On Oct. 14, 1966, Intra – which at the time owned nine other banks, controlled 35 companies and employed 43,000 people – stopped payments, dragging down the whole economy on its way. For three days, all other local banks remained closed. When they reopened, clients withdrew $35 million. The shutdown of the country’s largest holder of deposits translated into a massive shortage of cash throughout the economy. Beidas left Lebanon never to return, while the country began its descent. “You could say that the Leba-nese war started in 1967,” with the downfall of Intra, says former banker Sabbah al-Haj.

Public control. The Lebanese government took over the company and hired Kidder, Peabody & Co. to devise a rescue strategy that would be engineered by Cairo-born Tamraz. Intra’s deposit obligations were replaced with shares in a new company, Intra Investment Company (IIC, although still often referred to as Intra), whose major shareholders included the governments of Lebanon, Kuwait, Qatar and the US. The remaining banking operations fell under Bank Al-Mashrek, in which Intra had a 42 percent share. New York-based Morgan Guarantee Trust Company held another 42 percent, as well as a management contract.

“The plan proposed by this firm through Tamraz, was the worst one possible,” Dib says. But questions remain about the extent of Tamraz’ responsibility. “He was only 26 years old, and an employee in an American context, where you are not allowed to improvise on your own without instructions. Things must have been managed by the company itself from HQ [the company headquarters], as the details were very complex and involved the destiny of dozens of assets around the world and tens of millions of dollars in deposits. One cannot imagine Tamraz, a young employee, had his own improvised plan and got away with it, without HQ involvement,” Dib says.

Still, he concludes that Tamraz’ role in IIC, “was to destroy a major institution of the country. All his advice was against the interest of the bank.”

Tamraz fared much better than did IIC. His role as a consultant gained him credibility in Lebanon and the Middle East. He was “able to build contacts with many Arabian Gulf States in later years,” Dib says, “and it is a testimony to his genius that he built his own fortune and became one of the world’s wealthiest men.”

Al-Haj, who had joined IIC in June 1970 as financial comptroller, explains, “It felt as if Tamraz wasn’t real. He had the looks of a wheeler-dealer. For example, hundreds of thousands of dollars were sent to a small garage in Paris.”

“Whenever there was a deal that was fishy, I discussed it with Elias Salameh, the bank’s legal consultant. Then he and I discovered that lots of money was being funneled out of IIC,” al-Haj continues. Still, Tamraz seemed untouchable. Salameh tried to get him out of the company, to no avail. So after eleven months, al-Haj decided to resign.

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