Stephen A. Schwarzman

Stephen Schwarzman (2008)

Stephen Allen Schwarzman (born February 14, 1947 in Philadelphia ) is an American entrepreneur , investment banker and patron . He is the co-founder, chairman and CEO of the investment firm Blackstone Group .

Life

Career

Schwarzman came from a Jewish family and is the oldest of several siblings. His father and grandfather ran a retail shop for clothes, curtains, drapes and handkerchiefs together. The monotony of this work, with which he assisted a few times, and the constant waiting for customers, he said, annoyed Schwarzman even as a child.

After graduating from Abington Senior High School in Philadelphia in 1965, he enrolled at Yale University . There, Schwarzman studied an interdisciplinary main subject combination of psychology , sociology , anthropology and biology and was, among other things, a member of the Skull & Bones student union together with George W. Bush, who joined the group one semester earlier . During his time at Yale, he applied unsuccessfully to Pan American World Airways , among others . With a bachelor's degree , he left the university in 1969 and switched to postgraduate studies at Harvard Business School , which he completed with an MBA in 1972 .

Schwarzman's first professional position was the investment bank Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette , where he already worked during his time at Harvard. After graduating, he joined Lehman Brothers . There he rose quickly, from 1977 worked primarily in the Mergers & Acquisitions division and was appointed Managing Director in 1978 at the age of only 31 .

Together with Peter George Peterson , he founded the Blackstone Group in 1985 with start-up capital of US $ 400,000 , which primarily made debt- financed acquisitions through private equity funds and later sold the companies for a profit. The actions of investment companies like the Blackstone Group gave rise to the locust debate in Germany in April 2005 . At the time, Franz Müntefering referred to financial investors as “locusts”. In this context, Schwarzman asked Chancellor Angela Merkel in November 2006 how it could be that he was viewed as an insect by a minister in her cabinet.

In the run-up to the IPO on June 22, 2007, the company had to publish the payrolls of its board members for the first time. A mandatory report to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission revealed that Schwarzman received a salary of 398.3 million US dollars in fiscal 2006 - about four times more than the salaries of all 30 DAX bosses added together and solved a lot of media coverage. When he went public, he sold Blackstone shares for $ 684 million and retained a block of shares that was worth $ 9.1 billion at the time. Also in 2007 he was included in the Time 100 list. In the following years, his remuneration increased even further: In 2007 he received 350 million US dollars and in 2008 - also due to the allocation of shares - 702.4 million US dollars. His salary was $ 734.2 million in 2015, $ 425 million in 2016, and $ 786 million in 2017.

Schwarzman was Chairman of the Board ( s .: Chairman of the Board of Trustees) of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and beyond for some time adjunct professor at the Yale School of Management .

Private life

Schwarzman was married to Ellen Philips Katz; both had met at Harvard Business School. The divorced marriage has their son Edward Frank "Teddy" Schwarzman (* 1979), who works as a film producer, and a daughter Elizabeth "Zibby" (* 1976). On November 3, 1995, he married the lawyer Christine Hearst, who brought two children into the marriage. The ceremony was held by a rabbi and a Roman Catholic priest. The couple has lived in a 34-room apartment in the 740 Park Avenue building in New York City since 2000 , which Schwarzman bought from businessman Saul Steinberg for $ 30 million. In addition, they both own a villa in Saint-Tropez, France, and a 4,000 square meter property in Palm Beach . On February 13, 2007 he celebrated his 60th birthday in the New York Seventh Regiment Armory , a former armory . Among the almost 1,500 guests were the then incumbent US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson , the then incumbent US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice , her predecessor Colin Powell , Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the Archbishop of New York Edward Michael Egan . The highlights of the evening were the performances of Rod Stewart and Patti LaBelle, who were specially engaged for 1 million US dollars . The total cost of the event was $ 3 to 5 million . In this context, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote of "probably the biggest party Manhattan has seen for decades".

On March 11, 2008, Schwarzman announced that he had donated $ 100 million to the New York Public Library for renovation and expansion. As a result, the main building on Fifth Avenue was renamed the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building . His name was also engraved on the base of the pillars flanking the entrance.

Schwarzman is considered to be affiliated with the Republican Party , but has also supported democratic politicians. For example, he first supported Bill Bradley's candidacy for the 2000 presidential election, and after his defeat in the primary elections, he supported Al Gore . Four years later he financed the election campaign of his former fellow student George W. Bush , in the 2008 presidential election John McCain's candidacy and on the occasion of the 2012 presidential election he spoke out for Mitt Romney . In August 2010, Schwarzman compared US President Barack Obama's plans to increase taxes on private equity funds with the attack on Poland ("It's a war. It's like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939.")

In 2013, Schwarzman announced that he would privately raise $ 100 million for a new study program. He wants to promote the intercultural educational exchange with China, in which every year 200 students from different countries - including 45 percent from the USA - get a one-year study place in Beijing. In addition to the $ 100 million private donation, Schwarzman wanted to raise $ 200 million through private donors and companies. The program is based at Tsinghua University .

Schwarzman celebrated his 70th birthday in February 2017 with 400 guests on his Palm Beach estate; among the guests were u. a. Ivanka Trump with husband Jared Kushner and the Treasury Secretary in the Trump cabinet , Steven Mnuchin . The musical highlight was the performance of Gwen Stefani . The cost of the event ranged from $ 7 million to $ 9 million.

capital

On the Forbes list in 2018, the net assets of Stephen Schwarzman with about 13.4 billion is US dollar rates. This puts him at number 117 on Forbes' list of the richest people in the world.

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Herrscher der Welt GmbH" on faz.net ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ) of November 21, 2006. Retrieved on July 1, 2012.
2. ↑ "Blackstone boss picks up $ 400 million" on spiegel.de ( Der Spiegel ) from June 11, 2007. Retrieved on March 30, 2012
3. ^ "Blackstone's Chief Received $ 350 Million in Pay in 2007" on nytimes ( New York Times ) March 13, 2008. Retrieved March 30, 2012
4. ↑ "US managers collected over 700 million dollars" on welt.de ( Die Welt ) on August 14, 2009. Retrieved on March 30, 2012
5. ^ "Blackstone Group CEO Schwarzman took home $ 786 million in 2017" on reuters.com ( Die Welt ) March 1, 2018. Retrieved October 29, 2019
6. ↑ “740 Park - The Story of the World's Richest Apartment Building” on mgross.com . Retrieved March 30, 2012
7. ↑ Nick Mathiason: Private equity tycoons flying too close to the sun ( English ) The Guardian . November 18, 2007. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
8. ^ Daniel Schäfer "The King of Wall Street Celebrates Party" on faz.net ( Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung ) on February 11, 2007. Accessed on March 30, 2012
9. ^ "A 'Fat Cat' Strikes Back" ( March 30, 2012 memento on the Internet Archive ) on thedailybeast.com ( The Daily Beast ) August 15, 2010. Retrieved March 30, 2012.
10. ^ "Blackstone founder Schwarzman: 300 million for 10,000 China students" on netz-trends.de of April 22, 2013. Accessed on April 22, 2013
11. ^ Schwarzman Scholars Announces Inaugural Class to Study in China . New York Times, January 10, 2016
12. ↑ Laura M. Holson: Camels, Acrobats and Team Trump at a Billionaire's Gala ( English ) The New York Times . February 14, 2017. Retrieved August 15, 2018.
13. ↑ Stephen A. Schwarzman's profile on forbes.com ( Forbes ). Retrieved August 9, 2018