Who Is Samuel Zell

Zell was born in Chicago in 1941 to Jewish immigrant parents from Poland who fled the country just before the Nazi invasion in 1939. Shortly after moving from Seattle to Chicago, Zell's father Bernard changed the family name from Zielonka to Zell. He attended ivy League colleges on scholarships.

 

A Huckster Out Of The Gate

While a student, Sam began buying slum housing units, fixing them up and renting them to other students. After college and law school, also at Ann Arbor, he began buying up property elsewhere, including Toledo, Ohio, Tampa, Florida, and Reno, Nevada. He and a fraternity brother, Robert Lurie, eventually formed a business partnership and through tax advantages and heavy borrowing, quickly developed into a major force in real estate.

He Sold All His Real Estate For $44 Billion

In 2006 Sammie Zell sold his real estate holdings for $39 billion to the Blackstone Group in the biggest leveraged buyout ever. Even before that deal, Forbes estimated Zell's worth at about $4.5 billion.

The Blackstone Group

The Blackstone Group is a company that provides private equity, financial advisory, and investment management services. The firm backed a total of some US$370 billion in deals in the United States in 2006.

Blackstone stock lost $15 billion for American retirees. And when their loans go sour, the American taxpayer will bail them out.

 

Zell Bought The Media Giant The Tribune Company

Zell went to the band, and the tribune employee's pension fund, and borrowed $ 8.5 billion.