Eli M. Black (April 9, 1921 – February 3, 1975) was an American businessman. He controlled the United Brands Company. His son Leon Black is a founding member of private equity firm Apollo Management. Early life and education Born Elihu Menashe Blachowitz in Poland, he immigrated to the United States as a child. He attended Yeshiva University, and graduated at the top of his class in 1940. He also received training to be an Orthodox Jewish rabbi and served as the rabbi of a congregation in Woodmere, New York for three and a half years prior to entering business. Business career Black's business career began in investment banking with Lehman Brothers, and then the American Securities Corporation, where he worked on financing for the American Seal-Kap Company, a company that made caps for milk bottles. He was hired to be their chairman and chief executive officer in 1954. Black renamed the company AMK, after its ticker symbol, and turned it into a vehicle for acquisitions, joining the conglomerate bandwagon of the 1960s. Among his many takeovers was the John Morrell & Co. meatpacking company. AMK joined the nation's top 500 companies in 1967. In September 1968, Black bought 10% of the outstanding shares of United Fruit on the open market, while outbidding other companies, and gained a controlling interest. In 1970, AMK merged with United Fruit Company, and adopted the name United Brands. Black became chairman, president, and CEO. At that time, United Fruit was importing about a third of all the bananas sold in the US and owned the Chiquita banana brand. But Black soon discovered that United Fruit had far less capital than he had believed. The company soon became crippled with debt. The company's losses were exacerbated by Hurricane Fifi in 1974, which destroyed many of its banana plantations in Honduras. In 1974, United Brands reported losses of $40 million for the first three quarters of the year. Black struggled to keep the company solvent, and in December United Brands announced that it was selling its interest in Foster Grant, Inc. for $70 million. Death On February 3, 1975, Black went to his office on the forty-fourth floor of the Pan Am Building in Manhattan. At about 8:00 a.m., he fell to his death, landing on the northbound Park Avenue Viaduct beside motorists. Homicide detectives concluded that the quarter-inch glass window was broken with Black's attaché case