Sumner Murray Redstone

Sumner Murray Redstone (born Sumner Murray Rothstein; May 27, 1923) is majority owner and Chairman of the Board of the National Amusements theater chain. Through National Amusements, Sumner Redstone and his family are majority owners of CBS Corporation, Viacom, and Midway Games, MTV Networks, BET, and movie production and distribution Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks movie studios, and are equal partners in MovieTickets.com.

Sumner was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Russian parents Belle (née Ostrovsky) and Michael Redstone.[1] His family's name was changed from Rothstein to Redstone, when Sumner was 17. His father was the owner of the Northeast Theater Corporation in Dedham, Massachusetts--the forerunner of National Amusements.[2]
Redstone attended the prestigious Boston Latin School, where he graduated first in his class. He then attended Harvard College, where he completed his B.A. in three years. Later, Redstone served in World War II, serving with the team that decoded Japanese messages for the United States Army.[3] Upon completion of his Army service, he worked in Washington, D.C. and attended Georgetown University Law School. He chose to transfer into Harvard Law School and received his LL.B., later amended to a Juris Doctor from that institution.
After completing law school, Redstone worked primarily in Washington, D.C., working at first for the U.S. Department of Justice in San Francisco and then going into private practice. However, after a few years in practice, he chose to join his father's theater chain.
As National Amusements grew Redstone believed that content would become more important than distribution mechanisms. There would always exist channels of distribution (albeit in varied forms), but content was always going to be necessary (his famous quote is "content is king!"). He then made investments in Columbia Pictures, Twentieth Century Fox, Orion Pictures, and Paramount Pictures (the latter of the 4 of which Redstone's Viacom would buy in the 1990s-see below), all of which turned over huge profits when he chose to sell the stock in the early 1980s.
In 1979 he almost died in the Boston Copley Hotel fire.[citation needed] He crawled out of a window onto a ledge. He was not expected to survive and underwent 60 hours of burn surgery.
In 1999 he was divorced from his first wife of 55 years, Phyllis Gloria Raphael. He is the father of Shari Redstone and Brent Redstone. Three years after his divorce, he married Paula Fortunato, a former primary school teacher who is forty years his junior.

Looking for a new business venture, he set his sights on Viacom International, a company which he had already been buying stock in as an investment and was a spin-off of CBS in 1971 after the FCC ruled that television networks could not syndicate programs they produced. Viacom syndicated most of CBS's programs, but also made a lot of money from syndicating other programs, including most of Carsey-Werner Productions' shows (The Cosby Show, Roseanne, and A Different World), as well as syndicating shows for other companies (Columbia Pictures Television's All in the Family was one notable example), and cable channels (Nickelodeon's Double Dare and Finders Keepers (co-syndicated with Fox Television Stations) were two examples).
Viacom also owned MTV Networks (formerly known as Warner-AMEX Satellite Entertainment), which owned MTV and Nickelodeon. In addition, other included properties included Showtime Networks (a similar pay-television network to HBO and Cinemax) and The Movie Channel. Viacom acquired MTV Networks in 1985 for $550 million from Steve Ross' Warner Communications. (WCI bought American Express' share and then sold the entire entity to Viacom, as they felt that they could not make a lot of money from the venture and the bias of a studio owning cable channels would be a conflict of interest. The studio's stance changed in 1995, when as Time Warner it bought Turner Broadcasting.)
After a hostile takeover in 1987, Redstone won voting control of Viacom and led a series of acquisitions to make Viacom one of the top players in modern media (along with Bertelsmann, General Electric & Vivendi's NBC-Universal, News Corporation, Time Warner, Sony, and The Walt Disney Company).

