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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?
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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.“Last year, I had one coming from Steve Jobs, but I still wanted to do this” he told The Mercury-News of San Jose.
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.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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.“Ghoulish,” some pension administrators called the idea, according to The Dallas Morning News.
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.
Hint: Click in map to explore connectionsStory continues below interactive map
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.With $32 billion in assets, it was the second largest deposit institution to close in U.S. history, according to a release from the Office of Thrift Supervision. Only the 1984 failure of Continental Illinois, with $40 billion in assets, was larger.
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
This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.
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Phil Gramms Death Bonds Idea Didnt Fly in Texas
This post was archived from createpositivechange.org/. View the original on the Wayback Machine.