Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Forbes 2017 2 28
Forbes 2017 2 28
IR E M E NT
ET
R
HIDE CASH
GU
2 01 7
FROM THE IRS
ID E
(LEGALLY)
BETTING TOO BIG
ON TRUMP?
BEST CITIES
AND WORST
STATES
GENE GENIUS
CRAIG VENTER
HE’S RAISED
$300 MILLION FOR
HIS LONGEVITY
STARTUP
HOW TO
CHEAT DEATH
THE MAN WHO MAPPED THE HUMAN GENOME IS BACK WITH A
$25,000 PHYSICAL THAT HE HOPES WILL ADD YEARS TO YOUR LIFE—
AND MAKE HIM A BILLIONAIRE.
I will find the right ingredients
to open my second restaurant.
ON THE COVER
74 | HOW TO CHEAT DEATH
Craig Venter, the man who mapped the human
genome, is back with a $25,000 physical he hopes
can extend your life—and make him a billionaire.
BY MATTHEW HERPER
LEADERBOARD
22 | THE BEST COUNTRIES FOR BUSINESS
Guess what? The United States isn’t anywhere near the top of the list.
24 | NEW BILLIONAIRE: CEILING CRASHER
Yoshiko Shinohara blazed a trail for female executives in Japan with her
staing firm. Now she’s the country’s first self-made female billionaire.
38 | CONVERSATION
Readers talk back to boastful young entrepreneur James Proud; our
30 Under 30 list indicates the Millennial-led future is going to be bright.
THOUGHT LEADERS
40 | CURRENT EVENTS // AMITY SHLAES
Millennials need this (GOP) break.
TECHNOLOGY
50 | GREEN GAS
A revolutionary $150 million power plant promises to
capture all its polluting carbon—and produce electricity
at the same low cost as a dirty facility.
BY CHRISTOPHER HELMAN
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INVESTING
58 | BRAND BOYS
In a market obsessed with tech startups, one emerging private equity firm
makes 40% per year with trendy products like gourmet jerky,
frozen Sriracha chicken and vegan makeup.
BY AMY FELDMAN
FORBES LIFE
65 | TOP OF THE WORLD
Travel Guide 2017: from Paris to Phuket, the 17 most luxurious hotels and
resorts opening this year.
BY ANN ABEL
FEATURES
80 | SHELDON YELLEN’S BIG SECRET
The CEO of one of the world’s largest disaster-cleanup companies built a
$320 million fortune with a helping hand from reputed Mafia figures years ago
and management tactics straight out of The Godfather today.
BY DAN ALEXANDER
RETIRE WELL
90 | ARE YOU BETTING TOO BIG ON TRUMP?
Most American investors own too much domestic stock.
How to diversify into everything from gold to real estate to Russia.
BY WILLIAM BALDWIN
LIFE
104 | A CUT ABOVE
After more than 30 years as the king of California cuisine,
Wolfgang Puck finally plants his steak in New York.
BY MAGGIE MCGRATH
110 | THOUGHTS
On longevity.
104
PAUL CHAPMAN,
Chief Information Officer,
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INSIDE SCOOP
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Steve Forbes
FORBES MAGAZINE
EDITOR
The First Amendment
Randall Lane BY LEWIS D’VORKIN
EXECUTIVE EDITOR
Michael Noer
ART & DESIGN DIRECTOR THE JOURNALISTIC PROFESSION is oten too narcissistic
Robert Mansield
for me, which is why I don’t engage much in media navel-
FORBES DIGITAL
VP, INVESTING EDITOR
gazing. Recent events leave me little choice but to do so. I was
Matt Schifrin transixed by the Women’s March last month—the wall-to-wall
VP, DIGITAL CONTENT STRATEGY TV coverage, the tweets, the texts. In the midst of all that a
Coates Bateman
VP, PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
new president touted his “running war” with the media and
Salah Zalatimo declared journalists “are among the most dishonest human be-
VP, WOMEN’S DIGITAL NETWORK ings on earth.”
Christina Vuleta
ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS We’ve actually been here before, though never with the
Kerry A. Dolan, Luisa Kroll WEALTH same intensity or vitriol. In 1970, Vice President Spiro T.
Frederick E. Allen LEADERSHIP
Loren Feldman ENTREPRENEURS Agnew, a hatchet man for Richard Nixon, let loose on journal-
Tim W. Ferguson FORBES ASIA
Janet Novack WASHINGTON
ists. He called them “nattering nabobs of negativism” who have
Michael K. Ozanian SPORTSMONEY “formed their own 4-H club—the hopeless, hysterical hypo-
Mark Decker, John Dobosz, Clay Thurmond DEPARTMENT HEADS
Avik Roy OPINIONS chondriacs of history.” What was stinging back then seems
Jessica Bohrer VP, EDITORIAL COUNSEL merely clever today.
BUSINESS I got into journalism during the tumultuous 1970s—war,
Mark Howard CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER
Tom Davis CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER social unrest and Watergate. I was exhilarated by the pur-
Jessica Sibley SENIOR VP, SALES EAST & EUROPE pose, responsibilities and powers of journalism. A Gallup poll
Janett Haas SENIOR VP, SALES, WESTERN & CENTRAL
Ann Marinovich SENIOR VP, ADVERTISING PRODUCTS & STRATEGY in 1976 found that 72% of Americans had a “great deal/fair
Achir Kalra SENIOR VP, REVENUE OPERATIONS & STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIPS
Alyson Papalia VP, DIGITAL ADVERTISING OPERATIONS & STRATEGY amount” of faith in mass media. Life is similarly challenging
Penina Littman DIRECTOR OF SALES PLANNING & ANALYTICS today, but trust in media has tanked. Gallup puts it at 32%,
Nina La France SENIOR VP, CONSUMER MARKETING & BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Michael Dugan CHIEF TECHNOLOGY OFFICER the lowest ever. Perhaps that’s why so-called fake news, a con-
FORBES MEDIA lation of fabricated-for-proit news and partisan beliefs, has
Michael S. Perlis CEO & EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN taken hold across the populace.
Michael Federle PRESIDENT & COO
Terrence O’Connor CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER Fake news isn’t new either. William Jennings Bryan, himself
Michael York CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
Will Adamopoulos CEO/ASIA FORBES MEDIA
a populist, used the term during political runs in the 1890s.
PRESIDENT & PUBLISHER, FORBES ASIA Today, it’s more than a problem for Facebook, under ire for
Rich Karlgaard EDITOR-AT-LARGE/GLOBAL FUTURIST
Moira Forbes PRESIDENT, FORBESWOMAN algorithmically distributing fake stories in its news feeds. Fake
MariaRosa Cartolano GENERAL COUNSEL
Margy Loftus SENIOR VP, HUMAN RESOURCES
news delegitimizes facts, which leads to claims of media dis-
Mia Carbonell SENIOR VP, GLOBAL CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS honesty, which produces “alternative facts,” which delegitimize
FOUNDED IN 1917 the media itself, which brings us to the First Amendment and
B.C. Forbes, Editor-in-Chief (1917-54)
Malcolm S. Forbes, Editor-in-Chief (1954-90)
freedom of the press.
James W. Michaels, Editor (1961-99) I discussed all this at a Forbes Town Hall meeting in Janu-
William Baldwin, Editor (1999-2010)
ary. I told our 400 employees there is only one answer: “Focus,
FEBRUARY 28, 2017 — VOLUME 199 NUMBER 2 focus on quality journalism—great reporting, great editing and
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FACT & COMMENT
“With all thy getting, get understanding”
THE MOVEMENT AFOOT in California ton wouldn’t collect the new duties; thus,
to have the state secede from the Union— what historians came to call the Nulliica-
advocates call it Calexit—is gaining public- tion Crisis was under way.
ity if not support. One poll shows 32% of Calhoun’s nominal boss, President
Democrats ready to vote yes on a pullout Andrew Jackson, who possessed a sul-
referendum. Petition signatures are being furic temper (he once killed a man in
collected to get the question of ditching a duel), threatened to personally hang
the good ol’ U.S.A. put on the ballot. One Calhoun and send federal troops into
secession-advocate group has received South Carolina to enforce the new law,
inancial support from—you guessed it— just as President George Washington had
Vladimir Putin’s Russia. done in rural Pennsylvania in 1794, when
he whole idea is preposterous. he he dispatched an army to enforce the
U.S. isn’t the EU. his union was meant from the start to be recently enacted—and highly unpopular—excise taxes on
perpetual, and even today’s history-challenged citizens may whiskey. A face-saving deal was made whereby Calhoun
recall what happened in 1861, when 11 states took a contrary and his fellow nulliiers backed down ater some minor
view. his whole thing is symptomatic of the tense—if not tarif modiications were made. Calhoun was spared the
hysterical—state of American politics today. (Indeed, the gallows, South Carolina didn’t face a hostile federal army
whole world seems to be lying apart, especially Europe.) (until the concluding months of the Civil War in 1865),
Meanwhile, secession or no, the Golden State, led by and President Jackson preserved the integrity of the Union.
