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As team owner, Stanley Druckenmiller might be another Mark Cuban
If he is successful in acquiring the Pittsburgh Steelers, what kind of owner will money-managing whiz Stanley Druckenmiller be?
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MAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Think Mark Cuban, the fan-friendly owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, who sits behind his team — and yells — at just about every game.
Druckenmiller, chairman of Duquesne Capital Management and a former associate of George Soros, confirmed that he is interested in buying the Steelers. He said he would keep the team in Pittsburgh and indicated that he wanted the Rooney family to continue to be involved in management, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Druckenmiller, lives in New York with his wife, Fiona, a niece of former Morgan Stanley executive Barton Biggs.
A long-time Steelers fan, Druckenmiller flies to every home game. He tailgates in the parking lot, high-fives surrounding seatmates after big plays, and has been know to wear face paint in Steelers’ colors, black and gold.
“With Stanley Druckenmiller, it’s family first,” said friend and philanthropic partner Geoffrey Canada in an interview with the Tribune-Review in Pittsburgh. “I’d like to say friends come second, but the truth, and he’ll kill me for saying this, is that I’d never come between him and a Steelers’ game.”
Druckenmiller is chairman and Canada is CEO of the Harlem Children’s Zone, which works with at-risk kids.
A major donor to Bowdoin College, his alma mater, Druckenmiller also is a board member of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and an advisor to the Children’s Scholarship Fund.
His wife, a former portfolio manager at Dreyfus, is on the boards at the American Museum of Natural History, Parrish Art Museum, Spence School, Carnegie Corporation of New York and a foundation trustee of the New York University School of Medicine.
Forbes estimates Druckenmiller’s personal wealth at $3.5 billion. The magazine says the Steelers are worth $929 million.
According to The Journal, a tentative purchase price being discussed is $800 million, because the team is organized as a C Corporation. If the team were organized as an S Corporation, it could be worth as much as $1 billion, because of tax advantages, The Journal said.
The Rooney family paid $2,500 for its NFL franchise in 1933.
Druckenmiller’s investing style, which he says he borrows from Soros, might give some clues to the style of football he favors:
Be aggressive and (to mix sports metaphors) don’t be afraid to go for the home run.
“The way to attain truly superior long-term returns is to grind it out until you’re up 30 or 40 percent, and then if you have the convictions, go for a 100 percent year,” he told author Jack Schwager in the book, The New Market Wizards.
That sounds like a team fans would love to watch.
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As Team Owner Stanley Druckenmiller Might Be Another Mark Cuban
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Steve Wozniak got in line at 4 a.m. to buy two new iPhones (Muckety)
Bringing donuts, Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, got in line at 4 a.m. Friday to buy the new iPhone 3G, just like thousands of Apple fans across the country.
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Dressed in black and posing for pictures with employees and customers at a Silicon Valley Apple store, Wozniak bought one black phone and one white, both 16 gigs.
“I could get someone to do this for me,” said Wozniak, who hasn’t actively worked at Apple since the 1980s. “But, it’s fun. We are all here – Macintosh enthusiasts.”
Wozniak and Jobs formed Apple Computer in 1976.
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Phil Gramm’s ‘death bonds’ idea didn’t fly in Texas (Muckety)
The same Phil Gramm who this week said the economy is not as bad as people think and that we’ve “become a nation of whiners” once tried to peddle so-called “death bonds” to the state of Texas and its teacher pension fund.
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Gramm, vice chairman of Swiss banking giant UBS and a former Texas senator, is a key adviser to presidential candidate John McCain. His remarks about the economy were a big topic of campaign coverage Thursday.
In December 2003, soon after he joined UBS, Gramm met quietly with Texas officials, The News reported. He wanted the state to sell bonds and use the proceeds to buy annuities and life insurance policies on thousands of retired teachers, with their knowledge. The plan supposedly would have reaped millions of dollars for the Teacher Retirement System of Texas.
The state rejected the idea.
This week, Gramm told the Washington Times that the current economic malaise is “a mental recession,” not a real recession, yet.
“Misery sells newspapers,” Gramm said. “Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day.”
He should be sure to tell that to his employer. UBS has written off nearly $40 billion in bad real-estate-related loans and is being investigated by federal authorities.
Gramm has been registered as a lobbyist for UBS, but he said that is no longer the case.
