When I sat down to write this article the first thought I had was: Who is Nicolas Berggruen and why have I never heard of him? I fancy myself a worldly fellow, who is at least somewhat in touch with what is going around him, so why have I not heard of this billionaire who is buying up massive amount of land in my backyard? And that’s when I realized something that shook me to my core – millionaires are often more famous than billionaires.
Think about it, most people would probably recognize the cast of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills before they recognized Nicolas Berggruen – yet his net worth is probably more than the entire cast added together!
So I did some research for all of you, and here’s the skinny on Nick (is it OK if we call you that Mr. Berggruen? ;-), he is a 54 year old billionaire who grew up in Paris, has dual citizenship in the U.S. and Germany, has made most of his fortune in High Finance, and has one of the best nicknames out there: The Homeless Billionaire.
Why is he called by such a strange nickname? Well because until the birth of his children, Nick lived out of a series of luxury hotels without a permanent residence! In fact he is even quoted as having said that if it wasn’t for his kids he would still be doing so! Well folks, the Homeless Billionaire has just flown a flag that shows Los Angeles is his home and will be for a long time: he just bought 450 Acres of land near the Getty Center in the Santa Monica Mountains.
On the land he plans to build The Berggruen Institute, an institution that will engage in rethinking and finding solutions to the political and economic problems faced by a government of today, but built on the ideologies of yesterday. Since such grand ideas can only be conceived in an equally grand space, Nick has tapped Herzog & de Mueron (of the Beijing Olympics “Birds Nest” stadium) to build the institute.
As if that wasn’t enough, Berggruen has committed $500,000,000 of his own to the institute, which if you ask me means he is building more than an institution – he is building a legacy. He rounded up some of his billionaire club friends this past Tuesday night at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel, including Alphabet Inc.’s CEO Eric Schmidt, and had the Mayor of LA and the Governor of California both speaking their as well.
Ther is no doubt that this is a big story for Los Angeles, and even more so for property owners in the nearby vicinity, but we still have some questions about all of this and at the top of the list is:
What are we going to call you now that LA is officially your home? The Billionaire W/ A Home? IT DOESN’T WORK NICK, IT JUST DOESN’T WORK!
*Stay tuned for updates as development unfolds and details are divulged!*
-JJM
John is the Vice President here at JohnHart, and as such is responsible for managing and directing the firm towards obtaining its ultimate goals.
He is also one of our main contributors on the Blog. (please see his profile page on the main site for more information.)