Governor Jerry Brown, is threatening to withhold money here have been two other big nullifying movements,
from Washington if the Trump Administration follows as well as some minor ones, in our history. he irst one,
through on its promise to defund “sanctuary cities” that re- tragically, achieved success for several decades. Ater the
fuse to cooperate with federal oicials in enforcing immigra- Civil War, male African-Americans had the right to vote
tion laws, particularly identifying alleged criminals. Brown in Southern states (women didn’t get the franchise until
has boisterously bellowed that if Washington tries such a 1920 with the passage of the 19th Amendment). By the
thing, California will become a sanctuary state. late 1890s most of those men had been illegally disen-
Such selective deiance—ignoring national laws we don’t franchised. Not until the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was
like—by Brown et al., has a rather sordid history. It was once enacted was this profound wrong righted.
known as “nulliication,” a doctrine propagated in the 1820s he second nulliication campaign was the so-called
by arch-slavery-apologist John C. Calhoun, who posited that Massive Resistance response to the Supreme Court’s 1954
a state had the right to nullify federal laws it considered decision declaring forced school segregation by race to be
“wrong” and “obnoxious.” While Calhoun saw nulliication unconstitutional. he resisters were ultimately defeated,
as a weapon to preserve slavery, he originally conjured up starting with President Eisenhower’s use of federal troops
the idea in response to a tarif bill Congress had enacted that to enforce a school desegregation decision in Little Rock,
slammed a variety of imports with new or increased taxes. Arkansas, in 1957.
Southerners, far more dependent on imports than manufac- Will Jerry Brown have any more success with President
turing Northerners, were outraged and labeled the legislation Trump than Calhoun did with Jackson? Not likely. As a
the “Tarif of Abominations.” Calhoun, who was vice president Louisiana governor once quipped to a massive resister,
at the time, went further than verbal opposition and got his “he feds have got the bomb.” But a genuine showdown
home state of South Carolina to declare the law null and void would have ugly consequences, inlaming tensions even
in the Palmetto State. Customs agents in the port of Charles- more and making achieving a consensus on various immi-
gration reforms impossible. income tax system slams workers hard. trying to quit smoking. It gives users
Even though outright secession isn’t An individual making as little as around the kick from nicotine without inhal-
in the cards, the Golden State today is $41,000 a year inds himself in a higher ing all the tars and other substances that
ripe for demagogic mischief. California bracket than the richest ind themselves in make smoking cigarettes so lethal. Yet a
has always felt it was diferent from the almost all other income-tax states. Cali- perverse mind-set reigns among health
rest of the country, priding itself on being fornia boasts the highest state income regulators and fanatical antismoking
in the vanguard of social, economic and tax rate in the country: 13.3%. In 2016 crusaders: Against all honest scientiic
cultural trends. Millions of Americans three pro-tax referendums were passed. evidence, they equate vaping with light-
saw it as the land of opportunity and Other economic sins include banning ing up actual cigarettes. hey claim, with
moved there because of its beauty, be- fracking, even though the state is rich in no credible justiication, that e-cigarettes
nign climate, rapid growth and lifestyle natural gas, while looking favorably on are a gateway to the real thing.
diversity. It had everything: Hollywood, a proposed north-south bullet train that In August 2016, the FDA issued a rule
high tech, manufacturing, mobility, could cost well over $100 billion (estimates severely hampering the continued im-
aerospace, oil, bountiful agriculture, and rise on an almost daily basis) to carry far provement in vaping devices. It decreed
abundant and afordable housing. fewer passengers than originally projected. that all devices made ater February 2007
But in recent times the state has A few years ago voters approved a weird would now be subject to regulatory ap-
become a tax and regulatory backwater, election system that rivals Louisiana’s. In proval, adding huge costs and inhibiting
imitating the worst practices of stagnant 2016 the two U.S. senatorial candidates innovation. he products of a decade
Europe and such global powerhouses as in the general election were Democrats; ago were vastly inferior to those on the
Argentina. Bureaucrats in Sacramento no Republican was on the ballot. market today.
have worked hard to crush small business- No wonder most business owners say While the Trump rule-liberators are
es with silly and costly rules, such as man- they’d prefer to be elsewhere. Companies at it, they should also push for the elimi-
dating mandatory time of for employees such as Nestlé USA, Toyota, Northrop nation of two other regulations. One
ater four hours of labor. Minimum-wage Grumman and the parent company of concerns the making of boutique or pre-
laws unrelated to reality proliferate. No Carl’s Jr. have moved their headquarters mium cigars by small manufacturers. he
environmental rule or law is too inane, to friendlier climes. For the irst time efect of this ruling enormously increases
no matter how unrelated to science or ever, the state is sufering out-migration. costs for these micro-cigarmakers by
conditions in the real world. Such decrees he middle class is shrinking. subjecting them to a wholly unnecessary
are ruining agriculture. With a straight hanks to Silicon Valley and a few approval process for new blends.
face, regulators are issuing edicts to re- other oases, California is experiencing he other capricious diktat encom-
duce eluents from cows, in the name of a mild economic uptick. Unfortunately, passes new rules that require tobac-
saving the planet from overheating. this is the equivalent of a bear-market conists who mix pipe tobaccos in their
he state’s water shortages are self- rally. Lousy tax system, lousy regulatory shops to undergo an FDA registration
inlicted: Billions of gallons are lushed climate, dysfunctional political system. process, as though they were tobacco
into the ocean, because that suppos- hank goodness California can’t exit manufacturers.
edly helps preserve a tiny, endangered the U.S. It would impoverish its people
smelt; new reservoirs aren’t built, and and become a North American version Avenging
existing ones are attacked as unnatural. of Greece.
While Israel rapidly built state-of-the-art Some say instead of Calexit the Toxic Harry
desalination plants, California dawdled Golden State should be split into two or When he was in the U.S. Senate, Harry
for 15 years before a far smaller and more three new states. hat’s also a nonstarter. Reid (D–Nevada) stopped the Yucca
expensive one came online. It’s no surprise Treating state borders like ever changing Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository
that places like San Francisco have banned jigsaw puzzles is no substitute for a state’s from being opened for use by utilities
plastic bags and are taxing paper ones, voters making needed changes or doing and the federal government. he facility
and are contemplating prohibiting free what unhappy Americans have always had passed all the tests for safety, but
soda reills at restaurants. (he quality been wont to do: pull up stakes and start Reid obstinately mothballed it, instead
of life in San Francisco has deteriorated, anew somewhere else. continuing the practice of storing
with residents being constantly accosted radioactive material all around the coun-
by ever more aggressive panhandlers.) FDA—Stop Blowing try. hankfully, no terrorist raids were
Regulations have turned Califor- mounted on these deadly wastes.
nia from a housing mecca for working
Smoke he Trump Administration should
people into a high-cost hell. Its school One area of rampant regulatory abuse get the Yucca Mountain facility ready for
system, once one of the nation’s best, is the Trump Administration should attack operation—then declare that it hence-
now a national laughingstock. is the war against e-cigarettes. “Vaping” forth be known as the Harry M. Reid
With its low thresholds, California’s has been a godsend for people who are Nuclear Waste Repository. F
When it comes to managing our funds, we share the same active philosophy. Our investment
teams navigate down markets, find opportunities, and manage risk so you can stay on track toward
reaching your retirement goals.
Ceiling Crasher
Forty-four years ago, Yoshiko Shinohara
challenged Japan’s patriarchy by starting
a staing firm for women. Now she’s the
country’s first self-made female billionaire.
IN 1973, YOSHIKO SHINOHARA resolved to ix a problem
in her native Japan: Too many women were being pushed down
the traditional path of marriage and child rearing. “I was born in a
family where my mother was a midwife and my father was a school
principal. . . . Women working always were in the back of my mind,”
Shinohara told Forbes Asia in 2015. “he importance of women
being able to work as well as raise children let an indelible impres-
sion.” From a cramped Tokyo apartment, Shinohara, who was
married only briely, founded a staing business, Tempstaf, which
focused on inding part-time jobs for women.
Tempstaf later expanded to men and found particular success
in the 1990s when Japan’s stagnation forced downsizing irms to
hire part-timers. Shinohara took the company public in 2006, and
it was rolled into Temp Holdings two years later. With Temp’s stock up
50% in the past year, she now commands a $1 billion fortune. She
still owns a quarter of the $4 billion (sales) irm and stepped down
as chairman only last April; she remains chairman emeritus.
At 82 she may no longer lead the business, but Temp Holdings
is well-positioned for growth in the coming decade. Economists
say Japan’s aging population could create a shortfall of roughly
6 million workers—with companies like Shinohara’s illing the gap.
