China's female realty tycoon is richer than Donald Trump or Oprah! WOW

China is not only rising to soon become the world's ultimate biggest economic superpower, it is also changing socially, economically and culturally with the emergence of equal opportunities for women as shown by more and more successful women entrepreneurs.

Here I wish to share the inspiring, remarkable sage of a self-made real estate businesswoman in modernizing China.

China's "rags-to-riches" real estate billionaire Zhang Xin, image below sourced from money.cnn.com

Another Zhang Xin image below, sourced from cbsnews.com

This image below of Zhang Xin, sourced from forbes.com

The article below is from CNN:

Richer than Trump or Oprah: Meet China's female property magnate

From Pauline Chiou, CNN

 

July 3, 2013 -- Updated 1429 GMT (2229 HKT)

Richer than Trump or Oprah

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

• Zhang Xin runs China's largest real estate developer with her husband
• Worth $3.6 billion, she is the world's seventh richest self-made woman
• She grew up in poverty during China's Cultural Revolution

Beijing (CNN) -- Zhang Xin grew up in poverty and at the age of 14 began a laboring job in a factory. Today, she is richer than Donald Trump, Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey.

Zhang, a Chinese real estate developer, is the seventh richest self-made woman in the world, worth $3.6 billion, according to Forbes. She's worth $800 million more than Oprah Winfrey, the world's best known self-made female billionaire.

Not only does Zhang's rags-to-riches story mirror that of China itself, but it is Zhang who has shaped much of the country's modern urban landscape, with the logo of her company SOHO China on the side of buildings wherever you turn in Beijing.

SOHO China has 18 developments in Beijing, many of them landmark buildings, and has recently expanded to Shanghai, where it has bought or built 11 properties.

China's real estate opportunities

Galaxy SOHO, designed by Pritzker Prize winning architect Zaha Hadid for Zhang' SOHO China, was built in 2012 on a 50,000 square meter plot in central Beijing. It was Hadid's first building in Beijing.

With its gracefully merging dynamic form devoid of corners, Galaxy SOHO, has become a landmark building in on Beijing's East 2nd Ring Road.

SOHO China's development Commune by the Great Wall is a collection of 42 villas by 12 Asian architects with a private pathway to the Great Wall of China. This villa is called Suitcase House by Hong Kong architect Gary Chang.

Commune by the Great Wall was exhibited at the 2002 Biennale di Venezia, where it received a special prize.

SOHO Peaks, currently under construction and due to open in 2014, is a second building by the architect Zaha Hadid, midway between Beijing city and airport.

The design of SOHO Peaks, by architect Zaha Hadid, is based on Chinese fans that circle and embrace each other.

Sky SOHO, due for completion this year, is a third development designed by architect Zaha Hadid, this time in Shanghai. The design is based on calligraphy.

Sanlitun SOHO, completed in 2010, comprises of five shopping malls and nine office or apartment buildings of varying heights in Beijing.

Sanlitun SOHO has become one of the liveliest shopping streets in Beijing, with its five malls linked with a rollerskating rink and mesmerizing courtyard.

China's changing skyline

Landmark buildings

Luxury on the Great Wall

Prize-winning architecture

Future peaks

Chinese fans

Shanghai style

The future of shopping

Beijing's new night sky

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China's changing skyline

Two of her Beijing projects -- one completed last year and another under construction -- are designed by the Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid.

Zhang, 47, was born in Beijing just before Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution, when educated people like her parents were sent to the fields for "re-education." She returned to Beijing with her mother, but they endured poverty and hardship.

Banking boss: Nothing scares me

"I was born and grew up when the city was very quiet: no cars, no shops, no lights, no machines. People were just on bicycles," she said.

Tina Brown: 'Taking risks comes easily'

Read: 'Taking risks comes too easily,' says editor Tina Brown

At 14, she and her mother moved to Hong Kong, where she spent five years in low-paid factory jobs, manufacturing toys, clothes and electronics, trying to save enough to go to England for an education.

I was born and grew up when the city was very quiet: no cars, no shops, no lights, no machines.
Zhang Xin

"As a new immigrant to Hong Kong with no education, no background, didn't even speak the local language or dialect, Cantonese, and it was just a hard way to live in Hong Kong," said Zhang.

