Sam Zell, real estate mogul and onetime Trubune owner, is dead at 81

Bob Goldsborough | Chicago Tribune

Sam Zell ran a Chicago-based real estate empire that he began building when he was still a college student, along the way gaining a reputation as a brash and scrappy operator unafraid to make gutsy investment calls.

Those investments included taking the Tribune Co., private in 2007 in a leveraged buyout. Despite selling a number of assets, the company filed for bankruptcy in late 2008 as the newspaper industry crashed.

Zell, 81, died of an unknown cause on Thursday, May 18, according a statement released by the company he founded, Equity Residential.

Zell was born to Jewish immigrants from Poland, and grew up in Albany Park and later in north suburban Highland Park. After graduating from Highland Park High School, Zell attended the University of Michigan for both his undergraduate and law degrees.

Perhaps known most for his real estate investments in areas like offices, apartments and manufactured housing, Zell perpetually gazed at other industries in a relentless drive for making money. That led to investments in radio stations, cruise ships, seafood restaurants and the fertilizer business.

An iconoclastic executive, Zell’s personal style ran to motorcycle clothing and a liberal use of four-letter words. But to Zell, thinking differently was what enabled him to make his mark.

“Even as a child, I looked at things differently,” he told the Tribune in 2004. “I had so much innate self-confidence. Why is someone doing it the way they’re doing it? I can do it better.”

Goldsborough is a freelance reporter.