Twelve years ago, Nicolas Berggruen sold his apartment, which was filled with French antiques, on the 31st floor of the Pierre Hotel in Manhattan. He did the same with his Art Deco house on a private island near Miami. From that point on he would be homeless.
Berggruen can afford to live like this because he’s chairman of Berggruen Holdings, a New York-based private equity firm that buys troubled companies and fixes them up. Currently it owns more than 30, including an Australian farming operation, a British life insurer, and a German department store chain.
BloombergBusiness tells Berggruen’s remarkable story.
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