wilbur ross

Wilbur Ross
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
This article may require cleanup to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please improve this article if you can. (March 2006)

Wilbur L. Ross, Jr. is an AmeWilbur Ross, the American billionaire and chairman and chief executive of New York-based WL Ross & Co, is known for buying up companies in industries such as coal, steel and textiles.

Dubbed the King of Bankruptcy by clients during his quarter century at Rothschild, the investment bank, the 69-year-old specialises in turning troubled companies around.

In 2004, he completed the $4.5 billion sale of International Steel Group to Indian mogul Lakshmi Mittal to create the world's largest steel company.

More relevant to the Northern Rock bid, he was also the lead investor in the purchase and turning around of the failed Kofuku Bank from the Japanese Government, rebranding it as Kansai Sawayaka Bank in Osaka

Toscafund Asset Management LLP, the UK hedge fund chaired by Sir George Mathewson, the former chairman of Royal Bank of Scotland, concentrates on investment in financial service companies.

Founded in May 2000, Toscafund's total funds invested exceed ￡3 billion. Toscafund returned a high-performing 8.4 percent last month, while its involvement with Northern Rock and its purchase of a stake in a UK buyout firm Penta Capital has raised its profile.

A leading direct investment firm focusing on China, First Eastern Investment Group is chaired by Hong Kong businessman, Victor Chu. First Eastern recently teamed up with European companies, including Siemens and BASF, to launch a fund aimed at taking advantage of growing ties between Europe and the mainland.

AIG Financial Products Corp (AIG-FP) is a wholly owned subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), the world's biggest insurer by market capitalisation.

While it is not an equity investor in Virgin's Northern Rock bid, it will play a part in financing the deal. AIG-FP provides clients with corporate finance, investment, and financial risk management solutions. It also acts as a principal investor in the energy and infrastructure sectors.

Last year, AIG took over from Vodafone as the sponsor of Manchester United, paying ￡56.5m over four years for the privilege � the biggest shirt sponsorship deal in English football
rican investor known for restructuring failed companies in industries such as steel, coal, telecommunications. foreign investment and textiles. He specializes in leveraged buyouts. In 2005, Forbes magazine listed Ross as one of the world's billionaires for the first time.[1]

Ross grew up well-off in suburban New Jersey. His father was a lawyer and his mother a schoolteacher. He serves on the board of advisors of Yale School of Management. His second wife was former New York Lt. Governor Betsy McCaughey Ross, whom he divorced in 2000.[2]

Contents
1 Education
2 Rothschild Investments, LLC
3 WL Ross & Co, LLC
3.1 International Steel Group
3.2 International Textile Group (ITG)
3.3 International Auto Components Group (IAC)
3.3.1 Lear
3.3.2 Collins & Aikman Europe
3.3.3 Safety Components International
3.3.4 Oxford Automotive
3.4 International Coal Group
3.4.1 Sago Mine disaster
4 Political activities
5 Organizational Memberships
6 References
7 External links



[edit] Education
Ross commuted two hours a day from New Jersey to attend the Catholic Xavier High School in Manhattan. He ran track and was captain of the rifle team. He earned a B.A. from Yale College, which was also his father's alma mater. At Yale, Ross edited one of the literary magazines and worked at the radio station. Initially, he wanted to be a writer, but after his experience in a fiction class requiring 500 words daily, he concluded that he had "run out of material." A faculty adviser at Yale got him his first summer job on Wall Street. Ross earned his M.B.A. at Harvard Business School.[2]


[edit] Rothschild Investments, LLC
Starting in the mid-'70s, Ross built his reputation as the country's foremost bankruptcy adviser. Ross saw himself as cleaning up the messy results of Michael Milken's junk-bond financings, but by 1997 he wanted to do more than just cajole others into doing it his way. For three years he ran a private-equity fund within Rothschild. But Ross couldn't invest in deals on which the firm was advising, shutting him out of one in three bankruptcies.[2]


[edit] WL Ross & Co, LLC
In 2000, Ross bought out his equity fund and opened WL Ross & Co. in New York with $440 million in investor money and a staff that included four top managers who, along with Ross, make up the firm's investment committee: David H. Storper, who runs trading; David L. Wax, a longtime workout specialist; Stephen J. Toy, an Asia expert; and Pamela K. Wilson, a J.P. Morgan & Co. veteran.[2]


