Billionaire Sam Zell remembered as real estate tycoon, University of Michigan donor

Nov 27, 2023

FILE - Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments, and chairman of Equity International, smiles during an interview by Neil Cavuto, on the Fox Business Network, in New York, on Aug. 6, 2013. Zell, a Chicago real estate magnate who earned a multibillion-dollar fortune and a reputation as "the grave dancer" for his ability to revive moribund properties, died on Thursday, May 18, 2023. He was 81. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)AP

ANN ARBOR, MI - Sam Zell, a billionaire Chicago real estate magnate, is best known by his moniker "the grave dancer" for resuscitating dead properties.

The University of Michigan alumnus was also one of the university's largest donors, giving tens of millions to his alma mater.

Zell died Thursday, May 18, due to complications from a recent illness, according to his company Equity Group Investments. He was 81.

"Sam Zell was a self-made, visionary entrepreneur," the company wrote in a May 18 statement. "He launched and grew hundreds of companies during his 60-plus-year career and created countless jobs. Although his investments spanned industries across the globe, he was most widely recognized for his critical role in creating the modern real estate investment trust, which today is a more than $4-trillion industry."

Zell was born in Highland Park, Ill. on Sept. 28, 1941, to Polish immigrant parents escaping the Nazi invasion, according to the Associated Press. His father was a jeweler and real estate investor, the AP reports.

Zell began his ascent as an entrepreneur as a University of Michigan student in the 1960s, according to a university bio. He managed his own student apartment in exchange for free rent and built that into an apartment-management firm, the AP reports.

Zell graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1963, a law degree in 1966 and had a brief stop at a Chicago law firm. He later shifted his focus to form a partnership with fraternity brother Robert Lurie to acquire apartments throughout southeast Michigan.

Zell founded Equity Group Investments in 1968. Throughout the 1970s, he and Lurie took failing properties from developers burdened by high interest rates and made them financially successful, the AP reported.

"I’m a professional opportunist," Zell told The Associated Press in 2007. "I’m pretty sure that no matter what topic you pick, we’re involved in some way or another."

In the 1980s, he purchased a slew of properties after the savings and loan crisis, and in the 1990s, he encouraged investors to pool their money for commercial real estate when the sector was struggling, the AP reports.

Zell sold Equity Office in 2007 for $39 billion, personally netting him $1 billion, the AP reports. Later that year, he bought Tribune Co. for $13 billion, which filed for bankruptcy in 2008.

Zell was valued at more than $5 billion at the time of his death, according to Forbes.

The partnership with Lurie later resulted in them founding the Samuel Zell & Robert Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studies at the university's Ross School of Business in 1999 with Lurie's widow, Ann. Zell gifted $60 million to the business school for the program.

The Zell Lurie institute shared a quote from Zell on May 17 about the importance of entrepreneurship.

"The bottom line is if you’re really good at what you do, you have the freedom to be who you really are," he said according to the institute.

Zell is survived by his wife Helen, who gifted $50 million to the university's creative writing program in 2013. He is also survived by his sister Julie Baskes, his sister Leah Zell, his three children Kellie, Matthew and JoAnn and his nine grandchildren.

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