Arison is Israel's richest woman and owner of holding group Arison Investments. The closely held business controls a stake in the Tel Aviv-based Bank Hapoalim. Arison, the daughter of Carnival Corporation founder Ted Arison, sold a 47% stake in builder Shikun & Binui in 2018 for 1.1 billion shekels ($307 million).
The majority of Arison's fortune is derived from a portfolio of cash and investments sourced from sales of public equities and dividends. She sold a 47% stake in Israel-based builder Shikun & Binui in June 2018 for 1.1 billion shekels ($307 million).
The daughter of Carnival Corporation founder Ted Arison, Shari was a longtime shareholder in the cruise line operator. She dropped below the regulatory disclosure threshold in April 2017 and this analysis calculates that she sold her stake of less than 5% sometime in the first quarter of 2018.
Through Arison Investments, a Tel Aviv-based investment entity, she controls a 4.9% stake in Bank Hapoalim, according to a filing to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange website in July 2023.
The value of her cash holdings is based on an analysis of dividends, insider transactions, taxes and charitable donations.
Through a spokeswoman, Deborah Kohan at Media Connect, Shari Arison declined to comment on her holdings or net worth calculation.
Shari Arison was born Sept. 9, 1957, in New York City to Ted Arison and his wife, Mina. Her father, a third-generation Israeli, moved to the U.S. in 1954, living first in New York and then in Miami, where he established a small shipping business that served as a local representative for a Norwegian company. The business became the roots of cruise-line operator Carnival.
Growing up, Arison split her time between Israel and the U.S., and chose to speak Hebrew at home with her father. After high school, she served in Israel's military, and studied for a few semesters at Miami-Dade Community College, before returning to Israel in 1991. Eight years later, her father died, leaving Shari in charge of the family's Israeli assets -- including a stake in Bank Hapoalim and builder Shikun & Binui -- and her brother, Micky, in control of Carnival.
While Micky became a businessman in Miami, through Carnival and his purchase of the Miami Heat basketball team, Shari took longer to assert herself as a businessperson. She sold a 49 percent stake in closely held telecommunications Eurocom Group in 2005, and began to consolidate control over the family's Israel holding company, Arison Investments, buying the stakes held by her brother, stepmother and a Bank Hapoalim executive between 2006 and 2011.
Arison announced a new venture called Miya in 2008, which was dedicated to reducing water losses in urban distribution systems. The company became the centerpiece of her commitment to socially-conscious investing, and she has since spent more than $120 million buying companies from South Africa to Switzerland that address water leakage. She sold the business for 160 million shekels ($47 million) in 2019.
Arison has been public about her quest for inner peace. She founded Essence of Life in 2001, a nonprofit with the mission of raising "personal awareness" and offering "tools for attaining inner peace," which she provides through a visitor's center and internet radio broadcasts. These initiatives also extend to her philanthropy. She founded Good Deeds Day in 2007, an annual event that promotes community service around the world, and published "Activate Your Goodness," which she billed as a practical guide for focusing on the good to "transform from within" and make a difference in the world.
The billionaire lives in Tel Aviv.