| Philip Anschutz | |
|---|---|
| Born | December 28, 1939 Russell, Kansas, USA |
| Occupation | Businessman |
Philip Frederick Anschutz (pronounced ann-shoots, born December 28, 1939 in Russell, Kansas) is an American entrepreneur. Anschutz bought out his father's drilling company in 1961 and earned large returns in Wyoming. He has invested in stocks, real estate and railroads. He then began investing in entertainment companies, co-founding Major League Soccer as well as multiple teams, including the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo, San Jose Earthquakes, New York / New Jersey Metro Stars and the Kansas City Wizards. Anschutz owns stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Kings, and venues including the Staples Center, O2 Arena, and the Home Depot Center. Anschutz also invests in family films such as The Chronicles of Narnia. Forbes ranks him the 34th richest person in the U.S. with an estimated net worth of $7 billion as of October 2010.[1]
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Anschutz's father was a land investor who invested in ranches in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and eventually went into the oil-drilling business. Anschutz's grandfather, Karl Anschütz (born November 10, 1859, in the largely German region of Samara), emigrated from Russia and started the Farmers State Bank in Russell, Kansas. Anschutz grew up in Hays, Kansas, with part of the family located in Wisconsin (the location of his father's oil-exploration business, Circle A Drilling, where he lived near Bob Dole). In later years, Anschutz contributed to Dole's political campaigns. He graduated from Wichita High School East in 1957, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Kansas in 1961, where he was also a brother of the Sigma Chi Fraternity.[2] His first cousin was fellow Russell native and long-time KCTV news anchor Wendall Anschutz.[3]
A member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, he is a conservative Christian. He and his wife, whom he met when he was 16, have three children. Anschutz was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2002.[4]
In 1970 Anschutz bought the 250,000-acre (1,000 km²) Baughman Farms, one of the country's largest farming corporations, in Liberal, Kansas for $10 million. The following year, he acquired 9 million acres (36,000 km²) along the Utah-Wyoming border. This produced his first fortune in the oil business. In the early 1980s, the Anschutz Ranch, with its 1 billion barrel (160,000,000 m³) oil pocket, became the largest oil field discovery in the United States since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in 1968. He sold a half-interest in it to Mobil Oil for $500 million in 1982.
For several years Anschutz was Colorado's sole billionaire. With his acquisition of land in other Western states, he is thought to own more farm and cattle land than any other single private citizen in the United States.[5]
Anschutz then moved into railroads and telecommunications before venturing into the entertainment industry. In 1999, Fortune magazine compared him to the nineteenth-century tycoon J.P. Morgan, as both men "struck it rich in a fundamentally different way: they operated across an astounding array of industries, mastering and reshaping entire economic landscapes."
In 1984 he entered the railroad business by purchasing the Rio Grande Railroad's holding company, Rio Grande Industries. Four years later, in 1988, the Rio Grande railroad purchased the Southern Pacific Railroad under his direction. With the merger of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Corporation in September 1996, Anschutz became Vice-Chairman of Union Pacific. Prior to the merger, he was a Director of Southern Pacific from June 1988 to September 1996, and Non-Executive Chairman of Southern Pacific from 1993 to September 1996. He was also a Director of Forest Oil Corporation, beginning in 1995. In November 1993 he became Director and Chairman of the Board of Qwest, stepping down as a nonexecutive co-chairman in 2002, but remaining on the board. He has also been a Director for Pacific Energy Partners and served on the boards of the American Petroleum Institute, in Washington, D.C. and the National Petroleum Council in Washington, D.C.
In May 2001, the Bush administration upheld Anschutz's right to drill an exploratory oil well at Weatherman Draw, in south-central Montana where Native American tribes wanted to preserve sacred rock drawings. Environmental groups, preservationists, and 10 Indian tribes had appealed the decision without success. In April 2002, the Anschutz Exploration Corporation gave up its plans to drill for oil in the area. They donated its leases for oil and gas rights to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has pledged to let the leases expire, and the Bureau of Land Management said it had no plans to permit further leases there, and would consider formal withdrawal of the 4,268 acre (17 km²) site from mineral leasing in its 2004 management plan.
In May 2003 New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer reached a settlement with Anschutz after he was found guilty of accepting IPO shares from Salomon Smith Barney in exchange for his firm, Qwest's, investment banking business. He was given $4.4 million penalty. According to the New York Daily News, Anschutz made payments of $100,000 to the New York branches of 32 nonprofits and $200,000 each to six law schools as a penalty.[6] The payment was roughly equal to his profit from the practice of IPO "spinning", thus he actually suffered no penalty.
In February 2006, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reported that Anschutz would not stand for re-election to the boards of Qwest and Union Pacific, and would resign from the board of Regal Entertainment Group, so that he could focus on his other investments.[7]
On June 24, 2008, it was announced that Anschutz would buy Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which had purchased the Grand Canyon Railway in 2007.[8] Most recently it was announced that Anschutz purchased the Oklahoma Publishing Company, and as part of their assets the Broadmoor and the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway in Colorado Springs.[9]
The Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) is a sporting and music entertainment presenter and a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corporation. It is the world's largest owner of sports teams and sports events, the owner of the world’s most profitable sports and entertainment venues, and under AEG Live the world's second largest presenter of live music and entertainment events after Live Nation.
The AEG is the subject of a lawsuit regarding the Death of Michael Jackson, filed by the singer's mother, Katherine Jackson. The Jackson lawsuit against Anschutz Entertainment Group alleged:
By the nature of their contractual, joint-venture, and special relationship, AEG had legal duties to Michael Jackson to treat him safely and to not put him in harms’ way. But AEG, despite its knowledge of Michael Jackson’s physical condition, breached those duties by putting its desire for massive profits from the tour over the health and safety of Michael Jackson.
As one of the world's richest billionaires, Philip Anschutz has been making a name for himself in the philanthropic community by financially supporting a number of strongly conservative organizations.[10] He was listed on Forbes list of Billionaires as number 123 with a networth of 6 billion in March 2010.[11]
Anschutz has funded a number of ultra-conservative and Christian organizations including the following:[12][13][14]
Additionally, Anschutz is a major contributor to the Anschutz Foundation. From 1998–2004, Anschutz has donated a total of $110 million through his foundation.[15] From an initial $4.5 million endowment, the assets of the institution have grown in the past two decades to a $54 million value with $28,035,671 of it awarded through the 5,241 grants which have gone towards pushing humanitarian needs in Colorado. In addition to his contributions towards his family's foundation, Anschutz has donated more than $23 million over the last decade, to the Foundation for a Better Life and the Random Acts of Kindness Foundation.[10]
In recognition of their philanthropic efforts, Phil and Nancy Anschutz were named the winners of the 2009 William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership.[16]
Often identified as "Christian billionaire Phil Anschutz",[21] he is a Republican donor who supported George W. Bush's administration. He has been an active patron of a number of religious and conservative causes:
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