Virginia
POPULATION: 8.4 MILLION
2015 GROSS STATE PRODUCT:
$480 BILLION (1.4% GROWTH)
GSP PER CAPITA: $57,236
(RANKS NO. 17 NATIONWIDE)
RICHEST:
JACQUELINE MARS
$27 BILLION
FOR MORE THAN a century, some of America’s
guiltiest pleasures—M&Ms, Milky Way, Twix—have
fattened the fortunes of Jacqueline and her family’s
Mars Inc. The company is now upping its bet on
another soft spot for many people: their pets. It
agreed last month to pay $7.7 billion for VCA, an
ON THE BLOCK operator of some 800 animal hospitals and 137 pet
day-care centers. Mars already owns five billion-
Bond Voyage dollar pet brands, including Pedigree and Whiskas.
Now 77, Jacqueline joined the intensely private
YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, so why
Mars in 1982, seven decades after her grandfather
not sail away on the 184-foot water- had begun cooking up candy in his home kitchen.
crat that played a prominent role in Having overseen new food products for the
the 2012 James Bond ilm Skyfall? company, she retired in 2001. She left the board last
Engel & Völkers, a yacht brokerage year but remains a director of seven organizations,
in Hamburg, Germany, is asking including the Washington National Opera and the
$9.5 million for the Regina, which is Smithsonian Institution. U.S. equestrian Olympians
adorned in mahogany, marble and have trained at her farm, riding her horses to medals
onyx, accommodates a dozen of your in 1996 and 2000. In 2013 the publicity-shy heiress
007 in hot pursuit (top); most seaworthy mates and has room drove her SUV into a minivan, accidentally killing
The Regina plies its way an 86-year-old woman and an unborn child. She
o’er the bounding main. for a Jet Ski as well—in case anyone
pleaded guilty to misdemeanor reckless driving, lost
needs to make a quick escape. her license for six months and paid a $2,500 fine.
UNICORN METER
The Honest Truth
WHICH UNICORNS will become tomorrow’s blue chips? Our ongoing
poll of the world’s top venture capitalists provides an exclusive take on the ON THE BLOCK BY ABRAM BROWN; RICHEST BY STATE BY CHASE PETERSON-WITHORN
long-term prospects of these billion-dollar startups. Up now is the Honest
Company, the consumer-goods business founded by Jessica Alba. Investors
seem to accept last year’s reports that it may sell near its current valuation.
ILLUSTRATION BY CHRIS LYONS; EVERETT COLLECTION (TOP LEFT)
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platform and CDW’s guidance, these provide the strategic foundation
and environments is not a trivial matter, with hundreds of cyber-
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tions from LinkedIn were made public online, and in September, PREPARATION EQUALS SUCCESS … AND SECURITY
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minimum of 500 million of its accounts in late 2014. whether it’s in basketball or IT security. CDW has spent decades
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ticated in the year ahead, with 73% of CISOs expecting a major Combining its decades of expertise with industry-leading partners
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by Help Net Security, while 53% of IT managers recognize that the organizations it serves.
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LeaderBoard
SPORTSMONEY
1. LEBRON JAMES
The Most Valuable NBA Teams Cleveland Cavaliers
Total earnings: $86 mil
SALARY: $31 MIL
THE HARDWOOD might as well be paved with gold: he average National Basketball
ENDORSEMENTS: $55 MIL
Association franchise is now worth $1.36 billion, a 3.5-fold increase over the last ive years.
Operating proits are already at a record high—an average of $31 million per team. Owners,
meanwhile, are salivating at what’s on the immediate horizon: a new seven-year collective-
bargaining agreement that secures labor peace through the 2023–24 season, a nine-year,
$24 billion national TV deal and increasing interest from overseas. For more on the business
of professional basketball, please see forbes.com/nba.
1-YEAR OPERATING
VALUE REVENUE INCOME1 CURRENT
CHANGE% ($MIL) ($MIL) VALUE ($MIL)2
KNICKS: MITCHELL LEFF/GETTY IMAGES; CAVALIERS: JESSE D. GARRABRANT/NBAE/GETTY IMAGES; JAMES: GREGORY SHAMUS/GETTY IMAGES; CURRY: RON ELKMAN/SPORTS IMAGERY/GETTY IMAGES;
HARDEN: MITCHELL LEFF/GETTY IMAGES; WESTBROOK: ROCKY WIDNER/NBAE VIA GETTY IMAGES; DURANT: RON ELKMAN/SPORTS IMAGERY/GETTY IMAGES.
Growing, Growing . . . Gone
THE HIGHEST- The most expensive food items ever sold at auction.
EARNING IN JANUARY, Japan’s “Tuna King,” Kiyoshi Kimura, paid more than $630,000 for a 467-pound
NBA PLAYERS tuna at Tokyo’s legendary Tsukiji ish-market auction. But that’s not the most for which Kimura,
owner of the Sushi Zanmai restaurant chain, has been on the hook. In 2013 he spent $1.8 million
2. KEVIN DURANT on a bluein that weighed 22 pounds more. Here are some other record-setting sales for incredible
Golden State Warriors edibles—from a rare Italian trule to Missy, the crème de la crème of dairy cows.
Total earnings: $62.5 mil
SALARY: $26.5 MIL
ENDORSEMENTS: $36 MIL
$3,300
$3,000
$2,600
CAVIAR (175 tons) BLUEFIN TUNA (489 lbs.) MISSY THE COW
$2,500 $18 mil $1.8 mil $1.2 mil
December 1976 January 2013 November 2009
$2,200
3. STEPHEN CURRY
Golden State Warriors
Total earnings: $47.1 mil
SALARY: $12.1 MIL
ENDORSEMENTS: $35 MIL
WHITE TRUFFLES 50-YEAR-OLD NARCISSUS THREE-YEAR-OLD SLICE OF
(2.9 lbs.) OOLONG TEA KATE MIDDLETON AND PRINCE
$330,000 (44 lbs.) WILLIAM’S WEDDING CAKE
November 2010 $154,000 $7,500
November 2013 December 2014
REAL ESTATE
Bono all visited Luggala as guests of the Guin- ILLUSTRATIONS BY DAVE URBAN; TOMOHIRO OHSUMI/BLOOMBERG (BOTTOM)
VIVEK
TOTAL NET WORTH
JARED KUSHNER
CHARLES KUSHNER
JOSH KUSHNER
32 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2017
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LeaderBoard
DEAL TOY
Nature’s Bounty
Cabela’s was a closely held family concern for decades, but its 2004 IPO forged
the path to its $5.5 billion sale to billionaire John Morris a dozen years later.
PERCH, PIKE . . . AND PISTOLS
Angling is in Cabela’s DNA, but firearms were its true
lifeblood during the Obama years. The company and its
founders are avid supporters of the National Rifle As-
sociation, and sales jumped whenever the White House
or Congress talked about stricter gun regulation.
A FAMILY AFFAIR
Cabela’s was founded in 1961 at the Chappell,
Nebraska, kitchen table of husband and wife
Richard and Mary Cabela. When Richard died
at age 77 in 2014, his stake was worth some
$500 million. Jim Cabela, his brother and co-
founder, remains the company’s chairman.
BIG-GAME HUNTER
In October 2016, Cabela’s
found itself in the crosshairs
of billionaire John Morris,
founder of Bass Pro Shops.
Morris’ bigger, tightly held
private chain agreed to pay
$5.5 billion in cash to pur-
chase Cabela’s—a deal that
created the dominant player
in outdoor retail. SNAKE IN THE GRASS?
Paul Singer’s Elliott Management set up camp at Cabela’s
in 2015, acquiring a stake that grew quickly to 11% and urging
the firm to sell assets—such as its lucrative credit card business—
or the entire company in a leveraged buyout.
DAVID ARKY FOR FORBES
BY STEVE SCHAEFER
FAMOUS FACE
Flying Solo
Charles Lindbergh had very publicly refused a movie
deal after his pioneering 1927 transatlantic flight. Now
Forbes had a scoop: He had also privately passed on
becoming president of a new airline syndicate. Among
his reasons for saying no: “It would tie me down.”
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THOUGHT LEADERS AMITY SHLAES // CURRENT EVENTS
of what happens at the oice, whatever the product. Tech-vain and diploma- cal backgrounds will beneit if they get to know
proud, these youths don’t always “get” workplace discipline or hierarchy. one another with less resentment. he irony is that
Such tension actually pops up in he Devil Wears Prada. Her irst day on the if let-leaning students do get that golden recom-
job, Miss Northwestern fails to conceal her contempt when Boss Devil leads a mendation ater the Devil rule is jettisoned, a few
room in meticulously choosing between two seemingly identical aquamarine belts. will have the Republican Party to thank. F
AMITY SHLAES, PRESIDENTIAL SCHOLAR AT THE KING’S COLLEGE AND CHAIR OF THE COOLIDGE FOUNDATION BOARD; PAUL JOHNSON, EMINENT BRITISH HISTORIAN
AND AUTHOR; AND DAVID MALPASS, GLOBAL ECONOMIST, PRESIDENT OF ENCIMA GLOBAL LLC, ROTATE IN WRITING THIS COLUMN. TO SEE PAST CURRENT EVENTS COLUMNS, VISIT OUR
WEBSITE AT WWW.FORBES.COM/CURRENTEVENTS.
