A. Alfred Taubman
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A. Alfred Taubman is an industrialist and philanthropist from Metro Detroit who became rich developing shopping malls. His company is Taubman Centers Inc.
He has been on the list of Forbes 400 Richest Americans for two decades. He studied architecture at the University of Michigan and Lawrence Technological University, but graduated from neither. His wife is the former Judy Mazor (a former "Miss Israel" beauty pageant winner).
He bought the famous Sotheby's auction house in 1983, acting as a "White Knight" when the company was threatened by a hostile and unwanted takeover by Marshall Cogan and Steven Swid of General Felt. At the time he was also the owner of A&W Restaurants, which he had purchased in 1982.[1][2].
He revived the fortunes of Sotheby's, which had been slumping in the eighties, and he took the company public in 1998. He was fined US$7 million and imprisoned for a year in 2002 ([1]) for violating anti-trust laws (for conspiracy to fix commissions with rival Christie's). Allegedly, Taubman initiated the conspiracy in 1993 with then-Christies executive Anthony Tenant. When the investigations began, Christie's executives offered to cooperate, eventually implicating Taubman.
In October 2003, his real estate company survived a hostile takeover bid by the Simon Property Group and Westfield America ([2]). His family divested controlling interest in Sotheby's by September 2005 ([3]).
He has developed a reputation as a philanthropist. At the University of Michigan, the Taubman Medical Library, Taubman Health Care Center and Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning are named after him. The university elected to retain Taubman's gifts and his name after considerable deliberation and review.
He also contributed money to The Taubman Center for Public Policy at Brown University, and The Taubman Center for State and Local Government at Harvard University. The A. Alfred Taubman Student Services Center at Lawrence Technological University was under construction in 2006 ([4]).
Contents |
[edit] See also
[edit] Trivia
Actress Sigourney Weaver took an interest in the Sotheby's-Christie's story while the trial was under way and an HBO film version of the story was under consideration in 2002. It appeared to fall through because the key informant, Diana Brooks, refused to speak with the star ([5],[6]).
Dede Brooks spoke to Kieth Curran who was writing the screenplay for the HBO project at the request of Sigorney Weaver. She is quoted in the document as saying, "I know what I did was illegal, but I still don't think it was wrong." The movie was put in turn around by HBO under pressure from the Taubman PR team, working through Christopher Mason, who is a friend of HBO's Colin Callendar. A lot of people thought Mason, who is also a friend of Taubman's step daughter, New York socialite Tiffany Dubin, was being paid by Taubman to be sympathetic to his side. The screenplay is in turnaround and under consideration for both a broadway play and an opera. Taubman as bass, Davidge as Tenor, Dede as Alto, and Judy as Soprano
[edit] Further reading
- Christopher Mason, The Art of the Steal, 2004, Putnam (ISBN 0-399-15093-5).
- Threshold Resistance by A. Alfred Taubman is scheduled to be published in April 2007 by Harper Collins.