([Muckety](https://createpositivechange.org/2008/07/11/phil-gramms-death-bonds-idea-didnt-fly-in-texas/4062)
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IndyMac failure to cost FDIC $4 billion to $8 billion
Federal regulators closed IndyMac Bank Friday afternoon and transferred operation to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
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In a separate release, the FDIC estimated that the failure will eventually cost the agency’s insurance fund between $4 billion and $8 billion.
“This institution failed today due to a liquidity crisis,” OTS Director John Reich said in the release. “Although this institution was already in distress, I am troubled by any interference in the regulatory process.”
He referred to the public release June 26 of a letter from New York Senator Charles Schumer to the OTS and FDIC worrying about the viability of IndyMac.
In the following 11 business days, the OTS said, depositors withdrew more than $1.3 billion from their accounts.
IndyMac’s failure had been widely expected. IndyMac Bancorp CEO Michael Perry did, indeed, have the toughest job in America this week.
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Christie Brinkley gets kids & Hamptons house; Cook gets $2.1 million
Christie Brinkley’s fourth divorce has finally reached a settlement.
After an all-night negotiation between their lawyers, Peter Cook and Christie Brinkley’s heated divorce trial came to an end yesterday morning.
Brinkley was awarded sole custody of her children, Jack, 13, and Sailor, 10. She was also given all 18 of the properties she shared with Cook in the Hamptons. Cook will be paid $2.1 million and will also get “parenting time” with the children.
Brinkley went into the trial with high-profile divorce lawyer Robert Stephen Cohen, who has also represented Ron Perelman. Elliot Mintz is Brinkley’s public relations representative; he also works with Paris Hilton.
The marriage ended in 2006, when Brinkley discovered that Cook was having an affair with Diana Bianchi, a teenager who worked as Cook’s personal assistant.
Cook admitted to paying Bianchi to remain quiet about their affair. Bianchi sued Cook in April, 2007, and settled out of court.
The Brinkley/Cook divorce trial was open to the public and continued to make headlines as more salacious details about the couple’s relationship were revealed.
Brinkley admitted to coloring her ex-husband’s face with magic marker in a wedding photo and said she would not have married Cook if she had known the details of his drug arrest when he was in his 20s.
Cook commented that Brinkley’s testimony was fabricated; telling People “Shrek was more believable.”
A court-appointed psychiatrist weighed in on the former couple, advising that both Brinkley and Cook were in need of therapy.
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Steve Wozniak Got in Line at 4 Am to Buy Two New Iphones
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Phil Gramms Death Bonds Idea Didnt Fly in Texas
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Indymac Failure to Cost Fdic 4 Billion to 8 Billion
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Christie Brinkley Gets Kids Cook Gets 21 Million
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Muckety this! Dick Cheney to The Fonz and to ‘Friends’
How is Vice President Dick Cheney connected to both the TV show Friends and Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzerelli, the macho character in the TV show Happy Days?
Dick Cheney’s daughter, Mary Cheney, is a vice president at the governmental relations and strategic communications firm DC Navigators.
DC Navigators founding principal Mike Murphy has been in the news lately after New York Times columnist William Kristol suggested that Murphy would join Steve Schmidt in the newly revamped McCain campaign team. Murphy ran McCain’s 2000 election campaign and still consults with McCain on strategy.
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One of the partners at VonHart is Walter von Huene, a former speech coach for California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. (Mike Murphy was also involved with Schwarzenegger’s 2003 recall campaign, as were Navigator principals Todd Harris and Rob Stutzman. Stutzman later became Schwarzenegger’s communications director.)
Earlier in his career Walter von Huene happened to be the dialogue coach for ABC’s hit TV show Happy Days. Happy Days ran for a decade from 1974 to 1984 with a total of 255 episodes according to the website IMDB.
Actor Henry Winkler played Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzerelli, also known as The Fonz, on Happy Days.
Jumping to the TV show Friends is pretty easy from here. Henry Winkler was an actor in the movie Scream, which also starred Courteney Cox Arquette, a star of the hit TV show Friends.
Dick Cheney has six degrees of separation from The Fonz and nine degrees of separation from Friends – Muckety that!
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Muckety This Dick Cheney to the Fonz and to Friends
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Facebook Co Founder Helps Obama Build Support on the Web
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Rothschild Creates Lasting Virtual Community for Hillary Clinton
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Love means never having to say you’re poor
A new power-couple has been born. Courtenay Semel and Casey Johnson are dating, reports the New York Post.
Courtenay Semel is the daughter of former Yahoo CEO Terry Semel and starred in the 2005 reality TV show Filthy Rich: Cattle Drive, in which wealthy teens were filmed working on a ranch. She has known Casey Johnson for 12 years.
