Jerry Speyer

Jerry Speyer
Born	June 23, 1940 (1940-06-23) (age 71) Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Columbia University
Occupation	Real estate developer
Net worth	US$1.8 billion (2011)[1]

Jerry I. Speyer (born June 23, 1940) is an American real estate tycoon. He is one of two founding partners of the prominent New York real estate company Tishman Speyer. Speyer is also the owner of the Chrysler Building and Rockefeller Center.

Early life

According to a 1998 profile in The New York Times, "[Speyer's] mother is Swiss, and his father comes from one of the old Jewish families of Frankfurt; his father fled Germany in 1939. Speyer grew up in a cultivated and proper German-Jewish household on Riverside Drive. He graduated from the prestigious private high school Horace Mann School. At Columbia University, he majored in German literature and joined Zeta Beta Tau, a Jewish fraternity. Speyer was one of those people who were solid, and even solemn, at an age when others are still flailing and unsure of themselves." ^[2] Speyer graduated from Columbia College in 1962 and received an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1964.

Business career

Speyer began his career in 1964 as Assistant to the Vice President of Madison Square Garden. Speyer has served as President & CEO of Tishman Speyer since his father-in-law Robert Tishman and he formed the company in 1978.

Speyer is deputy chair and a member of the Executive Committee of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vice chairman of the New York Presbyterian Hospital, chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, and vice chair on the Board of Trustees of the Rand Corporation. Speyer is also chair of the Executive Committee and chairman emeritus of Columbia University, chair emeritus of the Real Estate Board of New York, and past president of the Board of Trustees of the Dalton School.

Speyer sits on the board of Carnegie Hall, alongside Sanford Weill, the former chairman of Citigroup, with whom he has a close business relationship (see External Links below). His other board affiliations include Siemens AG and the Real Estate Roundtable, and have included YankeeNets, the New York Presbyterian Foundation, Inc., and the Urban Land Institute. He is a member of the Economic Club of New York, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

On October 17, 2006, Speyer signed a deal to buy Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, 12,232 apartments in 110 buildings along the East River in Manhattan, for $5.4 billion.^[3] In January 2010, Speyer defaulted on the loan, losing millions for the investors.^[4]

Speyer campaigned for former New York State Governor, Eliot Spitzer, paid for a political exhibition in Grand Central Terminal, and was a member of Governor Spitzer's cabinet. As a political advisor, Speyer is immune from investigative questions in the Governor's "troopergate" scandal.

Speyer is also chairman of the Museum of Modern Art, and chair emeritus of the influential Partnership for New York City, founded by David Rockefeller.

Wealth

Speyer has an estimated net worth of $1.8 billion in 2011, according to Forbes.^[1]

Family

Speyer is married to the socially connected Katherine G. Farley, who sits on the Executive Committee of Lincoln Center.

Farley graduated from Brown University in 1971, and continued her studies at the Masters of Architecture Program of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, graduating in 1976. She served as manager of new business development for East Asia and the Pacific for Turner International Industries, before joining Tishman Speyer in 1984.

She is a senior managing director at the Tishman Speyer, responsible for the company's real estate activities in Latin America, and for the company's expansion into other emerging markets, chairs the company’s Compensation Committee, and is a member of the Management, Investment, and Executive Committees.

She is also chairwoman of Lincoln Center's redevelopment. In addition, she is on the executive committee of the International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief and resettlement organization; is chairman emerita of Women in Need, which helps homeless women and children in New York City; is a vice president of the Brearley School, and a member of the Board and Executive Committee of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. Farley served on the boards of Lincoln Center Theater and the New York Philharmonic.

The couple met at Tishman Speyer. They began dating in 1988, a year after the divorce of Speyer and Lynne Tishman, whose great-grandfather Julius Tishman founded Tishman Realty and Construction, of which Tishman Speyer is a spinoff. They were married in 1991.

They have a daughter named Laura (18); he has three older children from his previous marriage, Robert, Valerie and Holly.

See also

• Rockefeller Center
• Museum of Modern Art
• Lincoln Center
• Carnegie Hall

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Jerry Speyer profile - Forbes Forbes.com. Retrieved 30 April 2011.
2. ^ Traub, James (December 20, 1998). "The Anti-Trump". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F02EED7143DF933A15751C1A96E958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=print. Retrieved November 23, 2008. 
3. ^ Bagli, Charles V. (October 17, 2006). "110-Building Site in N.Y. Sold to Speyer for $5.4 Billion". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/17/nyregion/18stuycnd.html?ei=5065&en=191ed9bdf9f7ccbb&ex=1161748800&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print. Retrieved November 23, 2008. 
4. ^ "Tishman Speyer Sends Break Up Letter To Stuyvesant Town, Peter Cooper Village Residents". The Huffington Post. January 26, 2010. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/26/tishman-speyer-sends-brea_n_437722.html. Retrieved January 29, 2010. 

External links

• Tishman Speyer official site;
• Megadeal: Inside a Real Estate Coup, New York Times, December 31, 2006 Profiles Tishman Speyer and Jerry and Rob Speyer and the purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village in Manhattan.
• New York's Cultural Power Brokers New York Times article on Jerry Speyer of Tishman Speyer Properties and his many connections to Sanford Weill of Citigroup, as well as to David Rockefeller through the Museum of Modern Art and Rockefeller Center.

Persondata
Name	Speyer, Jerry
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Date of birth	June 23, 1940
Place of birth	Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Date of death
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