In just eight years the Obama Administration added regulations—environ- currency plans are also described. But in Trump’s
mental, labor, banking and consumer protection—that added $120 billion eyes, trade and regulation are the main events.
in annual compliance costs. hose costs, like all business costs, are passed Like Trump’s vision or not, his road map is clear.
And thus far in his presidency, Donald Trump has
RICH KARLGAARD IS EDITOR-AT-LARGE / GLOBAL FUTURIST AT FORBES. HIS LATEST BOOK, TEAM GENIUS: THE proven he means to follow it. F
NEW SCIENCE OF HIGH-PERFORMING ORGANIZATIONS, CAME OUT IN 2015. FOR HIS PAST COLUMNS AND BLOGS
VISIT OUR WEBSITE AT WWW.FORBES.COM/KARLGAARD.
1 INTERNATIONAL
PROMOTION
FTA Network
KPGHHGEV
Development is still ongoing for many the case, insists Mr. Rotermund, managing KFEZ has taken concerted action to
of the economic zones, but the Korean director of Rittal Korea. “When we moved keep the business and living environments
government has already spent billions of here from Seoul, no one left the company,” in the economic zones friendly toward
dollars on laying the infrastructure to facil- he says, and points out that when it comes foreign-invested enterprises and condu-
itate the emerging high-tech, international to recruiting new personnel, good workers cive to international businesses by offer-
business, leisure and tourism hubs there. CTGPQVFKHƂEWNVVQƂPFCUp+('<
+PEJGQP KPIVCZDTGCMUƂPCPEKCNUWRRQTVCPFQVJGT
The country’s state-of-the-art infrastruc- Free Economic Zone) also has a very highly incentives. “The government has created
ture and public transportation systems, SWCNKƂGFNCDQTHQTEG6JGTGCTGSWKVGCHGY a good environment for doing business,”
admired by the rest of the world, are often universities in this area. Our relocation to Mr. Lu in GFEZ stresses. Mr. Rotermund
cited as key advantages that allow busi- IFEZ is not something that has affected echoes this sentiment. “When we received
nesses to reduce operating costs, shorten our ability to hire good labor.” the proposal from IFEZ to establish our
delivery times and provide better cus- One of those universities in IFEZ is own building here, we recognized it as
tomer service. the State University of New York - SUNY CIQQFƂPCPEKCNRTQRQUCN9GEQWNFPQV
In many ways, Korea’s Free Economic Korea. Because courses are taught by Sto- wish for much more. We have met our
Zones exemplify the synergy between the nybrook faculty, and students undergo objectives and we haven’t regretted our
diverse industries located there. The cit- the same selective process as those who investment here.”
ies have attracted numerous businesses apply to any other SUNY school, a SUNY
Korea degree is identical to those given
at Stonybrook University in New York – a For more information on doing
“China doesn’t have as fact that has generated a great deal of business in the Korean Free
many FTAs, so exporting my public interest in the school. James F. Lar- Economic Zones (KFEZ), please
visit www.fez.go.kr or
products to other countries son, vice president of Academic Affairs
www.investkorea.org. You can
at SUNY Korea, declares SUNY Korea to
is more easily done here.” be the “best kept secret in study abroad also contact one of KOTRA’s
(Korea Trade-Investment Promotion
— Lu Xianyu, right here. What we’re building here is a
program that will be internationally com- æ}iVÞ® ÀÌæiÀV>vwViÃ
CEO, HAM Global (english.kotra.or.kr).
petitive.” Many of the students at SUNY
Korea are bilingual or even trilingual,
from all over the world, and while almost which makes them highly globalized and
everyone acknowledges that the Korean attractive to prospective employers.
labor force is highly educated, some Similar scenarios are playing out in the
might think that setting up a business other Korean economic zones, as higher
far away from Seoul would make it dif- education campuses in them have been a
ƂEWNVVQƂPFVCNGPVGFYQTMGTU6JKUKUPoV visible presence. www.fez.go.kr
INTERNATIONAL 2
TOP WEALTH
ADVISORS
SUMMIT
AN EXCLUSIVE EVENT FOR AMERICA’S PREEMINENT
WEALTH ADVISORS AND INDUSTRY LEADERS
Forbes and SHOOK Research are hosting an unprecedented gathering
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represents nearly $1 trillion of assets under management—will provide the
industry’s highest-level insights tailored for America’s most elite advisors.
LAS VEGAS
MARCH 15-17 PARTNERS
2017
STRATEGIES
HONDA COMES OUT
Verticals
OF ITS SHELL 46 FEBRUARY 28, 2017
TECHNOLOGY
FOSSIL-FUEL
REVOLUTION 50
ENTREPRENEURS
THE LAST VIDEO STORE 52
FORBES LIFE
THE WORLD’S TOP NEW
LUXURY HOTELS 65
H
onda Motor Co.’s future is quiet- Boomer favorites like the Civic, Accord and CR-V;
ly being forged in a secretive lab in the company has long been known for its obses-
Mountain View, California. From this sion with solving engineering problems on its own.
35,000-square-foot taupe-colored of- Since its founding in 1948, Honda has made mo-
ice park, Naoki “Nick” Sugimoto, a 55-year-old torcycles, cars, lawn mowers, jets, fuel cells, hu-
Honda veteran, scouts for the world’s best tech manoid robots and just about everything else
partners. Two recent projects from Sugimoto’s in-house. But in a world where cars are rapid-
Silicon Valley Lab head lab—a car display enhanced with holograms and ly becoming tech gadgets on wheels, Honda’s hall-
Nick Sugimoto (left) and an “optical” microphone that dramatically im- mark masterful mechanical engineering is no lon-
Xcelerator program lead
Dennis Clark scour the proves speech recognition by reading a speaker’s ger suicient. To stay competitive, Honda needs to
region for technology facial vibrations—wowed crowds of auto and tech get over its chronic case of Not Invented Here syn-
and startups that can
help jazz up Hondas and enthusiasts at the Consumer Electronics Show in drome, and as Sugimoto’s lab and the Waymo talks
Acuras. Las Vegas in January. make clear, it’s starting to make progress. “Honda is
willing to pursue win-win technology cooperation in. Bespectacled and relaxed in jeans and a black
so that we can openly innovate with other compa- North Face jacket, he’s welcoming, though the old FOLLOW-
nies and at the same time show our individuality,” Honda habits die hard: He won’t ofer a tour of the THROUGH
says Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo via email. lab where dozens of stealth projects are in devel-
he stakes couldn’t be higher. he auto indus- opment. he lab’s overarching goal is not blue-sky
try has entered a new era dominated by technol- research but rather to put “technologies into pro-
ogies like AI, sensors, apps and ride-sharing. As duction as quickly as possible,” says Sugimoto, who
with every other automaker, Honda’s execs are has an engineering degree from the University of
touting a “cooperative mobility ecosystem”—a dis- Tokyo and an M.B.A. from UC Berkeley’s Haas
tributed leet of vehicles that communicate with School of Business.
their occupants, other vehicles and sensors on Take the holographic car display. In just six
roads, bridges and buildings to make travel safer, months, engineers from Menlo Park-based Leia
less congested and more fun. Nity, for sure, but it’s 3D, working side by side with Honda auto whiz-
clear the company can’t get there alone. “Honda’s zes, adapted the startup’s nanotechnology for use
core competencies aren’t in these emerging areas,” in vehicles. he result is a futuristic dashboard
says Ed Kim, an analyst at AutoPaciic, an indus- that renders images with depth even when driv- A PIECE
try consultancy. ers move their heads to view the screen from dif- OF CAKE
Honda sold 4.4 million vehicles in 2015, less ferent angles.
than half as many as giants like Toyota, VW and Sugimoto says it’s one of a “low-double-digit” Americans can’t get
enough Twinkies—and
GM. Sales for iscal 2016, which ended on March number of projects from a two-year-old program
neither can billionaire
31, grew at a healthy 9.6%, bringing revenue to at the lab called Xcelerator. It’s a hands-on incuba- financiers. A year after
about $130 billion. But the company is forecasting tor, ofering startups work space, equipment, fund- our May 2015 cover
a 6% drop in revenue for the current iscal year at a ing and mentoring. he optical microphone, a col- story detailing the
time when other automakers are expected to be lat laboration with Israeli startup VocalZoom, also $410 million purchase
emerged from the Xcelerator of bankrupt Hostess
program. by investor C. Dean
HOW TO PLAY IT BY JON D. MARKMAN In 2014, the lab opened
Metropoulos and Leon
Black’s Apollo Global
AI plays a critical role in the future of automobiles. The best a sot ware studio to work Management, the pair
way to invest in the AI revolution today is through big com- with app makers to integrate sold a majority stake
panies with scale and a proven capacity to bring lab work new in-car conveniences to Gores Holdings, a
to life. Nvidia invested $2 billion in a deep-learning AI chip into Hondas and Acuras. It’s unit of Alec Gores’
when most of its chip rivals were distracted. Now that invest- working with Visa to let cars private equity firm,
ment is powering the self-driving-car future. Nvidia gear can auto-pay for parking and gas, for $725 million cash.