[edit] International Steel Group
Wilbur Ross at first had support to the local Steelworkers Union, negotiating a deal with them to "save" Pennsylvania's steel industry.[2]

Ross sold the Richfield, Ohio-based International Steel Group to Mittal Steel Company for $4.5 billion April 2005. Ross has not sold any of his Mittal shares.[3]


[edit] International Textile Group (ITG)
Ross combined Burlington Industries and Cone Mills in 2004 to form International Textile Group. ITG operates five businesses, all of which operate under separate brand names: Cone Denim, Burlington Apparel Fabrics, Home Furnishings, Carlisle Finishing and Nano-Tex LLC. The company entered into a five-year, $150 million credit facility led by Bank of America. Other lenders in the bank group include GE Capital Corporation and The CIT Group. Corporate offices are located in Greensboro in the previous Cone Mills headquarters building and in an adjacent office complex.[4]


[edit] International Auto Components Group (IAC)

[edit] Lear
Wilbur L. Ross, Chairman of International Automotive Components Group ("IAC"), announced on Oct 16, 2006 the completion of the previously announced acquisition of Lear Corporation's European Interiors Systems Division on a debt-free basis in exchange for 34% of the stock in IAC. The transaction will expand IAC's presence in Europe to 20 facilities in 9 countries with approximately $1.2 billion in annual revenues.

In early 2007, Lear completed the transfer of substantially all of its former North American Interior Systems Division to International Automotive Components Group North America. The deal involved 26 manufacturing plants and two Chinese joint ventures. Lear also contributed $27 million in cash for a 25% interest in IAC North America and warrants for an additional 7%.[5]


[edit] Collins & Aikman Europe
On November 28, 2005 the joint venture by Ross, Franklin Mutual Advisers LLC, and Lear Corporation, announced an agreement to acquire from Collins & Aikman Europe ("C&A") its $600 million operations in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom serving Ford, General Motors, DaimlerChrysler, Porsche, Saab, Volkswagen, Volvo and other original equipment manufacturers. The exchange is subject to approval of the local insolvency authority and the Austrian Court.

Wilbur L. Ross, Chairman of IAC said, "We are delighted to make IAC's first acquisition within a month of announcing the joint venture company. We also are appreciative that the automobile industry has decided to support our efforts. This is the start of a major global factor in the automotive interior plastics industry."[6]

The Joint Venture has also bought the subsidiary of C&A in Brazil.

Reportedly, Ross is also considering the profit potential of Delphi.


[edit] Safety Components International
On December 2, 2005, Zapata Corp. Chairman, Avie Glazer, announced the sale of 4,162,394 shares, 77.3%, of Safety Components International to Ross for $51.2 million. Safety Components, an independent manufacturer of air bag fabrics and cushions, is headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina and has plants located in North America, Europe, China and South Africa.[7]


[edit] Oxford Automotive
Ross owns 25% of Oxford Automotive, a French company, which is in talks to be taken over by Britain's Wagon.[8]


[edit] International Coal Group
Ross founded the International Coal Group, which has now gone public. His relationship with the UMWA has not been friendly; they have bitterly protested the bankruptcy regulations that had allowed him to set up the International Coal Group free of labor unions, health care and pensions.


[edit] Sago Mine disaster
Following the Sago Mine disaster, the New York Post's Roddy Boyd reported that Ross "had been intimately involved with the company that owned the West Virginia mine where 12 miners perished ― and he knew all about its safety problems, former executives charged." The article also reported that the mine had 12 roof collapses in 2005, and that the U.S. Department of Labor data showed 208 citations for safety violations in that same period, including 21 times for build-up of toxic gasses. Despite these figures, Ross refused to shut down the mine.[9] The Department of Labor and the State of West Virginia, as well as Congress are currently investigating the disaster.


[edit] Political activities
Ross has served under U.S. President Bill Clinton on the board of the U.S.-Russia Investment Fund, and later, under New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani as the Mayor's privatization advisor.[10] January 1998 he put $2.25 million in seed money into McCaughey Ross's campaign.