It took Zhang five years to save enough for a plane ticket to London and an English language course. She won a scholarship to university, studied for a master's degree in economics at Cambridge University and landed her first job at Goldman Sachs in New York.

Instead of remaining in her comfortable life in Wall Street, Zhang returned to Beijing, where she met her husband, and together they started SOHO China.

"There was excitement of people talking about how to change China, and it was a very intellectually vibrant time," she said. "I felt that this country was really making a transition, and I wanted to be a part of that."

Since Zhang and her husband, Pan Shiyi, formed SOHO China in 1995, it has become China's largest commercial real estate developer, with 56 million square feet in prime developments in Beijing and Shanghai.

While Zhang's story is incredible -- giving her celebrity status in China -- it is not unique. Of Forbes' 2013 list of 24 self-made female billionaires, six are from China (including one from Hong Kong), more than any other country outside the United States.

"I think women of our generation went through Cultural Revolution, went through hardship, coming from nowhere, and suddenly see China's amazing opportunity," said Zhang. "So women just seized the opportunity."

I felt that this country was really making a transition and I wanted to be a part of that.
Zhang Xin

Read: In search of the female Indiana Jones

Zhang has a following of more than 5 million on Weibo, the Chinese social media site often compared with Twitter, where she shares her views on business, current affairs and architecture.

But despite her financial success, Zhang, who practices the Baha'i faith, avoids excessive trappings of wealth, even suggesting her 14-year-old son find a job in McDonald's or KFC. He tried, but was too young to be accepted.

"It's not easy to be my sons because we're very high profile. We try so hard to give them a normal life," she said.

"I'm very, very tight with them about money. I don't give that money until they ask, 'I need 100 yuan for my lunch card,' and so on. So they never have extra money. But I think that still cannot compare to how we came, where we came (from)."

Inspiring family business saga! The 30-year-old Lynsi Torres is called the billionaire "Burger Queen" of America due to the inspiring business success of her closely-held family enterprise In-N-Out Burger, wow!

(Image below of Lynsi Torres sourced from huffingtonpost.com)





(Image below sourced from gearpatrol.com)







(Image below of the mansion of Lynsi Torres , plus the logo of her In-N-Out Burger super-imposed, sourced from la.curbed.com)






Below is an interesting article featuring the inspiring success story of In-N-Out Burger:

Youngest American Woman Billionaire Found With In-N-Out

By Seth Lubove - Feb 5, 2013 5:50 AM GMT+0800 Bloomberg News

Play

Lynsi Torres' Rise to Billionaire Burger Queen

Lunchtime at the flagship In-N-Out Burger restaurant in Baldwin Park, California, is a study in efficiency. As the order line swells, smiling workers swoop in to operate empty cash registers. Another staffer cleans tables, asking customers if they’re enjoying their hamburger. Outside, a woman armed with a hand-held ordering machine speeds up the drive-through line.

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Bloomberg Billionaires Editor Matthew G. Miller talks about Billionaire Drag Racer and In-N-Out Burgers President Lynsi Torres. He speaks on Bloomberg Television's "In The Loop." (Source: Bloomberg)

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- John Gordon, founder of San Diego-based restaurant consultant Pacific Management Consulting Group, talks to Bloomberg's Seth Lubove about In-N-Out Burger restaurant's 30-year-old owner Lynsi Torres and the possibility she will maintain ownership after gaining full control of the franchise in five years. Torres's most visible presence has been on the drag strip. She competes in the National Hot Rod Association’s Super Gas and Top Sportsman Division 7 categories. (Source: Bloomberg)

Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Watch Bloomberg's Joe Wiesenthal, Tom Keene, Max Abelson, Stephanie Ruhle and Erik Schatzker sample the best burgers on Wall Street. They eat on Bloomberg Television's "Market Makers." (Source: Bloomberg)

Youngest American Woman Billionaire Revealed With In-N-Out Chain

Adam Lau/AP Photo

Cars line up in the drive-thru lane at In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park, California.

