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Sam Zell was an American billionaire investor and the founder of Equity Group Investments, Equity Residential, Equity International, Equity LifeStyle Properties, and Equity Office Properties Trust. He served as a chairman for most of his companies. Zell was considered one of the creators of real estate investment trusts (REITs). As of April 2023, Zell's net worth was $5.2 billion.
Zell was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 28, 1941. His parents were Polish refugees who escaped from their town by train mere hours before Adolf Hitler's army bombed the tracks running through town. They arrived in the United States in 1941 four months before Zell's birth. The family later moved to the Albany Park neighborhood, then to Highland Park where Zell attended and graduated high school. He attended the University of Michigan where he received a bachelor of arts and science, as well as a doctor of jurisprudence.
While attending the University of Michigan, Zell began managing a small apartment building in exchange for free room and board. He soon began managing more properties, developed a business for it, and sold it. By the time Zell graduated college in 1966, he had managed 4,000 apartment buildings. After selling his business, Zell began working at a law firm but quit after one week, deciding to remain focused on real estate investment. In 1968, he founded Equity Group Investments, a private real estate investment firm. He teamed up with one of his fraternity brothers from college to acquire distressed properties throughout the 1970s and 1980s, taking advantage of the housing market crash that began in the early 1970s. By the end of it, the two held a portfolio of a variety of apartment, office, and retail buildings.
In 1968, Zell founded Equity Group Investments, a private real estate investment firm. Eventually, the firm began investing in several other industries, including finance, transportation, energy, and media. The company's formation resulted in Zell's development of several other real estate companies.
Zell founded Equity Office Properties Trust in 1976. He sold the company in 2007 for $39 billion in the largest leveraged buyout in corporate history at the time. Now known as just Equity Office, the company owns and develops office space buildings.
Founded in 1984, Equity LifeStyle Properties is a company that owns approximately 450 properties across North America including manufactured home communities, RV resorts, campgrounds, and marinas.
Zell cofounded Equity Residential with Robert Lurie in March 1993. The company was taken public in August 1993. Equity Residential owns, develops, and operates over $31 billion worth of apartment buildings.
Zell founded Equity International in 1999 with the purpose of expanding his real estate businesses to emerging international markets. Equity International has invested in companies including BR Malls, Mexico Retail Properties, SAMHI, and Estapar Estacionamentos.
In 2014, Zell took over CommonWealth REIT, a real estate investment trust with commercial office properties in the United States. He renamed the company Equity Commonwealth and became chairman of the board.
In 2007, Zell acquired Tribune Company for $13 billion. Tribune Company is the owner of the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, WGN America, and the Chicago Cubs. Zell acquired the debt-ridden company in the hopes of reviving it, but Tribune Company filed for bankruptcy in 2008.
Zell was a philanthropist, primarily focusing on entrepreneurial education, for which he developed several programs at various universities including the University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, and Reichman University. He was a major donor to the University of Michigan, which he was an alum of. He also headed the Zell Family Foundation.
On May 18, 2023, Zell died at his home due to complications from an illness. He was eighty-one. He is survived by his wife Helen, two sisters, three children, and nine grandchildren.