Redstone's next acquisition came in the form of the purchase of Paramount Communications, parent of Paramount Pictures, in 1993, which he fought over with Barry Diller (former board member of Vivendi Universal and CEO of IAC/InterActiveCorp) and John Malone (president of TCI/Liberty Media), where he had to raise his bid three times. Some say that Redstone overpaid, but after he shed certain assets (the Madison Square Garden properties to Charles Dolan's Cablevision and Simon & Schuster's educational publishing units to Pearson plc for almost $4 billion), Redstone turned Viacom's expenditure into a substantial profit. Under Redstone's leadership, Paramount went on an almost ten-year streak of record performance, producing such films as Saving Private Ryan, Titanic (one of the highest grossing film of all time and Best Picture Academy Award winner), Braveheart (Best Picture Academy Award), and Forrest Gump (also a Best Picture winner) and the creation of the hugely successful Mission Impossible series of pictures.
Redstone replaced the team of Jonathan Dolgen and Sherry Lansing in 2004 after their 9-year winning streak ended and the studio has struggled since with the relatively inexperienced team of Brad Grey and Gail Berman who both came from the TV business. The Dolgen and Lansing years were the high point of Paramount in many other regards as well.
In addition to the aforementioned award winning films, They also doubled the size of Paramount's music publishing division, Famous Music; expanded UCI Cinemas into 13 foreign countries; created the Digital Cinema Initiatives standards body for the new digital film technology; introduced the DVD; and launched the UPN Network (later part of CBS and now called the CW). The current Paramount Pictures consists only of the movie studio, the other groups having been sold or parcelled out to other divisions given Grey's lack of prior management experience.
The Paramount acquisition was only the tip of the iceberg. Redstone purchased Blockbuster Entertainment, which included Aaron Spelling's production company and a huge library of films, much of which has been merged into Paramount Pictures. Blockbuster has now been spun off into its own independent entity. Redstone acquired CBS Corporation in 2000 and then spun it off as a separate company in 2005, taking with it all of Paramount's television shows and catalog. Following the CBS and Blockbuster Spinoffs, Viacom consists of MTV Networks (MTV, Nickelodeon, VH1, Noggin etc.), music publishing (Famous Music) and Paramount Pictures.
In December of 2005, Redstone announced that Paramount had agreed to buy DreamWorks SKG for an estimated $1.6 billion. The acquisition was completed on February 1, 2006. A subsequent financing brought Viacom's investment down to $700m. The animation studio, DreamWorks Animation, was not included in the deal as it has been its own company since late 2004, however Paramount now has the rights to distribute films by DreamWorks Animation.

One of Redstone's largest acquisitions came in the form of Viacom's former parent, CBS. Former Viacom President & COO Mel Karmazin (who was then the President of CBS) proposed a merger to Redstone on favorable terms and after the merger completed in 2000, Viacom had some of the most diversified businesses imaginable. Viacom had assets in the form of broadcast networks (CBS and UPN), cable television networks (MTV, Nickelodeon, MTV2, Comedy Central, BET, Nick at Nite, Noggin/The N, TV Land, CMT, and Spike TV), pay television (Showtime and The Movie Channel), radio (Infinity Broadcasting, which produced the immensely popular Howard Stern' radio shows), outdoor advertising, motion pictures (Paramount Pictures), and television production (Spelling Entertainment, Paramount Television, and Big Ticket Entertainment), and King World Productions (a syndication unit, which notably syndicates the runaway daytime hit, The Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as Dr. Phil, Wheel of Fortune, and Jeopardy!), among others.
After CBS and Viacom split in late 2005, Redstone remained chairman of both companies.

Redstone's trusts make it clear that Shari Redstone (Vice-Chairwoman of the Board of Viacom and CBS, Chairwoman of the board of Midway Videogames as well as President of National Amusements) is set to assume his role upon his death. However, a November 22nd, 2006 New York Times article indicated that Redstone was reconsidering his daughter's role. Recently they have been feuding publicly over issues of corporate governance and the future of the cinema chain.[4] There have also been numerous articles stating that Sumner's marriage is in trouble.[5][6]
Documents have recently been made public which verify that, as part of a settlement from Sumner's first divorce, all of Sumner's stock is in irrevocable trusts that will be left for his grandchildren.[7]
Redstone made arrangements to step down as CEO of Viacom in 2006. After Mel Karmazin resigned in 2004, two heirs apparent were named: Co-President & Co-COO Leslie Moonves (who was #2 to Karmazin at CBS; he was the former head of Warner Bros. Television and before that, Lorimar Television) and Co-President & Co-COO Tom Freston (who had been President & CEO of MTV Networks since 1987 and had been with the company since the formation of MTV Networks' precursor company, Warner-AMEX Satellite Entertainment). Since the Viacom split, Moonves has headed CBS, and Freston had headed the new Viacom, Inc.
When Moonves was promoted to Co-President & Co-COO with Tom Freston, there was speculation that he was on the short list of executives to replace Michael Eisner at the Walt Disney Company whose contract expired in 2006.[8] Redstone has confirmed publicly in Vanity Fair that he originally offered the position only to Freston who initially turned it down and later relented when Redstone made it clear he was going to ask Moonves next.
On September 5, 2006 Redstone removed Tom Freston as President and CEO of Viacom and replaced him with director and former Viacom counsel Philippe Dauman. He also brought back former CFO Tom Dooley. This was surprising to many, as Freston had been seen by many as Redstone's heir apparent and that Redstone touted that Freston would run the company after he retired. Redstone publicly stated that he let Freston go because of Viacom's lack of aggressiveness in the digital/online arena, lack of contact with investors, and a lackluster upfront (coupled with falling viewership) at MTV Networks.[9]
The company split was approved by the Viacom board on June 14, 2005.

