Saul Steinberg (business)

Saul Phillip Steinberg (born Brooklyn, August 1939) is a Jewish American businessman who first became wealthy in the 1960s by leasing IBM computers. He proved so creative at the practice that his company, Leasco, became valuable enough in 1968 for him to use its stock to buy Reliance Insurance, a 150-year-old Philadelphia firm. He was just 29 years old. At the time, Forbes reported that he made more money on his own that year than anyone in America under 30.

Steinberg finished a degree from Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania, graduating within three years while on scholarship and working two jobs. He graduated from the Wharton School at age 18, and has not only been a major benefactor of the school, but was also the head of the board of Wharton for over 15 years. In his 15-plus years as head of Wharton the school became ranked as number one in the nation.

Steinberg used Reliance as his base of operations. In 1969, he mounted a takeover of Chemical Bank, then one of the nation's largest financial institutions. Chemical and its allies in the establishment beat him back. President Nixon personally called Steinberg to dissuade him from continuing with his acquisition. In a now famous quote in Business Week, Steinberg said, "I always knew there was an Establishment ... I just used to think I was a part of it." For the next 30 years Steinberg used Reliance, and its steady cash flows, to finance numerous acquisitions and attempted acquisitions, including Flying Tigers, Days Inn, Telemundo, Frank B. Hall, Pargas, the Disney Company, and many others, in the process gaining a reputation as a greenmailer.

After having a stroke, Saul handed over control of the company to his brother Robert Steinberg after which Saul had limited involvement in the company. Robert managed to take down a 5 billion dollar company within four years. It filed for bankruptcy in 2001, a year after Steinberg was forced to sell his art collection and sell his duplex apartment on Park Avenue in Manhattan to Stephen A. Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group. Since then he has attempted a comeback with Wisdom Tree Investments which is run by his son Jonathan Steinberg. His full business biography is featured in "Master Investors."

In April 1988, his daughter Laura Steinberg, a Warner Bros. story analyst, married Jonathan Tisch, son of Loews President Preston Tisch and nephew of then-CBS President Lawrence Tisch, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Temple of Dendur. He also has four other children from three separate wives and two children from his current wife Gayfryd Steinberg; his children from his most recent wife include self-described New York socialite Holden Steinberg and Rayne Steinberg whom he adopted when marrying Gayfryd. Saul was previously married to an Italian, Laura Sconnochia Steinberg and had one child, Julian Steinberg from that marriage. His children from his first wife Barbara Steinberg, his high school sweetheart, include Jonathan, Laura and Nicholas.

His daughter-in-law is CNBC host Maria Bartiromo, married to son Jonathan "Jono" Steinberg.

References

Gross, Michael; "740 Park: The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building", New York: Broadway Books, 2005.

ee also

* [http://www.insurancejournal.com/magazines/southcentral/2001/07/23/features/18590.htm Insurance Journal: Reliance Files For Bankruptcy]
* [http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2000/06/26/283034/index.htm Fortune Magazine article]