Abdullah Zilkha

Abdullah K. Zilkha was a Swiss investment banker.

Early life

Abdullah Zilkha was born in Baghdad, Ottoman Empire the son of Khedouri Zilkha and Louise Zilkha.

He was a member of the Zilkha Iraqi-Jewish banking family. Three of his seven siblings were also prominent in banking and finance: Selim Zilkha, Maurice Zilkha and Ezra Zilkha.
In the early 1970s, Zilkha's investment banking firm Ufitec, S.A., was a central player in the saving of the Penn Central from bankruptcy. At the direction of Lloyd Cutler, the Washington, D.C. attorney, Zilkha met with Donald Prell, an executive with Union Bank Corp., in Zürich in late December 1971, to facilitate gaining consent of all bondholders to a refinancing so the U.S. railroad's assets could be preserved.

He married Zmira Zilkha, of the well-known Mani family of Hebron, great-granddaughter of the revered Kabbalist Rabbi Eliyahu Mani. She and her family survived the 1929 Hebron massacre. They had a son, Daniel A. Zilkha, born October 1, 1942, who became a New York City-based executive and philanthropist.