Currently, Redstone owns over seventy percent of the voting stock of Viacom, which, in actuality, is a not wholly-owned subsidiary of National Amusements, which is his privately held, family-owned company. CBS Corporation, likewise, is controlled by Redstone through National Amusements. Redstone also owns over eighty-nine percent of Midway Games, both individually and through National Amusements.
However, the Midway holdings has drawn the ire of the National Football League, as Midway's "Blitz: The League", a game using a fictional league (previous versions had an NFL license), featured gratuitous violence and other material which the NFL would have rejected, all while CBS has NFL rights.
In 2006 CBS Corporation's CBS Radio unit sued Howard Stern and Sumner has become the butt of criticism on his show along with CBS CEO Leslie Moonves.

His autobiography, A Passion To Win (which was co-written by Peter Knobler), was released in 2001 and published by Viacom's Simon & Schuster book publishing company. This book details everything from Sumner's life as a young boy in Boston, to the difficult takeover of Viacom, and the problems he overcame in purchasing and managing both Blockbuster Video and Paramount Pictures. There is also coverage of the legendary CBS merger (Viacom was a spin-off company of CBS to syndicate its programs, and the subsidiary bought the parent almost 30 years later).
Viacom's broadcasting properties at the time of "A Passion To Win"'s release included several radio stations and two TV stations (WBZ CBS 4 (which had just become a CBS O&O through a merger with Westinghouse 4 years before Viacom and CBS merged) and WSBK UPN 38) in Redstone's hometown of Boston.)

In 2007 he was ranked #86 on Forbes magazine's list of the hundred richest people in the world, with an estimated worth of US$ 9 billion.

A világ negyedik legnagyobb média-birodalma. 1978-ban hozta létre a CBS. A Viacom 85-ben vette meg az MTV Networks-t a Warner Communications -tól, 550 millióért. 87-ben Sumner Redstone, köztiszteletnek örvendõ ember, a National Amusements Inc és 1000 darab mozi tulajdonosa megvásárolta a Viacom részvényeinek többségét, vagyis kvázi a Viacom -ot, 2.7 milliárdért. Ez a változás a Viacom életében igen kedvezõ fordulat volt. Éppen úgy, mint a 85-ös MTV Networks vásárlás, amivel az volt az elképzelés, hogy „az MTV több, mint eltartja sajátmagát". Az elképzelés nagyon is valóravált, pl. 93-ban „egyedül" több pénzt hozott, mint a CBS az ABC és az NBC együtt.

André Kostolany

André Kostolany (February 9, 1906 - September 14, 1999) was a world-renowned stock market expert and speculator. He worked most of his life in France and Germany.

Kostolany was born in Budapest, a Hungarian Roman Catholic of Jewish descent. He originally studied Philosophy and History of Art in Budapest but his father forced him to abandon his studies and sent him to Paris in 1927, to work as a broker. There he began his career as a speculator and arbitrageur. He was able to make a profit of the decline in market prices which began in the end of 1929, having been bearish at the time. When the Germans occupied France in 1940, he fled to New York. From 1941 to 1950 he was the general director and president of the G. Ballai and Co Financing Company. From 1950 he lived in Paris, in Munich and on the Côte d’Azur. After World War II he invested heavily in the reconstruction of Germany, The subsequent economic boom helped him build up his fortune. In return, Kostolany spent most of his later life writing columns and holding seminars about the stock market in Germany, where he became famous as a stock market expert. His fame was founded in the vast amount of practical experience he had accumulated during his 70 year career, in different trades, in many markets around the world. He died in Paris at the age of 93.

