Sam Zell (original) (raw)
- Sam Zell was the forefather of the modern real estate investment trust, or REIT. He died in May 2023 at age 81.
- The son of Polish refugees, Zell's family escaped by train hours before Hitler's army bombed the tracks that ran through their town. They reached the U.S. by way of Japan in 1941.
- While studying at the University of Michigan, Zell managed a 15-unit student apartment building in exchange for a free room. His enterprise was netting $150,000 by graduation.
- He launched Equity Group Investments in 1968, then expanded his real estate empire nationwide over the following decades.
- His $39 billion sale of office REIT Equity Office to Blackstone just before the market crashed in 2007 was among the largest real estate deals ever.
- Around the same time, he led an $8.2 billion buyout of newspaper owner Tribune Company, which soon went bankrupt.
Wealth History
HOVER TO REVEAL NET WORTH BY YEAR
Forbes Lists
Personal Stats
Source of Wealth
Real estate, private equity, Self Made
8
3
Citizenship
United States
Children
3
Education
Bachelor of Arts/Science, University of Michigan; Doctor of Jurisprudence, University of Michigan
Did you know
Zell's nickname, The Grave Dancer, dated to 1975 when he wrote that his success came from reviving 'corpses' left behind by the last real estate crash.
In Their Own Words
When you look at The Forbes 400 list and take off everybody who inherited money, what's left are people who went right when everyone else went left. Conventional wisdom leads to mediocrity.
Sam Zell