read street signs and traic lights, change lanes and navigate in blizzards. Metropoulos remains at
and with fast-food chains to
It’s already in new Teslas, and coming soon to Audis and other luxury the company’s helm; his
brands. Another smart AI play is Facebook, which reaches more than 1 bil- allow hungry drivers to place latest sweet idea is ice
lion people daily. It knows our friends, hobbies, photo and messaging habits, and prepay for orders. cream flavors based on
and how we take our cofee. It’s also building a formidable AI assistant that While the Silicon Val- Hostess Twinkies, Sno
learns exponentially faster and helps customers manage their lives. ley Lab represents a relative- Balls and CupCakes,
ly small piece of Honda’s $6 which hit shelves—and
Jon D. Markman is president of Markman Capital Insight.
waistlines—in February.
billion global R&D budget,
Sugimoto expects its impact
overall. S&P Global Ratings recently cut its outlook to be far-reaching, and not just for Honda. “We
for the company. don’t claim any exclusivity. We just share the fruits
Intangible signs are worrisome, too. When it of what we create together,” he says. “Startups and
comes to in-car tech, “Honda is seen at this point partners can take that to Toyota or whoever and
to be fairly average,” says Alexander Edwards, pres- pitch the same proposal. Fine.”
ident of Strategic Vision, a San Diego research But the broader goal is to revitalize a ho-hum
irm. Long known for making some of the most re- carmaker with a history of engineering great-
liable vehicles, Honda ranked sixth in owner satis- ness. Says Sugimoto, “he purpose is to reenergize
faction in Consumer Reports’ most recent survey, the original DNA, stimulate the right brain of all
published in December. Honda people and igure out the right path to de-
hat’s where innovators like Sugimoto come liver ‘wow’ innovations to our customers.”
FINAL THOUGHT
JAMIE KRIPKEW
“If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy.
Then he becomes your partner.” —NELSON MANDELA
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TECHNOLOGY ENERGY
ucts & Chemicals, based in Allentown, Pennsylva- Channel, the heart of the nation’s largest petro-
nia. here in the 1970s, he became obsessed with chemical complex. When completed early this
NetPower’s Rodney
Allam stands astride an idea: how to capture the carbon-dioxide emis- year, at a cost of about $150 million, these 5 acres
his invention: a power sions from the U.K.’s giant coal-burning power of steel and concrete, pipes, tanks and high-volt-
plant that captures
its own carbon, at no plants? He already knew where to put the CO2. BP age lines will become the proving ground for a
extra cost. and Royal Dutch Shell would jump at the chance technology called the Allam Cycle. It’s a novel
FINAL THOUGHT
“Nothing is more imminent than the impossible. What we must always
foresee is the unforeseen.” —VICTOR HUGO
IN GRANITE CITY, ILLINOIS, a sleepy town two movie rentals for a dollar, and at the register a
of 29,000 where the laws of time seem not to smiling cashier greets regulars by name.
JAMIE KRIPKE FOR FORBES
apply, a just-opened Family Video storefront Yes, the year is 2017—and the Granite City
beckons customers with signs promoting the lat- store is defying odds, humming along in an indus-
est Hollywood blockbusters. Inside, long rows of try most people assume has ceased to exist. In fact,
DVDs line aisles festooned with placards ofering the business is “doing gangbusters,” says its owner,
CapitalOne.com/SmallBusiness Credit approval required. Offered by Capital One Bank (USA), N.A. © 2016 Capital One
ENTREPRENEURS SMALL GIANTS
Keith Hoogland, who has grown Family Video well-run businesses. hey had a lot of debt, leas-
into a sprawling chain of 759 locations spread es that were poorly negotiated, and they also were MARGIN
across 19 states and Canada, with a concentration sharing revenue with studios quite a bit. hey PROPHET
in the Midwest and rural America and with more made a lot of poor decisions.”
grand openings on the way. “I’m 57 years old,” says Family Video has taken a diferent approach. In-
Hoogland, “and this is the most exciting time I’ve stead of accepting discounted movies in exchange
ever had in my life.” for agreements to split revenue, as Blockbuster did,
Operating from an unassuming two-story of- it has opted to buy ilms outright and keep 100% of
ice building in Glenview, Illinois, 20 minutes rental proceeds, which has paid of in the long run.
northwest of Chicago, Family Video rents DVDs Hoogland has also kept his stores entirely company-
to loyal customers enamored with its traditional, owned, and he keeps costs down by making many
small-town feel. Last year the company pulled in of the items needed for new locations in-house—
an estimated $400 million in revenue, more than everything from shelving to point-of-sale sotware.
10% of which fell to the bottom line. Started by his Most important, though, the company owns just
LEARNING
father in 1978, the chain has grown dramatical- about all the real estate underpinning its stores. As TO FIRE
ly under Hoogland’s watch, and he holds roughly a a result, Hoogland has been able to adapt now that IN 1998, TOM GIMBEL, THEN
26, FOUNDED LASALLE
70% stake, with the rest split among family mem- sales are beginning to fall. He has shrunk the square NETWORK TO HELP STAFF
CHICAGO BUSINESSES. HE
bers. Revenue has lattened and even fallen slight- footage of many of the video stores, put up drywall FOCUSED ON BUILDING
ly in recent years, but the decades of growth have and leased out space to other companies, like Sub- A COMPANY WHERE
PEOPLE WANTED TO
aforded Hoogland a remarkable lifestyle: two cor- way and H&R Block. WORK—BUT ALSO HAD TO
GET COMFORTABLE WITH
porate planes, multiple luxury properties and an He has also experimented with ventures of his LETTING THEM GO.
estimated net worth north of $400 million. Sitting own, using his properties to launch 11 itness cen-
DO YOU FIRE PEOPLE WHO
at his oice desk, he proudly displays photos of a ters, an electronics-repair chain called Digital Doc DON’T FIT YOUR CULTURE?
vast, ten-bedroom compound he recently com- and 149 Marco’s Pizza franchises (making him the I fired one of our top
salespeople last year. It
brand’s single largest fran-
had been a couple years
chisee). he businesses are coming. He had sold the
HOW TO PLAY IT BY DAVID DREMAN managed under the umbrel- most revenue for years, but
Buying stocks in industries written of as doomed is a la of Highland Ventures— he began to think that fun
time-tested contrarian tactic employed by superstar inves- came first and other stuf
“Hoogland” means “High- second.
tors like Warren Bufett. Who wanted to own oil stocks land” in Dutch. Family Video
when OPEC suggested it would never cut production? WHAT WAS YOUR TOUGHEST
still accounts for nearly 90% EARLY CHALLENGE?
Then OPEC caved and energy stocks climbed 24% in 2016.
They’re still cheap. Larger banks were also put on the of the parent company’s I hired a guy 15 years my
$450 million in annual reve- senior to head recruit-
chopping block in 2016. Investors believed low interest rates would last
ing and assumed he was
forever and regulation was so intense it was like financial water torture. nue, and Forbes estimates the
training people the way I
But since Trump’s election, bank stocks are back with a vengeance and chain’s real estate is worth as wanted them trained. He
still have room to run. Two promising stocks—selling at reasonable valua- much as $750 million. was less than desirable as a
tions—are Occidental Petroleum and Wells Fargo. he origins of Fami- manager, but I was a weak
manager, too. We’d become
David Dreman is chairman and founder of Dreman Value Management. ly Video can be traced to friends; it took me eight or
1946, when Keith’s grandfa- nine years to fire him.
ther Clarence, a salesman,
WHAT MADE YOU FINALLY
missioned in Turks and Caicos, alongside what he started a distribution business, Midstates Appli- LET HIM GO?
calls the “No. 1 beach in the world.” ance & Supply Co., in Springield, Illinois. Seven I got divorced, which
helped me realize that
Brimming with energy, Hoogland tries to ex- years later, Keith’s father, Charlie, took over. In the when something’s not
plain how all of this is possible. Ater all, it’s been 1970s the company started getting squeezed: Its right, you’ve got to make
more than ive years since the big video chains, core customers, mom-and-pop appliance shops, a decision. After I let him
Blockbuster and Movie Gallery, iled for bank- were going out of business, and its main suppliers go, our sales skyrocketed.