Kostolany, spurred by his successful investment in Germany after World War II, held a deep respect for "the inherent qualities and capabilities of the German people", which, according to him, would consequently lead Germany to a new economic boom, after the German economy absorbed the shock of reunification.
Kostolany was a critic of the gold standard, the monetary system that fixes exchange rates to the price of gold, since he believed that whenever it was used, it suppressed economic growth and led to cyclical crises. Consequently, he was a very vocal critic of the fiscal policy of the Bundesbank during the 1980s and 1990s.

Kostolany published a lot of educational material in various languages, including 13 books that sold more than 3 million copies in total. He was for many years the author of a column in Capital, a stock market related magazine in Germany (he wrote a total of 414 articles).

André Kostolany (Budapest, 1906. február 9. – 1999. szeptember 14.) tőzsdeguru és spekuláns. Életének legnagyobb részét Franciaországban és Németországban töltötte.

1906. február 9-én egy jómódú zsidó család gyermekeként látta meg a napvilágot Budapesten. A gimnáziumi évek után – ahol Teller Edével együtt koptatta az iskolapadot –, az egyetemen filozófiát és művészettörténet tanult. 21 évesen, egyetemi tanulmányai alatt, édesapja kezdeményezésére Párizsba került, ahol apja ifjúkori barátja, egy francia tőzsdealkusz mellett leste el a tőzsdék működésének fortélyait. A második világháború idején a család az Egyesült Államokba menekült, majd az 1950-es években Németországban és Franciaországban élt. Az ifjú Kostolanyt hamar hatalmába kerítette az akkori Párizs csillogásának varázsa. Spekulánsként a sikerek mellett számos kudarc is érte. „A tőzsdén is a szerencse a legfontosabb. A börzén nem az intelligenciámnak köszönhetően voltak sikereim, hanem annak, hogy szerencsés vagyok. Voltak persze ötleteim, meglátásaim, vízióim, amelyekből nagy pénzt tudtam csinálni, és voltak kevésbé szerencsés időszakaim is, amikor veszteséges voltam, de a végén a szaldó mindig pozitív, és ez a lényeg.” Szintén gyakran hangoztatta, hogy: „akinek sok pénze van, annak lehet spekulálni, akinek kevés a pénze, annak nem szabad spekulálni, akinek pedig egyáltalán nincs pénze, annak muszáj spekulálni”. Számos könyvet írt és rendszeresen publikált a Capital című lapban. 1999. szeptember 14-én, 92 évesen halt meg a magyar származású tőzsdeguru, és 90 évesen írta azt az önéletrajzi regényt, amelyben ez áll: „Ha elég fiatal lennék, mondjuk még csak 70 éves, akkor megalapítanám az optimisták iskoláját.” Még 70 évesen is tervei voltak, legfőbb álma pedig az volt, hogy megérje az ezredfordulót.

Roman Abramovich

Roman Arkadyevich Abramovich ( born on 24 October 1966 in Saratov, Russian SFSR, USSR) is a Russian billionaire and the main owner of private investment company Millhouse Capital, referred to as one of the Russian oligarchs. According to the 2007 Forbes magazine, as of 3 August 2007, he had a net worth of $18.7 billion,[1] and according to Russian Finance magazine, as of January 2007, his fortune was 551.0 billion rubles (roughly $23 billion).[2] He was considered to be the second richest person currently living within the United Kingdom in 2008.
The stress on his family name is often placed on the second syllable (Abrámovich) when pronounced in English, whereas the original Russian name is stressed on the third (Abramóvich).
In Russia, Abramovich is prominent as the governor of Chukotka, a post to which he was elected in 2000, and has spent over $1 billion on good causes in the region,[4] which now has one of the highest birth rates in Russia.[5]. He is most famous outside Russia as the owner of Chelsea Football Club, an English Premiership football team, and for his wider involvement in European football. Despite his high profile around the world, Abramovich makes virtually no public statements about his activities.
In 2003 Roman Abramovich was named Person of the Year by Expert, a Russian business magazine. He shared this title with Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Born into a Jewish family,[6] Roman's paternal grandparents were exiled to Siberia from Tauragė, Lithuania by the Soviets after the occupation of Lithuania in 1940.[7] Roman grew up as an orphan. His mother, Irina Ostrowski Abramovich, died from bacteremia as a result of a back-alley abortion when Roman was one year old.[8] His father Arkady Abramovich was killed in an incident on a construction site when Roman was three years old.[8] Abramovich grew up in his uncle's family in Ukhta and with his grandmother in Moscow.[8] Before moving to Moscow he and his sister lived in Syktyvkar, the capital city of the Komi Republic. Abramovich attended the Industrial Institute in the city of Ukhta before being drafted into the Soviet Army. After military service, he studied briefly at the Moscow State Auto Transport Institute before taking a leave of absence from academics to go into business. He later earned a correspondence degree from the Moscow State Law Academy.

