Saul Steinberg (business)
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Saul Steinberg first got rich in the late 1960s by leasing IBM (nyse: IBM - news - people) computers. He proved so creative at the practice that his company, Leasco, became valuable enough that in 1968 he could use its stock to buy Reliance Insurance, a 150-year-old Philadelphia firm. He was just 29 years old. At the time, Forbes reported that he made more money on his own that year than anyone in America under 30.
Steinberg finished a degree from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania graduating within two years because he could not afford the remaining years even on scholarship and while working two jobs. He graduated Wharton at age 18, and has not only been a major benefactor of the school, but was also the head of the board of Wharton for over 15 years. In his 15 plus years as head of wharton the school became ranked as number 1 in the nation.
Steinberg used Reliance as his base of operations. In 1969, he mounted a takeover of Chemical Bank, then one of the nation's largest financial institutions. Chemical and its allies in the establishment beat him back. President Nixon personally called Steinberg to dissuade him from continuing with his acquisition. In a now famous quote in Business Week, Steinberg said, "I always knew there was an Establishment... I just used to think I was a part of it." For the next 30 years Steinberg used Reliance, and its steady cash flows, to finance numerous acquisitions including Flying Tigers, Days Inn, Telemundo, Frank B. Hall, Pargas and many others.
After having a massive stroke Saul handed over control of the company to his brother Robert after which Saul had limited involvement in the company. Robert Steinberg managed to take down a 5 billion dollar company within four years. It filed for bankruptcy in 2001, a year after Steinberg was forced to sell his fabled art collection and sell his duplex apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan for $37m to Steven Schwartzmann of the Blackstone Group. Since then he has made a come back with his large stake in the up and coming company Wisdom Tree Investments which is run by his son Jonathan Steinberg. He now resides in a town house which has an estimated value of 12 million dollars. His full business biography is featured in "Master Investors."
In April 1988, in a match made in corporate heaven, his daughter, Laura Steinberg, a Warner Bros. story analyst, married Jonathan Tisch, son of Loews President Preston Tisch and nephew of then-CBS President Lawrence A. Tisch, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur. He also has four other children from three separate wives and two children from his current wife Gayfryd Steinberg; his children from his most recent wife include Holden Steinberg and Rayne Steinberg whom he adopted when marrying Gayfryd. He was previosuly married to Italian beauty Laura Sconnochia Steinberg and had one child, Julian Steinberg from that marriage. His children from his first wife Barbara Steinberg, his highschool sweetheart, include Jonathan, Laura and Nicholas.
His daughter-in-law is CNBC host Maria Bartiromo, married to son Jonathan Steinberg.
[edit] References
Gross, Michael. 740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building, New York: Broadway Books, 2005.