—Susan Adams
ruptcy, unable to compete in the digital age. At were forgoing distributors in favor of direct sales.
its peak Blockbuster operated more than 9,000 In 1978, let with just a few pieces of real estate
outlets, bringing in $6 billion in annual revenue. and an oversupply of videocassette tapes, Char-
Today, just a few dozen of its stores remain. lie launched the Video Movie Club of Springield,
Hoogland insists that Family Video had no a precursor to Family Video and one of the irst
trouble competing with bigger players, and he movie-rental stores in the U.S.
sees few parallels between those companies and Even then Charlie was not convinced the busi-
his own. “Everybody thought the reason they ness would last. While the cassettes he rented out
went away was because of digital,” he says. “But were high tech for the time, he feared newer in-
in reality that wasn’t the case. hey weren’t very novations would soon undermine his sales. To
Subject to all terms and conditions as outlined in the Allstate R3001 Exclusive Agency Agreement and Exclusive Agency program materials. Allstate agents are not franchisees; rather they are exclusive agent
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ENTREPRENEURS SMALL GIANTS
hedge against such uncertainties, Charlie, igur- and snow cone machines. Almost all of Hoogland’s
ing the real estate under the stores would always top executives started in one of his stores, and ELEVATOR
be valuable, decided to repay the mortgages on many employees have enjoyed beneits like full-tu- PITCH
his irst locations within ive years—a policy the ition scholarships for their children.
company has maintained ever since. One result is that Family Video outlets have be- KEVIN LI, FOUNDER,
As it turned out, Charlie’s initial worries come gathering places in many smaller towns. “If PLAYDATE
proved unfounded—VHS tapes dominated the you walked in on a Friday or Saturday night, you’d “PlayDate is making the
lives of pets better with
be amazed at how busy our stores are,”
technology. Despite
Hoogland says. “People like the experience. advances in consumer
It’s kind of like a local cofee shop.” technology, none of
But Family Video has more going for it is being applied to
it than nostalgia. Most signiicantly, copy- pet owners and their
right agreements on motion pictures are problems. I’ve got 36
oten less stringent for physical videos patents in the devices
space and am an adjunct
than for streamed content, meaning that
professor at Columbia in
rental stores frequently have access to new computer science, so I
releases weeks, or even months, before know our best students
Netlix or Hulu get them. “Movies are still aren’t going into pet
unique in that renting them in a store and tech. There are 160
on a disc is really the only way to circum- million cats and dogs
in the U.S., and every
vent rights issues that exclusively lock up
one of their owners
content,” says Tony Wible, technology and feels guilty leaving
media analyst at Drexel Hamilton. them home alone all
hat advantage has helped Family day. Our first product is
Video attract business outside of broad- a camera-enabled ball
band deserts and beyond aging loyal that lets owners interact
customers. Its typical patron is 35 to 45 with their pets from
anywhere in the world
years old, but Hoogland believes young-
using our mobile app.
er customers are coming in greater num- There’s a mechanically
bers. he chain’s average store still pulls stabilized camera inside
in roughly half a million dollars in annu- the ball so you can see
al revenue. a live video feed of your
Eager to maintain momentum, dog or cat. We recently
Hoogland continues to work seven days a raised over $750,000 in
Back to the future: Family Video isn’t just about nostalgia—it often gets presales on Indiegogo,
new releases before online services like Netflix and Amazon do. week, though he’s been cutting back late-
making us the
ly to make room for his children to enter highest-grossing
rental space for decades—but the company’s early the business. So far just one of his six kids, his el- pet-tech
caution set the course for its expansion strategy: dest son, McLain, a former marine, works at High- campaign on any
By the time Keith entered the business in 1983 at land Ventures. McLain runs a few of the company’s crowdfunding site
age 23, his father was pushing to conquer rural smaller projects, including Highland Pure Water & ever.” —S.A.
markets, believing that well-capitalized competi- Ice, which sells puriied water out of kiosks next to
tors would hold the advantage in major cities. Family Video branches located in communi-
Today, Family Video is the dominant play- ties with poor infrastructure.
er in rural America, where 90% of its stores re- Keith acknowledges that his movie
side. here, many customers either have limited rental empire won’t last forever, but he sees
access to high-speed internet or are reluctant to Family Video as an easy way to expand his
adopt alternatives like Redbox, Netlix and Hulu. real estate portfolio, which has no obvious
Inside the stores, employees greet every customer expiration date. he formula is simple: Open
who walks through the door, oten by name; kids’ a store, use rental sales to pay of the mort-
movies are always free to rent; and late fees are gage and hold on to the property. “In ive
negotiable. When new locations open, the ribbon- years we’ll still be here,” he says, grin-
cutting ceremony is a community afair, complete ning. “We’re going to hang on for
with face-painting stations, promotional giveaways quite a while.”
FINAL THOUGHT
“Good old-fashioned ways keep hearts sweet, heads sane, hands busy.” —LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Brand
Boys
In a market obsessed
with tech startups, one
emerging private equity
firm makes 40% per year
with trendy products like
gourmet jerky, frozen
Sriracha chicken and
vegan makeup.
BY AMY FELDMAN
S
trolling the aisles of a Whole
Foods Market in West L.A. on a
bright fall day, Josh Goldin, Ju-
lian Steinberg and Trevor Nelson
come to an abrupt stop to marvel at a
towering stack of Barkthins displayed in
the salad bar area. Last April, their pri-
vate equity irm, Alliance Consumer
Growth, or ACG, scored big when the
chocolate-snacks company sold out to
candy giant Hershey for $290 million,
or about four times revenue. hey point out that seeing this shit and iguring out how to play it. ACG’s Trevor Nelson,
Julian Steinberg
in the science of brick-and-mortar retailing, seem- Since ACG’s inception in 2011, it has funded 15 (with Vasco) and
ingly small eforts, like promoting a product at the entrepreneurs, investing $5 million to $25 million Josh Goldin: weekend
shopaholics, in search
end of a grocery aisle, can make a new brand look for minority stakes in companies that it believes of fresh breakout
established—or an unheard-of one appear like the are on the cusp of explosive growth. In total it has brands.
next big thing. “With young brands, it’s all about raised $344 million in three funds. he irst two
getting people to try it,” says Steinberg. have purchased stakes in budding companies like
For the past ive years, ACG, which is dual- Evol, maker of Millennial-friendly frozen meals
ly headquartered in New York and Los Angeles, like Sriracha chicken; Krave, in Sonoma, Cali-
has logged an enviable record investing in start- fornia, a seller of gourmet jerkies like cranber-
up consumer brands that are reinventing catego- ry thyme turkey and chili lime beef; and the Hon-
ries in an industry long dominated by stalwarts est Kitchen, a marketer of high-priced health food
like General Mills, PepsiCo and Procter & Gam- for pets. Last November, ACG’s latest fund
ble. he market for consumer products has been ($210 million) made its irst investment in Or-
in a state of upheaval in recent years. Upscale Mil- egon’s Paciica Beauty, a vegan and cruelty-free
lennials expect their packaged food and beauty makeup and skin-care company.
products to be healthier and organic, without the “here is something magical about these
toxins and chemicals that previous generations brands,” gushes Goldin. Maybe. ACG’s most im-
accepted for lack of choice. hey’re willing to pay pressive trick has actually been its knack for sell-
MATTHEW FURMAN FOR FORBES
more for those healthier products, and they aren’t ing out before these hot consumer brands cool
loyal to the big brands. hat, in turn, has opened down. To date, 6 of ACG’s 15 portfolio compa-
a gap for entrepreneurs—and led to a surge in ac- nies have been sold to larger corporations or gone
quisitions of startups by the large companies. public. In 2015, for example, Hershey bought
Goldin, Steinberg and Nelson were early in Krave for $240 million, netting ACG a sixfold
So Comfortable,
You’ll Never Count
These Guys Again.™
It’s time to put your sleep problems to rest.
gain on its initial stake of less than $10 million. ing $44 million from high-net-worth investors.
Shake Shack’s red-hot 2015 IPO produced a “We all sort of got together and said, ‘It’s not just
$90 million payof for ACG. ACG’s returns since Babyganics,’ ” Goldin says. “We saw this disruptive
inception are averaging about 40% a year, accord- movement of entrepreneurs coming along.”
ing to investors. “You don’t have to come up with And they were right. hey took an early 7%
the next Uber to be an entrepreneur,” Goldin says. stake in Shake Shack, the burger chain found-
Nor, as it turns out, do you have to invest in Uber ed by New York restaurateur Danny Meyer that
or Facebook to make a fortune. made its debut on the NYSE with a $1.6 billion
Much of ACG’s success comes from old-fash- valuation. Even though Shake Shack wasn’t look-
ioned shoe-leather research. On weekends, and ing for inancing, Goldin talked his way in by THE
persuading existing investors to sell. “Josh was
CONTRARIAN
whenever they’re traveling (a week per month
PICK
each), the trio walk the aisles at retailers like just persistent,” Meyer recalls. he Meyer relation-
Whole Foods and Target, taking dozens of photos ship later blossomed into co-investment in Ten-
with their phones of new products and intrigu- der Greens, an L.A.-based fast-healthy restau- BACK ON
ing product displays. “Our wives won’t shop with rant with a cult following. Today, Tender Greens, THE GOOD
us,” Steinberg says. hey then overlay what they’re which serves fresh chef-created meals for $12 a FOOT
seeing with data on the category and tap into pop, has 24 locations. A decade ago, the
their network for viable investment prospects. With Krave, ACG saw the potential in moving colorful foam clogs of
Goldin, 39, hails from a retail family that owned jerky from a truck-stop snack to a healthy, high- Colorado’s Crocs were
an eponymous department store in Bufalo, New protein one on the shelves of Whole Foods. Ditto a global phenomenon
York. He met Nelson, 38, on their irst day in the for the healthy TV-dinner brand Evol (“love” that caused millions to
mergers-and-acquisitions group at Lehman Broth- spelled backward), since bought by Boulder suspend fashion sense
in the name of comfort.
ers in 2000. heir focus: consumer companies. he Brands. Evol founder Phil Anson, 38, a Colorado
But the craze crashed
third member of ACG’s team, Steinberg, 38, is well mountain climber who started out selling burritos alongside the market in
from his car, says he immedi- 2008, and Crocs’ stock
ately connected with the ACG has yet to recover.