Abramovich started his commercial activity in the late 1980s when Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms permitted the opening of small private businesses, known as co-operatives. In 1992 to 1995 Abramovich founded five companies that conducted resale and acted as intermediaries, eventually specializing in the trading of oil and oil products. In 1995 Roman Abramovich, together with Boris Berezovsky, acquired the controlling interest in the large oil company Sibneft. The deal was within the controversial loans-for-shares program and partner paid $100m for half of the company, only slightly below the stake's stock market value of $150 million at the time. The fast-rising value of the company led many observers, in hindsight, to suggest that the real cost of the company should have been in the billions of dollars.[8]
During the 1990s, through their holding company Millhouse Capital, Abramovich and his business partner Eugene Shvidler acquired significant stakes in Russia's largest air company Aeroflot and several aluminium plants from Trans World Group owned by David and Simon Reuben which were merged with the metals assets of Oleg Deripaska to create the aluminum giant Rusal. Millhouse LLC, as it is now known, also invested in several smaller companies in the automobile industry, pharmaceuticals, food processing, real estate and other sectors.
Millhouse divested itself of several key assets in 2002–2005. Most notably, the company sold its stake in Sibneft to state energy giant Gazprom for $13 billion, and its stake in Rusal to Oleg Deripaska for $2 billion. In 2006, Millhouse reinvested some of the proceeds by acquiring a 41% stake in Evraz Group, Russia's largest domestic steelmaker and one of the top 10 internationally. In 2004, Swiss criminal investigators abandoned an investigation into an alleged fraud involving a $4.8 billion loan from the IMF to Russia, in which Abramovich was one of the investigators' key suspects, after the United States and Russia refused to divulge information on the scandal. No evidence linking Abramovich to the IMF funds was ever reported.

In 1999, Abramovich was elected to the State Duma as the representative for the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, an impoverished region in the Russian Far East. He started the charity Pole of Hope to help the people of Chukotka, especially children, and in December 2000 was elected governor of Chukotka, replacing Alexander Nazarov. Since then he has invested hundreds of millions of pounds in Chukotka, which has paid for a college, a hospital, a pre-school and hotels in Anadyr, as well as renovating the airport and funding new or renovated schools in many small towns and villages. He has also used Chukotka as a tax haven for Sibneft, though the company re-invested most of its tax savings in the region and has been exploring for oil there as part of the governor's drive to boost the local economy. Abramovich said that he would not run for governor again after his term of office expired in 2005, as it is "too expensive", and he rarely visits the region. However, Russian President Vladimir Putin changed the law to abolish elections for regional governors, and on 21 October 2005 Abramovich was reappointed governor for another term. In 2006 Abramovich used his power as governor to help out the explorer Karl Bushby who was deported from the region for border violations after walking from Alaska into Russia during his attempt to walk round the world.[10]
Abramovich was awarded the Order of Honor for his "huge contribution to the economic development of the autonomous district [of Chukotka]", by a decree signed by the President of Russia.

Árva, szegény fiúból a világ egyik leggazdagabb emberévé nőtte ki magát Roman Abramovics. Az egyes feltételezések szerint 7,2 milliárd dolláros vagyonnal rendelkező orosz üzletember gazdagsága mellett költekezési mániájával vonta magára az utóbbi időben a figyelmet.

A 38 éves Roman Abramovicsot 3,4 milliárd dollárra becsült vagyonával a Forbes magazin alig két éve a második leggazdagabb oroszként és a világ 49. legtehetősebb embereként jegyezte, míg Sunday Times 7,2 milliárd dollárra taksálta a férfi által felhalmozott részvények, ingatlanok és egyéb tulajdonok értékét. Nem csoda hát, hogy az olaj- és acéliparban meggazdagodott férfi a jachtok, a foci és a többi dollármilliókba kerülő hóbort szerelmeseként igyekszik minél teljesebb életet élni, hiszen anyagi korlátokba egészen biztosan nem ütközhet.

