Billionaire Sam Zell, who built a real estate empire and was known for betting on distressed properties, died at the age of 81 due to complications from a recent illness, his private investment firm said on Thursday. said in a statement.
Born in 1941 to Polish parents who fled to the United States during the German invasion of Poland, Zell took an early interest in real estate.
He began his career managing student housing apartments as an undergraduate at the University of Michigan and founded his main investment vehicle, Equity Group Investments, in 1968.
Apart from real estate, his firm also invests in manufacturing, travel, retail, healthcare and energy businesses.
Zell played a key role in popularizing the real estate investment trust (REIT) structure, which consists of leasing and renting properties in the 1990s and distributing profits in the form of dividends to investors.
One of his REITs, Equity Office Properties Trust, was the first to become part of the benchmark S&P 500 index. It was later sold to asset management giant Blackstone Inc. for $39 billion in one of the largest real estate deals ever.
However, another of his more ambitious ventures failed. He took media giant Tribune Company private in a highly-leveraged $8.2 billion deal that left the company heavily in debt.
The Tribune filed for bankruptcy protection a year later after falling advertising revenue during the global financial crisis as more readers began getting their news online. Zell dubbed the acquisition a “deal from hell”.
According to Forbes, the Chicago wealth czar had a net worth of $5.2 billion.
An outspoken businessman, Zell had a passion for motorcycles, which led him to form a group called Zell’s Angels, with whom he went on annual motorcycle rides.
In 2017, he published a book titled “Am I Being Too Subtle? Straight Talk from a Business Rebel”, in which he talks about his experiences.
catch ’em all corporate news And updates on Live Mint. download mint news app to receive daily market update & Live business News,