Cars line up in the drive-thru lane at In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park, California. Photographer: Adam Lau/AP Photo

Such service has helped In-N-Out create a rabid fan base -- and make Lynsi Torres, the chain’s 30-year-old owner and president, one of the youngest female billionaires on Earth. New store openings often resemble product releases from Apple Inc. (AAPL), with customers lined up hours in advance. City officials plead with the Irvine, California-based company to open restaurants in their municipalities.

“They have done a fantastic job of building and maintaining a kind of cult following,” said Bob Goldin, executive vice president of Chicago-based food industry research firm Technomic Inc. “Someone would love to buy them.”

That someone includes billionaire investor Warren Buffett, who told a group of visiting business students in 2005 that he’d like to own the chain, according to an account of the meeting on the UCLA Anderson School of Management website.

The thrice-married Torres has watched her family expand In- N-Out from a single drive-through hamburger stand founded in 1948 in Baldwin Park by her grandparents, Harry and Esther Snyder, into a fast-food empire worth more than $1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Biblical Citations

Famous for its Double-Double cheeseburgers, fresh ingredients and discreet biblical citations on its cups and food wrappers, In-N-Out has almost 280 units in five states. The closely held company had sales of about $625 million in 2012, after applying a five-year compound annual growth rate of 4.6 percent to industry trade magazine Nation’s Restaurant News’s 2011 sales estimate of $596 million.

In-N-Out is valued at about $1.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg ranking, based on the average price-to-earnings, enterprise value-to-sales and enterprise value-to-earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization multiples of five publicly traded peers: Yum! Brands Inc. (YUM), Jack in the Box Inc., Wendy’s Co. (WEN), Sonic Corp. (SONC) and McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) Enterprise value is defined as market capitalization plus total debt minus cash.

One private equity executive who invests in the food and restaurant industry said the operation could be valued at more than $2 billion, based on its productivity per unit, profitability and potential for expansion. The person asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak about his company’s potential investments.

Plane Crash

“In-N-Out Burger is a private company and this valuation of the company is nothing more than speculation based on estimates from people with no knowledge of In-N-Out’s financials, which are and always have been private,” Carl Van Fleet, the company’s vice president of planning and development, said in an e-mailed statement.

Torres, who has never appeared on an international wealth ranking and declined to comment for this article, came to control In-N-Out after several family deaths. When her grandfather Harry died in 1976, his second son, Rich, took over as company president and expanded the chain to 93 restaurants from 18.

Torres’s father, Harry Guy Snyder, became chief executive following Rich’s 1993 death in a plane crash at age 41. The chain expanded to 140 locations under Guy, who inherited his father’s passion for drag racing.

Ford Cobra

When he died of a prescription drug overdose at age 49 in 1999, Snyder’s estate included 27 cars and other vehicles, including a 1965 Ford Cobra and a pair of 1960’s-era Dodge Dart muscle cars, according to his will.

Torres’s grandmother Esther -- Harry’s widow -- maintained control of the company until her death in 2006 at age 86. When she died, Torres was the sole family heir. She now controls the company through a trust that gave her half ownership when she turned 30 last year, and will give her full control when she turns 35.

The company has no other owners, according to an Arizona state corporation commission filing.
Few in the restaurant industry have met or know much about the hamburger heiress.

“I have no clue about her,” said Janet Lowder, a Rancho Palos Verdes, California, restaurant consultant, who said she was one of the few people to extract the company’s internal finances from Esther Snyder in the 1980’s for industry-wide surveys. “I was even surprised there was a granddaughter.”

Limited Menu

Technomic’s Goldin said the lack of visibility extends to management.
“I’ve been in the industry a long time, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of their people at an industry meeting,” he said. “They’re very quiet. That’s their culture.”

Torres has little formal management training and no college degree. The company was structured to carry on after the demise of its founders, according to a 2003 Harvard Business School case study. In-N-Out has never franchised to outside operators, the Harvard researchers said, giving up a low-cost revenue stream in exchange for maintaining quality control.

In a 2005 article in the Harvard Business Review, Boston- based Bain & Co. consultants Mark Gottfredson and Keith Aspinall attributed the company’s estimated 20 percent profit margins at the time to the simplicity of its limited menu. Contrast that with competitors such as Oak Brook, Illinois-based McDonald’s and Miami-based Burger King Worldwide Inc. (BKW), which regularly change their food offerings.

