home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
TIME: Almanac 1990
/
1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
/
time
/
052289
/
05228900.020
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1990-09-17
|
2KB
|
45 lines
BUSINESS, Page 87Sam, Make Way for RonIs takeover artist Perelman the fattest cat of all?
Who is America's richest man? Forbes magazine says he is Sam
Walton, 71, of Bentonville, Ark., the folksy, pickup-driving
founder of Wal-Mart Stores (1988 sales: $20.8 billion). Last
October the magazine estimated Walton's wealth at $6.7 billion.
Forget about it, says Institutional Investor, noting that a portion
of Walton's wealth is shared with four grown children. In its May
issue the financial monthly says the richest man in the U.S. is
Ronald Perelman, 46, of New York City, who has amassed a personal
fortune of $5 billion in a mere ten years by assembling companies
in businesses ranging from cosmetics to groceries to camping
equipment to licorice extract.
There is nothing folksy about Perelman. His favored car is a
chauffeur-driven Bentley, and he has never owned a pickup. And if
he is indeed the fattest of the fat cats, he didn't exactly start
from scratch. He began sitting in on board meetings of Belmont
Industries, his family's $300 million Philadelphia conglomerate,
at age 11. At 35, Perelman got restless, moved to New York City and
started collecting his own companies. Beginning with a chain of
jewelry stores, he added MacAndrews & Forbes, a producer of
licorice extract, in 1979. Then, with the help of financing
provided by Drexel Burnham Lambert's junk-bond whiz Michael Milken,
came Pantry Pride, a grocery chain. In 1985 Revlon was added to his
list.
Married to celebrity reporter Claudia Cohen, a contributor to
the chatty Live with Regis and Kathie Lee morning show, Perelman
appears at his share of gala events but refuses to grant
interviews. His only known hobbies are hunting acquisitions and
smoking cigars -- made, naturally, by Consolidated Cigars, a
company he used to own. Last year he burst into the headlines by
leading a $315 million takeover of five ailing Texas thrifts. The
Federal Government sweetened the deal by providing $900 million in
tax breaks.
Unlike some takeover artists, Perelman has a reputation as a
hands-on manager who tends to retain and operate the companies he
captures rather than break them up. When Revlon embarked on an
advertising campaign featuring portraits of "unforgettable women,"
Perelman took a personal interest in picking the models. Even for
America's richest man, some tasks are just too important to
delegate.