Persze joggal adódhat a kérdés, hogy hogyan is jutott el valaki a gazdagságnak ezen fokára, beleszületett-e a jólétbe, avagy maga küzdött meg a milliárdok megszerzéséért. A milliárdos esetében ez utóbbi áll fent. Az 1966 októberében, Szaratovban született, zsidó származású Abramovics alig 18 hónaposan vesztette el édesanyját, majd három évvel később édesapja is meghalt egy építkezési balesetben. Az árva fiút előbb apai nagybátyja vette magához Moszkvában, ám később az északon élő anyai nagyszülei nevelték.A fiatal férfi érdeklődése az olajipar iránt hamar megmutatkozott, a szibériai Omszk olajfinomítójából nyert olajtermékekkel kereskedett. Vagyonában az igazi áttörést az 1992-es év hozta meg, amikor Boris Berezovszkij, az akkori legnagyobb orosz iparmágnás pártfogásába vette és bevezette őt az egykori elnök, Boris Jelcin belső köreibe. Abramovicsnak innen már nem volt nehéz megkapaszkodnia, évről évre gyarapította dollármilliókkal vagyonát. A mára a világ egyik leghíresebbé vált milliomosa nem szívesen enged betekintést az üzleti befektetéseibe, ám annál többet hallhatunk olykor esztelennek tűnő költekezéseiről.

És hogy melyek voltak Abramovics leghíresebb és legvitatottabb vásárlásai? A legismertebbek között mindenképpen a focirajongó orosz sztárklubvásárlása említendő meg. Az üzletember 2003-ban vásárolta meg a brit Chelsea Football Clubot, amelybe azóta is mintegy 837 millió dollárt invesztált. Persze nem a futball az egyetlen sportág, amelynek előszeretettel hódol. Az orosz olajmágnást gyakran látni a Forma-1 versenyeken nézőként, sőt azt is rebesgették, hogy szándékában áll megvenni a száguldó cirkusz egyik csapatát. Ha F1 csapatot egyelőre nem is, de egy nagyon értékes rendszámtáblát gond nélkül megvásárolt az autómániás férfi. A VIP 1 feliratú rendszámot, amelyet Abramovics végül 542 ezer dollárért vett meg, még 1979-ben készítették II. János Pál pápának.A rendszám árának sokszorosát szánta azonban a költekező orosz egy jóval kevésbé időtálló vásárlásra. A multimilliomos körülbelül 1,9 millió dollárért vásárolt madarakat. A szenvedélyes vadász hírében álló Roman Abramovicsnak a kilövésre szánt 20 ezer madárral - amelyeket várhatóan augusztusban, a brit vadászati idény kezdetén szállítanak le - dúsítani szándékozik az angliai, West Sussex-i birtokán lévő madárállományt.

A szárazföld azonban messze nem az egyetlen hely, amely óriási összegek elköltésére sarkallja a milliárdost. A luxus kivitelezésű vízi járművekért megszállottan rajong Abramovicsot, legutóbbi jachtberuházásával az eBay történetébe is beírta magát. A szenvedélyes hajós ugyanis állítólag az aukciósportál legdrágább áruját vette meg a több mint 168 millió dollárba kerülő luxusjachttal. Az újabb, temérdek luxussal megépítendő hajóra szóló megrendelést 2007-re teljesíti a kivitelező. Az új szerzemény vélhetően lepipálja még a milliomos tulajdonában lévő többi exkluzív kivitelezésű hajót, a Pelorus-t, Ecstaseát és a Le Grand Bleu-t is.