Over-sized Tires

“Other chains seem to change positions as often as they change their underwear,” said Bob Sandelman, chief executive officer of San Clemente, California-based food industry researcher Sandelman & Associates.

Butchers carve fresh beef chuck delivered daily to the company’s distribution facility in Baldwin Park, where hamburger patties leave for restaurants on 18-wheeled refrigerated trucks outfitted with over-sized tires so the In-N-Out logo can be better seen on the highway. The company only expands as far as its trucks can travel in a day, either from the Baldwin Park complex or a newer facility in Dallas, the only two places where the company makes hamburger patties.

‘Calculated Growth’

In-N-Out expanded to Texas in 2011, after building a warehouse and the patty facility. There are now 16 units in the state. Conrad Lyon, a Los Angeles-based senior restaurants analyst for B. Riley Caris, said additional expansion will continue to be gradual.

“I would expect slow, calculated growth,” he said in a phone interview. “To outsiders the company’s growth out West likely appears sluggish. However, it was management carefully leveraging its brand, real estate and distribution. As a private company-owned system, In-N-Out has the luxury of calling the shots to replicate its success without succumbing to potentially detrimental outside influences.”

The company’s pace of expansion was one of the issues at stake in an exchange of lawsuits in 2006 between Torres, In-N- Out executives and Richard Boyd, the company’s former vice president of real estate and development. Boyd was one of two trustees overseeing the trust that controls the company’s stock on behalf of Torres.

Complaints, Allegations

Among other allegations filed in California state court in Los Angeles, Boyd claimed Torres and Mark Taylor -- her brother- in-law from a half-sister -- conspired to remove Esther Snyder from the company to gain control of In-N-Out. He filed a separate petition with the probate court seeking to prevent Torres from removing him as a trustee.

Torres denied the allegations in both a formal answer to Boyd’s complaint and a 2006 letter to the editor published in the Los Angeles Times, in which she said she only had “minimal involvement” in the company’s business decisions, and didn’t favor rapid expansion.

The company in turn filed a breach of contract lawsuit against Boyd, alleging fraud and embezzlement in connection to Boyd’s relationship to one of In-N-Out’s outside construction firms. Boyd’s lawyer, Philip Heller of Fagelbaum & Heller LLP in Los Angeles, said all the litigation was dismissed following a confidential settlement. Boyd resigned from the company and the trust.

“They were all in the end amicably resolved,” Heller said.

16 Bathrooms

Since then, Torres has refused most interview requests, even by author Stacy Perman, who wrote a 352-page book about In- N-Out in 2009. Torres asked to set up a meeting with the author after the book’s publication, but it never occurred, Perman wrote in an afterword to the 2010 paperback edition.

Torres popped up in real-estate blogs in September, after buying a $17.4 million, 16,600-square-foot mansion in the wealthy enclave of Bradbury, California, in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. A Realtor.com listing for the house described it as having seven bedrooms, 16 bathrooms, a pool, a tennis court and other amenities.

Torres is one of almost 90 hidden billionaires discovered by Bloomberg News since the debut of the Bloomberg Billionaires Index in March 2012. Among them: Dirce Camargo, the richest woman in Brazil, and Elaine Marshall, the fourth-richest woman in America.

Like Camargo and Marshall, Torres maintains a low profile. Her most visible presence has been on the drag strip. She competes in the National Hot Rod Association’s Super Gas and Top Sportsman Division 7 categories, alternating between a 1970 Plymouth Barracuda and a 1984 Chevrolet Camaro, according to NHRA results. Her third husband, Val Torres Jr., is also a race- car driver.

‘Open Question’

She also inherited her Uncle Rich’s interest in religion, funding a non-profit organization called Healing Hearts & Nations that proselytizes in Africa, according to a 2010 Form 990 foundation filing that lists Torres as the chief financial officer. Former In-N-Out executive Boyd alleged in his 2006 cross-complaint against the company that Torres attempted to fire him because he was not a “man of God,” and because he didn’t attend prayer meetings at her home. She denied Boyd’s claims in the company’s answer.

