Warren Buffett has followed the dealings of the Pritzker family for half a century, but he had never had a direct business connection to them. . .until now.
In a deal announced Christmas day, Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is paying $4.5 billion for 60 percent of Pritzker-owned Marmon Holdings, a conglomerate with about $7 billion in annual revenue. Berkshire will acquire most of the remainder of Marmon over the next few years.
The transaction between the Oracle of Omaha and Chicago’s wealthiest family took less than two weeks to execute, according to The Wall Street Journal.
“I liked them,” Buffett told the Journal. “They were my kind of guys. I knew I’d be very comfortable.”
In an interview with the Chicago Tribune, Tom Pritzker, chairman of Marmon, said the deal will “give more freedom to those family members who want more freedom.”
Counting Marmon, the family has raised more than $10 billion from asset sales the past six years, according to the Journal, as it progresses toward a goal of dividing holdings among 11 adult cousins by 2011.
Jay and Robert Pritzker, grandsons of founder Nicholas Pritzker, ran the family’s businesses for decades. Jay died in 1999. Tom is Jay’s son.
The family still holds large stakes in the Hyatt hotel chain, Royal Caribbean Cruises and TransUnion, a credit bureau.
One other Buffett-Pritzker connection: Tom Pritzker told the Tribune that his mother, Cindy, once served on the board of trustees of Grinnell College in Iowa with Buffett, who became a trustee in 1968 and remains on the board.
Read related stories: 
0 Comments
There are no comments yet, be the first by filling in the form below.
Leave a Comment