Roman Abramovicsnak legújabb, tetemes összegű beruházása egy 38,5 millió dollárba kerülő olaszországi villa lehet. Igaz, a vétel még nem biztos, hiszen az orosz ötmillió eurós árengedményt kér a jelenlegi tulajdonostól, egy olasz-venezuelai bankártól a Capri-szigetén fekvő épületre. Egy ingatlanszakértő szerint az orosz mágnás a helikopterleszállót hiányolja a Villa Castiglionéból, amelyet a Forbes magazin a világon tizedik legszebb itáliai kastélyként tart számon.
Roman Abramovics nem csupán meglehetősen rövid idő alatt halmozta fel figyelemre méltó vagyonát, de a jelek szerint hasonlóan gyorsan is kíván a nyakára hágni. A szédületes iramban költekező orosz milliárdos jachtok, luxusingatlanok, autók és magánrepülők olyan komoly kollekciójával rendelkezik, amellyel hasonszőrű társai közül sem sokan tudják felvenni a versenyt.
A világ 11. leggazdagabb embere, Roman Abramovics neve az utóbbi években amellett, hogy a pénzvilág egyik legígéretesebbje, a bulvárlapok címoldalán is igen jól mutat. Az orosz milliárdos példátlan világhírét mi sem indokolja jobban, mint szokatlan életútja (árvaházi kisfiúból gazdag üzletemberré nőtte ki magát), óriási vagyona és a széleskörű érdeklődésre számot tartó pazarló életmódja.Szinte nincs is olyan dollármilliós luxuscikk, amiből Abramovics ne rendelkezne minimum eggyel. Vagyonának értékét így a jól menő vállalatok mellett értékes ingatlanok, megajachtok, helikopterek, magánrepülők, limuzinok sokasága és egy saját futballklub, a brit Chelsea is növeli.Az alábbi cikkekben nem csupán Roman Abramovics ingó- és ingatlanvagyonáról, hanem életéről is számos érdekességet olvashatnak.

Carl Icahn

Carl Celian Icahn (born February 16, 1936) is an American billionaire financier, corporate raider, and private equity investor. His net worth is US$14 billion as of 2008, making him the 46th richest man in the world.
Icahn was raised in Far Rockaway, Queens, New York City. He was educated at Princeton University (A.B., Philosophy, 1957) and New York University School of Medicine, where he dropped out before graduation.
Icahn began his career on Wall Street in 1961. In 1968, he formed Icahn & Co., a securities firm that focused on risk arbitrage and options trading. In 1978, he began taking control positions in individual companies. He has taken substantial or controlling positions in various corporations including: RJR Nabisco, TWA, Texaco, Phillips Petroleum, Western Union, Gulf & Western, Viacom, Uniroyal, Dan River, Marshall Field, E-II (Culligan and Samsonite), American Can, USX, Marvel Comics, Revlon, Imclone, Federal-Mogul, Fairmont Hotels, Kerr-McGee, Time Warner and Motorola.
Icahn made extensive use of financier Michael Milken's junk bonds. After the junk bond and overall market bust in the early 1990s, Icahn played a lower-profile role in the business world, preferring to be less public in his dealings.
Icahn developed a reputation as a ruthless corporate raider after his hostile takeover of TWA in 1985.[1] The result of that takeover was Icahn systematically stripping TWA of its assets and selling them off.

As of 2007, Icahn and his affiliates currently own majority positions in firms including ACF Industries, American Railcar Industries, XO Communications, Philip Services, and NYSE-listed Icahn Enterprises, formerly known as American Real Estate Partners.
Icahn is a director of Blockbuster Inc., and the Chairman of Imclone, Icahn Enterprises LP, XO Communications Inc, WestPoint Home Inc., Cadus, and American Railcar Industries. Also he is a beneficial owner of Adventrx Pharmaceuticals Inc, Vector Group Ltd and has had significant holdings in Time Warner Inc. He has casino interests in Las Vegas, Nevada (pending sale), including the Stratosphere, Arizona Charlie's Boulder and Arizona Charlie's Decatur, which are operated through American Entertainment Properties, a subsidiary of Icahn's major company American Real Estate Partners. Icahn has also tried to take over Marvel Comics, coming into conflict with Avi Arad, Ron Perelman, and Ike Perlmutter.[3]
In 2004, Icahn purchased a large block of stock in a pharmaceutical concern, Mylan Laboratories, after Mylan had announced a deal to acquire another company in that market, King Pharmaceuticals, of Bristol, Tennessee. Icahn threatened a proxy fight over the acquisition, saying that the contract required Mylan to over-pay. He also contended that Mylan's chief executive, Robert J. Coury was significantly overcompensated and that Mylan's corporate governance was otherwise badly flawed.
In early 2005, Mylan gave up its efforts to acquire King, but management said this was a result of its ongoing monitoring of relevant facts, not due to pressure from Mr. Icahn.
In 2006 Icahn sold his stake in KT&G (Korea Tobacco & Ginseng) for a significant quick one year profit.
Icahn made an attempted run as a major shareholder of Time Warner owning about 3.3% of the company valued at billions of dollars. He has been actively attempting to influence the direction of Time Warner, often in conflict with its former Chief Executive, Richard Parsons. Although Time Warner recently sold 5% of its AOL division, Icahn has been pressing for additional action to increase shareholder value. On February 7, 2006, a group led by Icahn and Lazard Frères CEO Bruce Wasserstein unveiled a 343-page proposal calling for the breakup of Time Warner into four companies and stock buybacks totaling approximately $20 billion. On February 17, 2006, the Icahn-led group agreed with Time Warner to not contest the re-election of TW's slate of board members at the 2006 shareholders meeting. In exchange for the Icahn group's cooperation, Time Warner will buy back up $20 billion of stock, nominate more independent members to the board of directors, cut $1 billion of costs by 2007, and continue discussions with the Icahn group over their proposal, particularly on the future of Time Warner Cable.