Whether the mother of twins will maintain ownership in the chain after she gains full control in five years is uncertain, said John Gordon, founder of San Diego-based restaurant consultant Pacific Management Consulting Group.

“It’s an open question whether she may have different feelings later,” said Gordon. “Like most kids, or second or third generations of a very wealthy family, I don’t know that she has restaurant blood in her veins, or if she’s a trust fund baby.”

Tale of an enterprising South African Jewish billionaire entrepreneur

South Africa Billionaire Unmasked Selling U.S. Groceries

By Robert LaFranco, Simon Packard and Renee Bonorchis - Nov 9, 2012 6:06 PM GMT+0800 Bloomberg

Four days after Hurricane Sandy slammed into New York City and the surrounding states, billionaire Nathan “Natie” Kirsh ambled through the aisles of a 75,000-square-foot Restaurant Depot warehouse he owns in College Point, Queens.

Dressed in a Gore-Tex jacket and loafers, the 80-year-old South African squeezed past dozens of independent restaurant owners picking through heaps of carrots, lobsters and hot dogs. A frenzied bottleneck formed as street vendors and restaurant chefs -- each handling several shopping carts full of goods -- vied for a spot in line to pay.

Enlarge image

South African Billionaire Nathan Kirsh

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Billionaire Nathan Kirsh said, “I want money, I just don’t want that money lying around. We are certain that inflation isn't going away, so it's smart to be borrowing cheaply and putting it into real assets."

Billionaire Nathan Kirsh said, “I want money, I just don’t want that money lying around. We are certain that inflation isn't going away, so it's smart to be borrowing cheaply and putting it into real assets." Photographer: Simon Dawson/Bloomberg

Enlarge image

Tower 42 In London

Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Billionaire Nathan Kirsh agreed in December 2011 to pay 282.5 million-pound for the landmark Tower 42, the first skyscraper constructed in the City of London, seen here right.

Billionaire Nathan Kirsh agreed in December 2011 to pay 282.5 million-pound for the landmark Tower 42, the first skyscraper constructed in the City of London, seen here right. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

“Chaos,” said Kirsh, who has a net worth of at least $5.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. “It’s fantastic -- and profitable.”

Through Brooklyn, New York-based Jetro Holdings, Kirsh controls 86 Restaurant Depots and 10 Jetro Cash & Carry stores, a chain that sells wholesale groceries to urban bodega owners. The closely held company generated at least $6.5 billion in revenue and $500 million in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization in the last 12 months, according to a person familiar with the company’s financial performance.

The retailer has a value of at least $5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, based on the average enterprise value-to-Ebitda and price-to-earnings multiples of two publicly traded peers: Issaquah, Washington-based Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) and Brampton, Ontario-based Loblaw Companies Ltd. (L)

One-Time Dividend

Jetro’s Ebitda margin is almost double that of Costco, the largest U.S. warehouse-club chain. Kirsh said Jetro generates bigger profits because the company doesn’t deliver or extend credit to customers. It also owns most of the land under its stores and sells more perishable goods.

“We are private, we are profitable and we have fun,” the billionaire, who has never appeared on an international wealth ranking, said in an interview at his office in North London in October. “We just don’t scream about what we do.”

Kirsh wants to expand his food wholesaling business to new markets and add to his real estate portfolio, which consists of properties on four continents worth hundreds of millions of dollars. He said the company is looking to build Jetro stores in Latin America and Asia, and wants to stock wine and spirits at its Restaurant Depots.

He raised $1 billion in a private debt placement in April as yields on U.S. corporate bonds fell, and used the proceeds to repay short-term debt and pay a one-time dividend to Jetro shareholders. Kirsh owns 63 percent of the company, and employees hold another 10 percent. Private equity firms CCMP Capital Advisors LLC and Leonard Green & Partners LP acquired 27 percent of Jetro in 2004.

Global Inflation

The billionaire is using some of the cash to buy property, which he said is a hedge against global inflation. He controls about 70 percent of the Jetro and Restaurant Depot warehouses, as well as residential and commercial real estate in the U.S., the U.K., South Africa and Australia.