Casey Johnson is the daughter of Robert Wood Johnson IV, CEO of the Johnson Company and owner of the New York Jets. She’s the heir to the Johnson & Johnson franchise.
While Semel counts Lindsay Lohan in her circle of friends, Johnson is a longtime pal of the Hilton family.
After a messy 2006 break-up with her boyfriend, John Dee, due to an alleged affair he had with her aunt, Libet Johnson, Casey Johnson is now “so happy and completely in love,” with Courtenay Semel, sources tell the Post.
Johnson has also recently adopted a daughter, Ava, from Kazhakstan.
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IndyMac’s Michael Perry has the toughest job in America
To say IndyMac CEO Michael Perry is in a tough spot is an understatement. He might be on a mission impossible.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive mapMAP HINTS: Click expands a name. Control+Click centers map on a name. Solid lines are current relations. Dotted lines are former relations. For advanced tools choose Tools > Options from the menu at top. More help. Not seeing the maps? Please go here to check for the latest version of Java.Consider just a few of the recent headlines about his California-based company, caught in the mortgage meltdown:
“IndyMac Begins Dismantling Business”
“Analysts have zero hopes for IndyMac”
“IndyMac Bancorp shares dip; analyst sets $0 target”
Tom Petruno, a blogger for the Los Angeles Times, does find one saving grace. IndyMac is offering a yield “bonanza” on CDs as it tries to hang onto deposits.
This week, IndyMac said it was cutting its work force in half as it tries to salvage itself.
IndyMac started doing business in 1985 as a unit of Countrywide Financial, which was recently purchased by Bank of America. Former Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo recruited Perry to head IndyMac and said Perry was “like my son.”
As the mortgage mess initially unfolded, IndyMac tried to build market share by expanding while others in the troubled industry shrank. But that strategy failed.Through the past difficult year, the company’s board of directors has remained stable. Most of the directors of IndyMac Bancorp, including former pro football quarterback Pat Haden, are also directors of its banking unit, IndyMac Bank.
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Chesapeake Energy and Aubrey McClendon, masters of the power play
Chesapeake Energy CEO Aubrey McClendon has a former Oklahoma governor (Frank Keating) and U.S. senator (Don Nickles) on his Oklahoma City-based company’s board of directors. That seems only fitting. McClendon’s great uncle, Robert S. Kerr, co-founded Kerr-McGee and served as Oklahoma governor and senator.
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Chesapeake is currently the nation’s third largest producer of natural gas, but McClendon predicts it will be No. 1 by the end of the year. He told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting last month that the Haynesville Shale field in Louisiana and Northeast Texas could be the company’s most significant field ever.
“We are really off to the races in that play,” he said.
Last week, the company announced a $3.3 billion joint venture with Plains Exploration & Production Co. that values Chesapeake’s holdings in the Haynesville region at $30,000 an acre, more than six times what it paid.
The company is also the biggest player in the Barnett Shale region around Fort Worth, where it has employed actor Tommy Lee Jones to tout the benefits of natural gas in radio, TV, newspaper and billboard advertising.
“The Barnett Shale is a national treasure that will benefit all Texans for generations,” the actor says in a TV spot.
Star-Telegram columnist Mitch Schnurman points out that McClendon has a “history of funding aggressive public-opinion campaigns.” He supported the Swift Boat campaign against John Kerry, defended the Duke (his alma mater) lacrosse team against rape accusations and fought the construction of coal power plants in Texas.
Coal is a cheaper fuel to use to generate electricity but natural gas is cleaner.
Chesapeake’s main business strategy is to “grow through the drillbit,” meaning exactly what it says. The company claims to have the most active drilling program in the United States.
Like Fort Worth-based XTO Energy, Cheasapeake also actively hedges its future production to provide some price certainty.
As of May 1, according to Chesapeake’s Web site, the company had hedged more than 70% of its natural gas and oil production for the rest of this year, as well as 80% of gas production and 92% of oil production for 2009.
McClendon also hedges his political bets. He has made campaign contributions to many presidential candidates this year, including Barack Obama and John McCain.
At the annual meeting, McClendon said his company will continue to try to convince the U.S. Congress that Chesapeake is one of the energy good guys.
“We are trying to produce more clean-burning, American-produced natural gas,” he said.
Monday, Chesapeake said that Oklahoma State University President Burns Hargis would join the company’s board on Sept. 15. Tuesday, the company said it would issue 25 million additional shares of common stock.