I don't think that Nargeolet was a billionaire. I've seen people say it online, but I don't know where it comes from. He didn't own those 5500 relics. They were and are owned by Premier Exhibitions, the successor to RMS Titanic, Inc. the company that had salvage rights to the Titanic and was Nargeolet's employer. It's a for-profit company and was never going to give away the artifacts to museums. Their whole business model is to sell relics and/or rent them out for traveling exhibits.
en.wikipedia.org
In any case, the relics would not be worth anywhere near $1 billion. According to the wikipedia article, when RMS Titanic, Inc. went bankrupt in 2018, "at least three groups were vying for the right to purchase the 5,500
Titanic relics that were an asset of the bankrupt company...two of the offers for the collection were just under US $20 million."
I don't know how much the artifacts would be worth (no one does, IMO) but yes, it seems really unsubstantiated that PN was a billionaire (but it's definitely in some MSM articles).
Let's just say he was living pretty well. And the missing artifacts (5000 of them) are almost certainly sold at auction. Premier ought not to have gone bankrupt had they handled their mission properly, IMO. Something is fishy in Denmark regarding that bankruptcy and the liquidation at auction of these artifacts.
The artifacts
were not given to museums. I am sorry I wasn't clear. Premier sold 200 artifacts to museums - at very high prices, IMO. And I think you're off a little on the valuation before that big auction.
5,500 pieces of history linked to the 1912 tragedy will be sold as one huge collection, and interest will be high
www.cbsnews.com
This article says $200 million valuation - so if they actually sold for a 10th of that, someone, somewhere made a lot of money.
PN had been fairly quiet about his role in all of this (and btw, he was certainly careful about crafting his public image - most people think he was a grieving widower, whose wife had died of breast cancer, and who told people that dying deep below the ocean's surface was "quick" and that he didn't fear it, all leading to the view that this was a man who assessed risk in, perhaps, a different way than others might).
In fact, he had remarried. Her name is Anne Sarraz-Bournet. I believe he may have had a child with her, but for sure he was the step-dad to her children (and father to two children with his first wife).
One of the five people aboard the Titan submersible when it imploded, he died near the Titanic wreckage that he had visited dozens of times.
www.nytimes.com
MSM has been reporting his net worth at $1.5 billion, although I have no idea how they confirm that.
Paul-Henri Nargeolet was one of the passengers who died on the Titan, which went missing in June. Find out his net worth, how he made money.
www.intouchweekly.com
It is indeed hard to fathom how he got that rich by piloting a salvage submersible, writing one book, and doing consulting for a few years. He's either not that rich or something is going on. He had moved out of his NY home and taken up legal residency in Puerto Rico fairly recently. He lived in Connecticut before NY and PR, for quite a length of time.
But then, articles are reporting his age differently from piece to piece (71 vs. 77; wikipedia has him at 77 and I believe that's correct - someone mistyped it and it got repeated).
However, it's hard to believe the man lived on an ordinary salary. The impression that he's super rich is still out there. I wish we knew the truth.
IMO.
And in other news, news outlets have discovered a Princetonian Article from 1983, desribing Rush's drunk driving arrest - and his driving past a lowered railroad crossing barrier that was flashing lights.
Princeton's student newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, said that Rush was involved in a "series of arrests" when he was a student.
news.yahoo.com
It's being shared in international media as we speak.
IMO.