“Our business in the U.S. is a big business that throws off cash and we strip that cash,” Kirsh said in London. “I just don’t want that money lying around. We are certain that inflation isn’t going away, so it’s smart to be borrowing cheaply and putting it into real assets.”

Kirsh’s empire extends beyond food and real estate. He owns 30 percent stakes in Crest JMT Leather, a U.K.-based tanner, and Holmes Place, an Amsterdam-based fitness chain. He also controls half of Mumbai-based pipe maker, KiTec Industries; 38 percent of Yehud, Israel-based Magal Security Systems Ltd. (MAGS), a security company he acquired from Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. in the late 1970s and listed on the Nasdaq in 1993; and 42 percent of Abacus Property Group (ABP) Ltd., the publicly traded Sydney-based real estate investment trust he helped to recapitalize in 2009.

Corn Milling

Kirsh made his first fortune in Africa. In 1958, he created a corn milling and malt business in Swaziland, a country 250 miles east of Johannesburg. Twelve years later, he acquired a South African wholesale food distribution business and began supplying stores owned by black shopkeepers, which were opening because of the government’s apartheid political structure.

The business grew to become the country’s dominant retailer and, by the mid-1980s, included furniture retailing, supermarkets, discount stores, an insurance operation and commercial property developments.
In 1983, South Africa-based insurance company Sanlam Ltd. (SLM) acquired 49 percent of his food distribution operation. Not long after, Kirsh learned that a top executive had gone on a building spree, entering into agreements to construct 22 shopping malls when Kirsh had only given him permission to build one. All of the malls were guaranteed by company assets. The commitment eventually cost Kirsh most of his fortune.

Entrepreneurial Icarus

Two years later, the South African economy began to stumble. Banks stopped lending to companies and countries began levying sanctions in a stance against apartheid. As interest rates soared, Kirsh approached Sanlam, which had minority rights on major financing decisions, about using a rights issue to pay down the mall loans.

Sanlam executives instead offered to inject the capital into the company, taking most of the assets in return. In the negotiations, Kirsh won control of Jetro, which then consisted of five stores on the east coast of the U.S.

“That was the end of an era,” he said about the episode in Adventures in Businessland, a corporate video he made in 2011 to mark his 51-year career. “Twenty-five years of work was blown away in one day.”
Under the headline “The Man Who Fell to Earth,” Kirsh was portrayed on the cover of Financial Mail magazine as an entrepreneurial Icarus, his face recoiling in dismay as he plummeted from the heavens.

“I got pulverized,” he told students at the London Business School in a 2011 lecture. “Therefore, one becomes a little bit more cautious to make sure you are not going to get pulverized a second time.”

Distribution Systems

Defeated, Kirsh moved to New York to run Jetro. He said he saw an opportunity to exploit weakness in the food distribution business in the U.S., which favored national grocery chains over smaller, independent stores.

“No one wants to run a huge truck out through Manhattan just to drop off four boxes, it just doesn’t make sense to them,” said Richard Kirschner, president of Jetro Holdings, in a telephone interview. “We were there to pick up the morsels.”

Jetro salesmen went from store to store talking up the benefits of shopping at their warehouse. The pitch: bodega owners no longer needed to buy more than they could sell, which would create more retail space in their stores. Without the burden of delivery costs and credit risks, Jetro was able to sell goods 20 percent cheaper than competing suppliers.

Restaurants, Bodegas

“When we arrived here, everybody just frowned on cash and carry as a meaningless form of distribution,” said Stanley Fleishman, Jetro Holdings CEO, who worked for Kirsh’s wholesale operation in South Africa and has been running the U.S. company since 1986. “The competition just blew us off as those guys selling second-tier product. That was the secret of our success.”

By the early 1990s, Jetro had grown to 10 outlets across the U.S. and was generating more than $400 million in revenue. Looking to modernize his management systems and fund expansion, Kirsh sold 80 percent of the business to Metro Holding AG, a Swiss supermarket business that was also a shareholder in Metro AG, one of Germany’s largest grocery conglomerates.

Jetro’s sales growth leveled off. Kirsh noticed that the restaurateurs shopping at his warehouses didn’t like jostling with bodega owners, who would shop less often and enter the checkout lines with ten-times the amount of goods.