HOW TO PLAY IT BY JOHN BUCKINGHAM
guys. “hey’ve been able to George Putnam,
create this amazing, rich, au- longtime editor of The
While many fixate on finding the next big thing, there is
Turnaround Letter, thinks
often a steep price to be paid when buying into a prom- thentic ecosystem of entrepre-
a Crocs revival is in the
ise that may never be fulfilled. For every household neurs under the ACG umbrel- works. In 2014, private-
name like iPhone maker Apple, there were once hot la,” Anson says. equity titan Blackstone
smartphone makers like Palm, Motorola and BlackBerry
Home-run investments invested $200 million
that have crashed and burned. Same thing in athletic
footwear. For every Nike there was a Converse, LA Gear or Reebok
like Shake Shack have attract- in the company
ed a lood of new capital into and overhauled
that once dominated the sales charts. Rather than hoping for the next
consumer products, so inding management. Crocs has
Apple or Nike, buy the proven innovators themselves. Both Apple and
expanded its oferings
Nike have trounced the S&P 500 for the last decade and still sell for bargains will be tougher in the
to sensible-looking
reasonable valuations with solid dividends. future. In an efort to maintain loafers, sandals and
John Buckingham is chief investment oicer of AFAM Capital. its edge ACG has created a Sil- rain boots. Margins
icon Valley-style incubator are improving, and
model for its portfolio compa- its balance sheet is
connected on Wall Street. His father was the late nies. At a retreat in Sonoma in 2015, for example, Croc—er, rock—solid.
corporate raider Saul Steinberg, and his half-broth- Evol’s Anson met Way Better Snacks’ founder and “Investors have lost
patience,” says Putnam.
er, Jonathan, is chief executive of ETF asset man- CEO, Jim Breen, and later joined its board. Mean-
“At just 6.4 times next
ager WisdomTree. Steinberg, who has an M.B.A. while, Nick Reader, 42, who cofounded PDQ, a year’s estimated Ebitda,
from Columbia Business School, learned to ana- chicken-restaurant chain, with Outback Steak- Crocs has tremendous
lyze companies at Bear Stearns and then in 2009 house’s Bob Basham, met the former market- potential.”
personally invested in organic baby food company ing chief of yogurt brand Chobani and hired her —Matt Schifrin
Plum Organics, which was sold to Campbell. as a consultant. Reader says that the prospect of
he three irst teamed up on an investment in making connections, in fact, was the main reason
Babyganics (on Long Island, New York), a maker PDQ welcomed an investment from ACG. “he
of baby lotions and sunscreens that contain no tox- irst thing they did was open their portfolio of
ins or parabens. hen, in 2011, Goldin, Steinberg brands,” says Reader. “I would sit with these peo-
and Nelson let their jobs and founded ACG, rais- ple, and I was like a groupie.”
IFK/ALAMY
FINAL THOUGHT
“One can have only as much preparation as he has foresight.” —JIM BUTCHER
THE SILO
SOUTH AMERICA
Palácio Tangará, Brazil
European panache is landing in Brazil with the
opening of this Oetker Collection hotel in São
Paulo. Along with a terriic location in Burle
Marx Park (one of the loveliest patches of
green space in the megalopolis), the hotel has
141 handsome guest rooms with terraces over-
looking nature, a lovely spa with an indoor
pool and a garden, and the irst South Amer-
ican outpost from chef Jean-Georges Vonge-
richten. (From $450; palaciotangara.com)
HOSHINOYA BALI
AS I A
Hoshinoya Bali, Indonesia The Strand, Yangon
Japan’s Hoshinoya hotels are some of the country’s Built in 1901, this grande
most upscale escapes. Now that company is tak- dame property near the bank
ing its reined aesthetic and Far Eastern sensibility of the Yangon River—devel-
to the Pakerisan River Valley in Bali, near the spiri- oped by the hoteliers behind
tual center of Ubud. It hired local master builders to Rales in Singapore—was
construct the 30 ryokan-style villas with tatamis and looking her age. No longer.
shojis and intricately carved walls. Each room opens A major renovation paid re-
out to a semiprivate pool whose temperature chang- spectful homage to her colo-
es throughout the day, but perhaps the resort’s most nial history while bringing this
inviting space is the Café Gazebo perched on stilts Myanmar hotel irmly into the PALÁCIO TANGARÁ
opened in 1910 for important clients of the nearby Le Bon Marché there’s more than classic archi-
department store. It was later a gathering place for artists and tecture going on here. he spa
thinkers, a space for James Joyce to write Ulysses, and home to pays homage to London’s an-
Picasso and Matisse. he celebrated architecture irm of Jean- cient Roman history with two
Michel Wilmotte oversaw the updates to the 190 rooms. he Jazz pools and a hammam, and
Bar and an expanded (and doubly high-ceilinged) Lutetia Bras- three-Michelin-star chef Anne-
serie both remain and will be joined by a dramatic new internal Sophie Pic oversees one of the
courtyard for alfresco dining and one of Paris’ largest hotel spas. two restaurants. (From $540;
(From $740; hotellutetia.com) fourseasons.com)
ANANTARA VILAMOURA
2017 TRAVEL GUIDE
CA R I B B E A N
Villa Marie Saint-Barth Sailrock Resort, Turks and Caicos
he mostly alpine hotels of Jocelyne While Grace Bay has been taken over by high-rise hotels, South
Sibuet have a cult following in her Caicos is still relatively unspoiled—and it’s near the third-larg-
native France, where she’s known est coral reef in the world. he channel separating it from other
as the Gallic Martha Stewart. Now islands is full of rays, turtles, dolphins and migrating hump-
Sibuet is bringing her breed of ca- back whales. Along with a residential development, the resort
sual elegance to her 13th hotel (her includes lavish ridgetop suites and beachfront villas (up to four
second on a beach and irst outside bedrooms) that are just steps from the Atlantic. Both ofer kitch-
continental France). he St. Barth ens or kitchenettes and are styled with island details like wick-
hotel, on a hillside above Colombi- er chairs and an abundance of glass. he villas have private pools,
er Beach and Flamands Bay, is styl- patios and garden showers. More restaurants and a spa are in the
SAILROCK RESORT
ish, more relaxed than many of works. (From $400; sailrockresort.com)
the island’s resorts and undeniably
cheerful, with lots of goldenrod yel- VILLE MARIE SAINT-BARTH
Navigating a
New Tomorrow
5th Annual Summit
Hosted by Moira Forbes, the 2017 Forbes Women’s Summit
will bring together 300 multigenerational innovators,
entrepreneurs and influencers for a dynamic exchange
around the most important issues of our time, with the
mission of translating the ideas into action that will chart
the course for the future.
Presented By
info.forbes.com/WomensSummit
@WomenatForbes
– David, Aquatic Custodian
# hellowork
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Features
FEBRUARY 28, 2017 HOW TO CHEAT DEATH 74
M.B.A. FROM THE MOB 80
THE 2017 RETIREMENT GUIDE
HIDE CASH FROM THE IRS (LEGALLY) 94
THE BEST CITIES . . . 99
. . . AND THE WORST STATES 102
TO
Craig Venter, the
man who mapped
the human genome,
DEATH
CREDIT PINES
ETHAN TK FOR FORBES
T
HE WORLD’S MOST EXTREME the chairman of cardiology at the Cleveland Clinic. “You do a
physical exam starts in the total body MRI and you’re lucky if you don’t ind something.
world’s plushest exam room, I don’t think it’s good medicine.”
complete with a couch, a private Venter scofs. “We’re screening healthy people, and a lot
bathroom and a teeming fruit of physicians don’t like that,” he acknowledges. “My response
plate. It will be my home for an is: How do you know they’re healthy? We use a deinition of
entire day. First come the blood tests, health out of the Middle Ages: If you look okay and you feel
vial ater vial. hen two 35-minute ses- okay, you’re deemed healthy. We have a diferent way of look-
sions in an MRI tube, where REM and U2 try to drown out ing at people.”
the clanks as the machine takes pictures of my entire body. Now 70, Venter cites himself. Last year, he underwent his
here’s an ultrasound of my heart. Salade Niçoise for lunch. A own physical and says he found prostate cancer, which was
stool sample. A cognitive test in which letters lash on a com- removed last November. he man he has called his “scientif-
puter screen at a dizzying pace. And a CT scan of my heart ic muse,” Nobel laureate Hamilton Smith, 85, found he had
as well, which originally seemed so over-the-top for someone a deadly lymphoma in his lung. It has also been treated, and
my age that I tried to get out of it. Smith says his prognosis is good.