Piaci pletykák szerint jelentős részesedést vásárolt a dúsgazdag befektető, Carl Icahn a Yahoo-ban, ugyanis szavazati harcra készül a társaság július 3.-i közgyűlésén annak érdekében, hogy saját képviselőit bejuttassa a menedzsmentbe, amellyel a remények szerint nyomást tud gyakorolni a vezetőségre a felvásárlási történetben - írja a CNBC. A Microsoft ugyanis még február elején ajánlatot tett a cégre, de nem született megegyezés az akvizícióról, miután a Yahoo túlságosan alacsonynak találta az árat. Nem ez lenne az első eset, hogy Carl Icahn ilyen módon segédkezik egy felvásárlásban, például a tavalyi évben abban is nagy szerepet játszott, hogy az Oracle akvirálni tudta a BEA Systems-et. A hírre a Yahoo részvényei 5%-kal értékelődtek fel a tegnapi napon.

A CNBC meg nem nevezett forrásokra hivatkozva közzétette, hogy információi szerint Carl Icahn, a dúsgazdag befektető szavazati harcot készül vívni a Yahoo éves közgyűlésén. Carl Icahn nem kommentálta a híreszteléseket. Piaci pletykák szerint a befektető szignifikáns részesedést kezdett kiépíteni az internetes keresőóriásban, amely közel 50 millió részvényt jelenthet. A Yahoo árfolyama a tegnapi napon több mint 5%-kal emelkedett a hírre. Bár más, aktív befektetők is fontolgatták korábban, hogy harcba kezdenek a Yahoo teljes vezetőségének lecserélése érdekében, de úgy tűnik, hogy visszaléptek a tervüktől, miután nem kaptak a Microsofttól semmilyen visszajelzést, hogy támogatná lépésüket. Néhány héttel ezelőtt a Yahoo visszautasította a Microsoft felvásárlási ajánlatát arra hivatkozva, hogy az ajánlati ár túlságosan alacsony. A feltételezések szerint Carl Icahn három vagy négy vezetői széket pályázhat meg a 10 tagú igazgatóságból. Ugyanakkor ez meglehetősen kockázatos stratégia, ugyanis amellett, hogy a Microsoft esetleg felvásárolhatná az online keresőóriást, nem igazán látszik, hogy sok lehetősége van a részvényesi értékteremtésre rövid távon - írja a CNBC. Amennyiben azonban Carl Icahn megszerez három vagy négy vezetőségi széket, jó eséllyel gyakorolhat nyomást a menedzsmentre, hogy fogadja el a Microsoft ajánlatát. Sok részvénytulajdonos nem fogadta örömmel, hogy a Yahoo vezetősége megakadályozta a felvásárlást, ugyanakkor a befektetők egy kis, de aktív csoportja azt nyilatkozta tegnap, hogy nem fognak új jelölteket állítani. Többek között Eric Jackson véleménye szerint egy szavazati háború annak érdekében, hogy új menedzsment kerüljön kinevezésre, túlságosan költséges lenne és mérlegelni kell az előnyöket és a hátrányokat. Még abban az esetben is, ha a befektetők lekésik a csütörtöki határidőt az új igazgatók jelölésére, akkor is lehet harc annak érdekében, hogy nemmel szavazzanak a Yahoo jelenlegi menedzsmentjének újraválasztására. A társaság belső szabályai szerint ugyanis abban az esetben, ha egy jelenlegi tag nem nyeri meg a szavazatok többségét, fel kell ajánlania lemondását. Carl Icahn, a milliárdos befektető a múltban is követett hasonló stratégiát, az ő segítségével tudta véghez vinni például az Oracle a BEA Systems felvásárlását.