Buffett Passes

He found a solution with Restaurant Depot, which he acquired in 1994, and turned into the company’s growth engine. Metro executives soon sold their interest back to Kirsh. Metro Holding has since been renamed Grospart AG, and is now a closely held investment company in Baar, Switzerland. A company spokesman said executives weren’t available for comment.

“I told them they were making a mistake,” Kirsh said. “The company was about to take off. I didn’t want them to come back in a few years telling me they were disappointed.”

Looking for capital to expand, Kirsh called on Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A) CEO Warren Buffett who, around 2003, passed on the opportunity to invest in Jetro. A year later, Kirsh sold a 27 percent stake to CCMP and Leonard Green. With the 2012 dividend, he said, the new partners have earned back more than their original investment. Buffett did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment. Both private equity firms declined to comment on the financial details of their investments in Jetro.

‘Stupid People’

Real estate, Kirsh said, is the only sector where “stupid people” can make money. In December 2011, he agreed to pay 282.5 million pounds ($455 million) for Tower 42 -- the first skyscraper constructed in the City of London -- and the five buildings that sit on its 2.2-acre plot. He paid cash, and later arranged a 20-year loan that covered about half of the acquisition cost. More U.K. property purchases are likely, according to Philip Lewis, Kirsh’s global head of real estate.

His other holdings include stakes in commercial properties in Western Australia, through a 50 percent stake in Jandakot, Australia-based Ascot Capital Ltd., and in San Diego, California, where he invested in a student and residential housing development near the campus of California State University San Marcos.

He has seen a 50 percent increase in the value of his stake in Abacus, the Australian REIT that controls two prime office properties in Sydney’s central business district, self storage locations and a shopping center in nearby Drummoyne.

Four Trusts

In October, Kirsh acquired a white-stucco fronted Georgian building next to London’s Madame Tussauds waxworks tourist attraction near Regents Park. The building will become the new headquarters for the Kirsh Group in June, bringing his disparate portfolio of assets and businesses under one roof for the first time.

The octogenarian said he has been thinking about succession, and plans to divide his assets into four trusts, leaving 75 percent of it to his family and the remainder to fund charities, including his favorite cause, helping entrepreneurs. None of his children work in the family business.

The operation, he said, will one day be managed by Ron Sandler, the former CEO of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market who was also appointed by the U.K. government as chairman of Northern Rock Plc, which was nationalized in 2008.

“We have properties all over the place, we are liquid and we do not have one unsuccessful business,” he said. “All of my businesses are profitable. I am in the best space I have ever been.”

US$5 billion question: What is self-made man Ramon Ang of San Miguel Corp. (SMC) of the Philippines planning to buy now? My guesses: A brewery in Asean? An Asian airline? An airport?

My Comments:
This self-made businessman Ramon Ang is amazing: he comes out of nowhere as engineer to become trusted executive of Eduardo "Danding" Cojuangco, Jr., he serves with total loyalty and remarkable success, he eventually rises to become the big boss of Southeast Asia's biggest and also oldest brewery and food conglomerate, he boldly diversifies San Miguel, and how he's on the way to becoming the possible No. 1 business leader in the Philippine economy with his most breathtaking corporate maneuvers! Whew!

My wild guess is it's possible San Miguel may buy the shareholdings of Japan's Kirin beer in the Singapore brewer of Tiger beer, since coincidentally Kirin beer is also a shareholder in San Miguel?









(Image of the September 2012 issue of Summit Media's Esquire Philippines magazine)

San Miguel Declines to Identify Acquisition Target

Oct 22, 2012 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) --

By Cris Larano

MANILA--San Miguel Corp. (SMC.PH) on Monday declined to name an acquisition target, citing confidentiality restrictions in the negotiations on the potential investment.

San Miguel President Ramon Ang told reporters Saturday that the Philippine conglomerate is planning a 5 billion acquisition that may be completed within the year, Bloomberg reported. He said San Miguel faces other regional companies in the bidding, but didn't name the target or the industry it is in, according to the report.

San Miguel "has been invited to participate and submit a bid for a possible investment...in line with the ongoing diversification programs and initiatives implemented by the company," San Miguel corporate secretary Virgilio Jacinto told the Philippine stock exchange on Monday.

