Calouste Gulbenkian, an Armenian from the Ottoman Empire, was an incredibly intriguing and enthralling character who built a business empire from oil interests, collected significant works of art, and left behind a major foundation based in Lisbon. Jonathan Conlin deftly interweaves all of these personal and business stories in his new book, Mr Five Per Cent. Conlin should be congratulated on his incredible research, having used so many archives in different languages to present this fascinating story of one man who managed to accumulate so much wealth by positioning himself in the midst of major oil negotiations from the end of the nineteenth century until his death in 1955. Gulbenkian was a phenomenal negotiator and a financial architect who helped both Royal Dutch-Shell and Total to become major oil companies.

Gulbenkian was born in Istanbul in 1869 to a wealthy trading family but from an early age he did not want to be in the same business as his father. He was a visionary who realized that “the merchant business was looking old-fashioned. It was better to invest in property and shares” (p. 75). His connection to the Armenian people, and their suffering, was always secondary to his business interests. In fact, the key to his success was being “a secretive man without loyalties to any one empire, state or company” (p. 4). As Conlin shows, Gulbenkian never visited Iraq or the Gulf countries, nor was he a geologist, and yet he managed to insert himself in the midst of high-level negotiations and ended up with 5 percent of the Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), a result of the reorganization of the Turkish Petroleum Company (TPC). How one man single-handedly entered the world of financing and mining syndicates in London and succeeded to such an immense extent is the core of this book. Conlin details all the negotiations (and sometimes the minutiae of these discussions loses the reader) to underline Gulbenkian's skills as a negotiator and how governments and multinational oil companies sought his advice in order to structure new deals.

The tale, however, is not just about oil. It is also about art collection, and Gulbenkian's personal life is a riveting account of a business tycoon. Conlin tells the story of Gulbenkian chronologically, covering his stormy relations with his brothers and children, his traditional arrangement with his wife, and his brick-by-brick building of his wealth. Gulbenkian maintained close relations with the Ottoman Empire, and his rising expenditure on art coincided with the destitution of the Armenian people. He seemed unmoved by the tragedy even when he received firsthand reports from some of his relatives who endured the genocide. Furthermore, Gulbenkian did not use his close contacts with the British and French governments to lobby on behalf of an independent Armenia, in spite of the two countries’ promises to the Armenian people. Yet as he became wealthier, he gave generously to a wide range of philanthropic causes in Europe and the United States as well as to Armenians. He paid for an Armenian church in London, St. Sarkis in Kensington (Sarkis was his father's name). The story of the Gulbenkians is similar to those of many successful immigrant families, in that they repeatedly faced family dilemmas “surrounding identity and loyalty” (p. 259).

By the 1920s, Gulbenkian had become both famous and mysterious; he shunned publicity and focused mostly on making money and collecting art. He habitually stayed in hotels even though he owned beautiful houses. He did not perform well in large gatherings and for board meetings he relied on his son, Nubar, and his son-in-law, Kevork. His ties to Iran (for many years he carried an Iranian diplomatic passport) and Russia, in addition to his activities with TPC and Iraq, meant that Gulbenkian could not be ignored by governments or the large international oil companies.

Conlin masterfully plots the creation of Gulbenkian's foundation and his endless negotiations with the National Gallery in London, which hoped to secure many of his paintings. World War II forced Gulbenkian to camp in a hotel in Lisbon (Portugal being a neutral country), which explains why the Gulbenkian Foundation ended up being in that city. In fact, the book's last chapter zooms in on the foundation's thrilling developments before and after Gulbenkian's death in 1955, having secured that his wealth would not be taxed.

By his time of death, Gulbenkian was probably the richest man in the world after J. Paul Getty; Conlin estimates that Gulbenkian was worth around £4.75 billion. His stark individualism and negotiating skills allowed him to create this immense wealth from the consolidation of the oil industry. He became obsessed in his last years with protecting his fortune, and indeed, the foundation continued to benefit from his 5 percent long after his death. In Iraq, Gulbenkian's share of IPC was nationalized in 1973 (and ironically, Saddam Hussein ordered, in a secret meeting, that the 5 percent would not revert to the state but would be invested in a secret fund on behalf of the ruling Ba'th Party).

Mr Five Per Cent is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of the oil business and the dexterity of negotiators; the history of art collecting; or the entrancing history of one man and his family that left behind an enduring legacy.