Sam Zell

Samuel Zell (born Shmuel Zielonka; September 28, 1941 – May 18, 2023) was an American billionaire businessman and philanthropist primarily engaged in real estate investment.

Companies founded by or controlled by Zell include Equity Residential, Equity International, EQ Office, Covanta, Tribune Media, and Anixter.

Zell was born on September 28, 1941, in Chicago.

His parents, Ruchla, later Rochelle, and Berek, later Bernard, Zielonka, were Jews who immigrated from Poland four months before his birth to escape the Invasion of Poland by the Nazis.

In Poland, his father was a grain trader.

They immigrated to the United States with their young daughter, Leah, via Russia and Tokyo, pretending to be tourists at the Bolshoi Ballet so as not to stand out.

They then moved from Seattle to Albany Park, Chicago, where his father became a wholesale jeweler who also made successful investments in real estate and the stock market.

In eighth grade, Zell took pictures at his prom and sold them.

He later bought Playboy magazines in downtown Chicago and resold them to his classmates in Hebrew school for a 200% markup.

When he was twelve, the family moved to Highland Park, Illinois, where he graduated from Highland Park High School.

In 1963, Zell graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan, where he was also a member of the Alpha Epsilon Pi fraternity.

While in school, Zell managed a 15-unit apartment building in return for free room and board.

By the time of his graduation, he was managing several properties and was netting $150,000.

Joined by his fraternity brother Robert H. Lurie, he won a contract with a large apartment development owner in Ann Arbor.

In 1966, he graduated with a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School.

By that time, he and Lurie were managing over 4,000 apartments and owned 100–200 units outright.

After school, he sold his interest in the management company to Lurie and moved to Chicago.

After graduation, Zell worked as a lawyer for one week before deciding that the legal profession was not for him.

With funding from one of the senior partners, Zell purchased a 99-unit apartment building in Toledo.

In 1967, he purchased a profitable apartment complex in Reno, Nevada, later spending a lot of time in Reno, calling it a "hidden gem" from a real estate investment perspective.

In 1968, Zell founded the predecessor of Equity Residential and was joined a year later by his former partner, Robert H. Lurie.

In 1969, he was introduced to Jay Pritzker, who provided him with funding.

He acquired Arlington Towers, then the tallest building in Reno, for $9 million.

To convince the owners to sell, Zell's brother-in-law conceived offshore transactions, the legality of which was described as "murky", to shield the sellers from tax liability; Zell reached a deal with the Internal Revenue Service to avoid prosecution in exchange for his testimony while Zell's brother-in-law served 2 years of jail time.

During the 1973–1975 recession, Zell was able to acquire many bankrupt properties for almost nothing as lenders did not want to foreclose and Zell provided financial plans that would enable the lenders to be repaid.

In 1976, Zell founded the predecessor to EQ Office to invest in office buildings.

In 1984, Zell founded Equity Lifestyle Properties.

It owns more than 400 trailer parks or mobile home parks.

In 1985, Zell acquired Itel Corporation, a diversified transportation and logistics company, shortly after it emerged from bankruptcy.

In 1986, he acquired Anixter, remaining in charge until it was sold in 2020.

In 1988, he co-founded the first of four Zell/Merrill Lynch Real Estate Opportunity Partners Funds; these were consolidated into EQ Office in 1997.

Lurie died of cancer in 1990 at age 48.

During the early 1990s recession, Zell had personally guaranteed $600 million in loans and was working 80 hour weeks to resolve them.

He then pursued taking in more investors to spread the risk.

In 1991, in partnership with Chilmark Partners, Zell co-founded Zell/Chilmark, a $1 billion investment fund, to invest in distressed securities.

In August 1993, after acquiring a large portfolio from Barry Sternlicht in exchange for a 20% stake in the company, the company became a public company via an initial public offering.

At that time, the company owned 22,000 apartments.

That year, it acquired $550 million in junk bonds and vendor claims against Carter Hawley stores, the parent of Broadway Stores, eventually taking control; it was sold to Federated Stores (now Macy's, Inc.) in 1995.

In 2004, he acquired Covanta via a 363 bankruptcy sale process.

In 2006, The Blackstone Group acquired the company for $36 billion in the largest leveraged buyout in history at the time, then selling off the portfolio in pieces; both Zell and Blackstone had impeccable timing, selling just before the 2007–2008 financial crisis.