"Owing to the confidentiality obligations imposed on the company, we are not in a position to disclose the salient features of the said investment opportunity," he said.

Over the past five years, San Miguel has moved away from food and beverage to heavy industries that provide higher returns for the conglomerate. It has acquired oil refiner Petron Corp. and bought minority stakes in power distributor Manila Electric Corp., toll road operator Citra Metro Manila Tollways Corp., Philippine Airlines Inc. as well as airports, power generation companies, and infrastructure development companies. In Malaysia, San Miguel last year took control of oil refiner Esso Malaysia Bhd.

Mr. Ang has said in previous interviews that the company was looking to acquire Asian firms with international operations as well as regional carriers to help Philippine Airlines launch more flights to the U.S. and Europe.

WOW! Billionaire Hedge Fund Tycoon John Paulson Donates US$100 Million for Central Park

My Comments:   I'm very impressed with this act! This guy is also a financial genius, a self-made businessman, a philanthropist from the Jewish minority, he's a business and civic leader.

Billionaire Paulson Donates $100 Million for Central Park

By Henry Goldman - Oct 23, 2012 10:53 PM GMT+0800 Bloomberg

Billionaire John Paulson and the Paulson Family Foundation are donating $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, the largest parks donation ever.

Paulson, 56, is founder of Paulson & Co., a New York-based hedge fund that manages $21 billion across 10 funds. Paulson was worth $11.8 billion yesterday, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. His contribution will help renovate and maintain park facilities and pay for recreation programs, said Doug Blonsky, president of the conservancy, which is responsible for its maintenance and operations. Half will bolster the park’s endowment, which now stands at $144 million, Blonsky said.

Billionaire Paulson Donates $100 Million for NYC’s Central Park

Rick Maiman/Bloomberg

John A. Paulson, president of Paulson & Co.

Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Billionaire John Paulson and the Paulson Family Foundation are donating $100 million to the Central Park Conservancy, according to a news release today. (Source: Bloomberg)

Keyur Khamar/Bloomberg

Residential buildings line Central Park in this aerial photo taken over New York.

“The Conservancy is responsible for transforming and sustaining Central Park as the celebration of culture, nature and democracy that it is today,” Paulson said in a statement. “It is my hope that today’s contribution will help it endure and flourish.”

The park’s 843 acres (341 hectares) stretch from 59th Street to 110th Street in Manhattan and make up a leafy oasis on an island of concrete. Conservancy crews care for 250 acres of lawns, 24,000 trees, 150 acres of lakes and streams and 130 acres of woodlands, according to its website.

“Central Park is a paradise unlike anywhere else in the world today,” said Paulson, whose Fifth Avenue apartment faces the park’s east side and overlooks its reservoir. “I wanted the amount to make a difference.”

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Paulson was raised in the middle-class Beechhurst section of Bayside, in New York’s Queens borough. As a child, his parents took him through the park in a stroller, he said. He was valedictorian at New York University and attended Harvard Business School.

After working in risk arbitrage at Bear Stearns Cos., Odyssey Partners and Gruss Partners, Paulson founded Paulson & Co. in 1994, with $2 million from friends and family.

Paulson in 2009 donated $20 million to New York University Stern School of Business and the following year, along with his wife, Jenny, donated $5 million to Southampton Hospital in New York, which named an emergency department after them.

Paulson also donated $15 million to a children’s and maternity hospital in Guayaquil, Ecuador, according to a Nov. 21, 2010 statement.

The nonprofit Central Park Conservancy was founded in 1980, according to its website. Its mission was to restore America’s foremost urban public space to the condition envisioned by its 19th-century designers, Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux. In 1998, the Conservancy and the city of New York signed a management agreement formalizing their then 18-year public- private partnership.

“Central Park has an enormous economic impact on our city -- 40 million annual visitors generating $1 billion in economic activity -- and that’s in large part due to the great work of the Central Park Conservancy, the Parks Department and the New York City Police Department, who have worked together since 1980 to restore Central Park to its glory and take it to new heights,'' Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in a prepared statement. The mayor is founder and majority of Bloomberg News parent Bloomberg LP.