders
Israeli billionaires
Israeli fraudsters
Israeli people convicted of bribery
Cypriot Jews
Naturalized citizens of Cyprus
People named in the Panama Papers
Cypriot billionaires
Cypriot businesspeople