Les is still a very rich man but he has lost a TON of money since being #322 on the Forbes 400 back in September '06 with an estimated net worth of 1.2 billion. He owns about 15 million shares of FMD which is on the fast track to bankruptcy. Back in '06 FMD was worth about 750 million to him. Today, this stock has declined nearly 90% since then. That leaves the Rockets franchise as basically the sole source of his net worth. I don't think the failure of his primary investment will effect his Rockets decisions but I wanted to start this topic since I saw FMD was getting killed again today down over 35% and now below 5 bucks.
Les is a very smart man, and I'm sure he's dumped a LARGE quantity of those 15 Million shares over the past 2 years. Heck, he may have seen all of this coming, and gotten out before things got really bad. One thing I have learned is never under-estimate the intelligence of men richer than me (minus athletes, rockstars, and actors, of course). They got there for a reason, and they know how to protect their wealth.
he still holds 15 million shares. he did manage to sell about 2 million shares between Sept 06 and Dec 06 but as of his last filing in Dec 06 he still holds 15 million shares.
actually i just double checked on the bloomberg terminal and he still owns 18.2 million shares. good thing he bought the rockets!
That is abosultely correct, if Les can hold on his billions will reappear. When oil is up, everyone else is down.
Les was worth 1.2 billion? I thought his net worth was only 300 some mil a couple years ago. He has made some investments in China, so those could turn out to be cash cows for him in the future. Les will not trade Yao, period.
I'll happily take the Rockets off Les' hand if he needs some quick cash. Say 200 bucks and a RPD calender?
http://chinalegal.blogspot.com/2008/03/private-equity-firms-hot-in-hong-kong.html If between 2003-2007 Rocket Capital had invested at least $100m. By the end of 2008 Les could possibly have half a billion invested in China.
i bolded that part which basically implies they are underwater in their investments. i figured they were down pretty good in their investments since the first article said they put $200 million to work in '07 and that 2nd quote you posted pretty much confirms it. also, i believe that net worth estimate is not correct since it's not on the forbes site and it contrasts with the FMD losses. and i was trying to find CBA's stock but i guess it's not listed in the US anymore. i know more than a few ADRs quit listing on the NYSE and CBA was obviously one of them.
I wonder if Les holds a lot of Florida real estate as well. Right now, that's not the best market in the world, especially Palm Beach, Broward and Miami-Dade Counties.