Paul Soros, shipping titan and older brother to George Soros, dies at 87

Paul Soros, a shipping magnate, philanthropist and older brother of billionaire investor George Soros, died on Saturday at age 87, his son said.

Paul Soros passed away at his New York City home, his son, Jeffrey Soros, said. The New York Times said Soros had been treated for Parkinson's disease, cancer, renal failure and diabetes.

"Through his engineering innovations, philanthropy and personal relationships, he profoundly impacted many lives," Jeffrey Soros said in a statement. "He was loved dearly and will be sorely missed."

Soros was born in Hungary in 1926, according to the Paul and Daisy Soros Foundation for New Americans, a $50 million philanthropic organization he founded with his wife to assist struggling new immigrants in the United States.

He studied mechanical engineering in Budapest and defected from Hungary in 1948 when the country was under Communist rule. Soros later found his way to the United States.

In 1956, he founded Soros Associates, which would become a well known international engineering firm that brought changes to the bulk shipping industry and built ports and offshore terminals in dozens of countries, according to the foundation's website.

Soros wrote dozens of technical articles and held a number of patents in material handling and offshore technology, according to the foundation.

Later in life, Soros worked with younger brother George investing in mining and industrial companies, according to "Giants of Poly," a biographical tribute published by New York University's Polytechnic Institute, where Paul Soros received a masters in engineering in the early 1950s.

(Reporting By Chris Francescani; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Bill Trott)