Ronald Burkle

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Ronald W. Burkle is a supermarket billionaire from Beverly Hills, with a personal wealth of over $2 billion. He is also part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins, although his exact share of the team is unknown.^{[citations needed]}

He is the son of a Stater Brothers executive. Burkle, once a bag boy^{[citation needed]}, founded investment firm Yucaipa Cos. in 1986.^{[citation needed]} Burkle is a well-known political contributor and longtime Democratic fundraiser. He has also given over $200,000 to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger,and supported the Black Panthers in the 1960s. Burkle has supported California State Treasurer Phil Angelides and employed former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, both of whom are CALPERS board members.[1]

Burkle is a close friend of former President Bill Clinton, who calls Burkle's Boeing 757 private jet "Ron Air." [citation not provided but mentioned in Forbes magazine] Clinton, who is a senior adviser to Yucaipa, wrote in his memoir, "My Life", that Burkle "became one of my best friends." Burkle and Steve Rattner helped finance Al Gore's cable Current TV network. [2]

It has been suggested that Tony Blair may take up a seat on the board of one of Burkle's companies when he stands down as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom [3]

1 Investments & transactions
2 Involvement in 2006 NY Post Payola Scandal
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Investments & transactions

Burkle's investments and transactions include:

Sold Dominick's chain to Safeway in 1998 for over $200 million in profits
Owns 20.7% stake in Americold Realty Trust
Leveraged buyouts of Jurgensen's, Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less, and Ralphs supermarket chains (purchased through Yucaipa) and sold to Kroger for $13.5 billion
Scour
Sold majority stake in McDonald's supplier Golden State Foods to Wetterau Associates of St. Louis, Missouri for $110 million
Signed Fleming as sole food supplier to Kmart
Majority stake in Pathmark grocery stores
Cyrk - former Beanie Baby promotion agency
Merged Alliance Entertainment with publicly traded Source Interlink
Invested $100 million in Sean Combs's (P. Diddy) Sean John clothing line

[edit] Involvement in 2006 NY Post Payola Scandal

In April 2006, Ron Burkle accused New York Post columnist Jared Paul Stern of attempting to extort money from him in exchange for more favorable Page Six coverage. Page Six, a popular and influential gossip column in the New York Post, appears to have increased their coverage of Burkle's private life over the past year. Ron Burkle secretly videotaped several private meetings between him and Jared Paul Stern, and has since presented the tapes to the FBI. During the meetings, Stern allegedly asked Burkle for a $220,000 investment in his clothing business in exchange for better Page Six coverage. No charges were ever filed against Stern, however, and Stern announced plans to sue Burkle for defamation. Stern filed suit on March 22, 2007, on several counts including defamation and civil conspiracy.