“In Vietnam, I used to do autopsies on 18-to-22-year-olds, he famously gruf Venter is entirely comfortable ticking of
and a lot of them had cardiovascular disease,” J. Craig Venter, the the establishment, no matter what that establishment is, and the
architect of the process, says with a shrug, before adding, omi- feeling is mutual. His DNA breakthrough was one of the great
nously, “We ind things. he question is what you do with it.” scientiic accomplishments of the 20th century, yet he never
Yes, it’s that Craig Venter, the man in the late 1990s who, won a Nobel Prize. Academics view him as someone interested
frustrated by the slow progress of the government-funded in proits over science. “He’s a very insecure person who com-
Human Genome Project, launched an efort that sequenced pensates by coming across as very arrogant and aggressive,” says
human DNA two years earlier than planned (he was sub- one former collaborator. Similarly, Venter’s discoveries have up-
sequently the irst human to have his complete DNA se- ended industries, yet his business track record, including a brief
quenced). He hasn’t slowed down since. He sailed around the lirtation with billionairehood, is checkered, as connections to
world in a voyage inspired by Darwin’s journey on the Beagle, past backers and bosses have gone up in lames. “He has irri-
discovering thousands of new species along the way. He has tated a lot of people,” says Harvard genetics professor George
created synthetic life and started three companies, and was Church, a Venter fan. “It’s a pity.”
almost a billionaire before being ired from one of the most hus, Human Longevity ofers Venter a last chance to
promising, Celera Genomics. square his legacy, awe the scientists and make billions in the
Now he’s back with his most ambitious project since his process, all the while shaking the foundation of a topic that
historic breakthrough 17 years ago. He’s raised $300 million precisely 100% of homo sapiens have a keen interest in: how
from investors including Celgene and GE Ventures for a new and when each of us will die.
irm, Human Longevity, that’s trying to take the DNA infor-
mation he helped unlock and igure out how to leverage it to
cheat death for years, or even decades. ENTER HAS DISPLAYED POTENTIAL, BOTH
Core to the efort is the $25,000 executive physical, brand-
ed the Health Nucleus, that I’m taking (disclosure: I got tested
for free). It’s certainly very thorough—and, to many doctors,
precisely the wrong approach, owing to all the false positives.
V achieved and unrealized, almost since birth.
Growing up in Millbrae, California, near what
was emerging as Silicon Valley, he had such bad
grades that by high school his worried mother
“Study ater study of various kinds of screening measures has sometimes checked his arms for track marks. he irst glimmer
shown they do more harm than good,” says Steven Nissen, of his future success was in swimming. He was initially mediocre,
but when a coach sent him home for the summer with tips, his At the NIH the themes that would deine his career locked
competitive streak kicked in. He spent three months training into place: productivity, perceived greed, the conlicts be-
furiously and never again lost a race. “Had things been diferent tween pure science and industry money. Using a new tech-
I would have been competing for the Olympics,” Venter says. nology, he discovered thousands of human genes. he NIH
“But Lyndon Johnson changed that for me with the drat.” made the unprecedented decision to patent them in his name,
Swimming unlocked his potential, but Vietnam made and colleagues blamed Venter, calling him greedy. Nobel lau-
him who he is. At age 20 he served as a Navy hospital corps- reate James Watson said he was “horriied.” Venter insists he
man, triaging troops who came back from battle, including was always against the patents but that the NIH did it anyway.
the Tet Ofensive. Deciding who would live and who would Frustrated, he started a nonproit institute in 1992, with a
die was so traumatic that he says he considered suicide and unique model. He raised money from venture capitalists, on
swam far out to sea intending to drown. He says he had a the condition that he share his data with a for-proit compa-
change of heart a mile out ater a shark prodded him. But he’d ny, Human Genome Sciences, before he published it. he re-
go through Vietnam again. “Knowing the outcome and what lationship ended unhappily in 1997 because of arguments
it did for my personal growth, I would force myself to do it over data disclosure, with Venter walking away from $40 mil-
again if I had the choice,” Venter says. lion in research funding. “I paid a lot of money to get rid of
Ater he returned to the States, he went to community col- [Human Genome Sciences],” Venter says.
SAILING: EVAN HURD/ALAMY
lege, then the University of California, San Diego, where he ini- But in 1995, Venter’s institute made a real breakthrough: the
tially wanted to be a doctor but discovered science. He even- irst genome, or map of the genetic code of an organism, in this
tually completed his Ph.D. in physiology and pharmacology, case a type of bacterium. It was a suggestion from Ham Smith.
became a professor at the State University of New York at Bufa- hey had met at a scientiic conference in Spain in 1993 and
lo in 1976 and, in 1984, joined the National Institutes of Health. gone out drinking, starting a two-decade-plus collaboration.
Foreshadowing his later
race with the Human Ge-
nome Project, Venter and
STARTUP DNA Smith’s bacterial genome
THROUGHOUT HIS CAREER, CRAIG VENTER HAS TRIED TO CASH IN ON HIS SCIENTIFIC map beat similar proj-
BREAKTHROUGHS, BUT WITH A DECIDEDLY MIXED TRACK RECORD. ects in academia by many
months.
HUMAN GENOME CELERA SYNTHETIC HUMAN hat led a Califor-
SCIENCES GENOMICS GENOMICS LONGEVITY nia unit of lab equip-
OPENING MOVE: Founded OPENING MOVE: Venter OPENING MOVE: Cofound- OPENING MOVE: Cofound- ment maker Perkin-El-
in 1992, the company cofounded Celera Genom- ed in 2005 with longtime ed in 2013 to understand
aimed to discover drugs ics in 1998, the company Venter associate Hamilton how genetic difer- mer, which made DNA
based on Venter’s pioneer- that would sequence the Smith to work on creating ences lengthen or shorten sequencers, to approach
ing human genetics human genome and the synthetic life. Hitting major people’s lives.
research at the Institute DNA code of the mouse milestones, including Venter. If he could se-
ENDGAME: Launched
for Genomic Research. and the fruit fly. A tracking creating a synthetic cell a high-end physical, quence a bacterial ge-
stock, it was valued at with a man-made genome
ENDGAME: Relationship fell
$14 billion at its peak. in 2010.
Health Nucleus, that is nome, why not use the
apart in 1997 over constant also a medical study. Has
arguments about rights; ENDGAME: Venter was fired ENDGAME: Exxon Mobil sequenced the genomes
company’s newest ma-
Venter says HGS blocked in 2002; firm lost most of said it would fund as much of 40,000 people. chines to sequence a
him from publishing his its value before being sold as $300 million worth of human genome?
work. Human Genome to Quest Diagnostics for biofuels. Has a deal with
Sciences was sold to $344 million in 2011. Johnson & Johnson to Venter couldn’t say
GlaxoSmithKline for develop new drugs. no, which led to Celera
$3 billion in 2012.
Genomics’ founding
in 1998. It not only succeeded in overtaking the $3 billion It was a necessary scientiic nest egg. Celera struggled to
Human Genome Project, an international consortium fund- invent drugs and diagnostic tests based on its pioneering re-
ed largely by the U.S. government, but it also mapped the ge- search, and Venter bickered constantly with the board. hey
nomes of the fruit ly and the mouse, both important labora- wanted Celera to become a pharma giant and invent medi-
tory animals. In the process, Venter angered scientists globally, cines in-house. Venter simply wanted to be a scientist and sell
aghast that such research would be driven by proit rather than other companies his data. He was ired in January 2002, days
knowledge. At the time, James Watson reportedly became so before a quarter of his stock options would vest. “Being ired
enraged he compared Venter to Hitler, asking colleagues who in the way it was done was about as slimy as anybody could
they were going to be—Chamberlain or Churchill? do it,” Venter says. Celera limped along until 2011, when it
But the pressure of private enterprise ultimately spurred re- was sold to Quest Diagnostics for $344 million. (Forbes esti-
sults, both at Celera and the public group, which improved their mates that Venter’s current net worth, based on his stakes in
methods and accelerated their research. As a result, the two his two startups, is $300 million.) Venter’s baby had essential-
groups jointly announced they had mapped the entire human ly been sold for parts.
genome—an achievement that our grandkids will be reading
about in their textbooks—at the White House on June 26, 2000.
In the age of the dot-com boom, Celera became a highli- ITH HUMAN LONGEVITY, VENTER HOPES TO
er, raising $855 million in a stock ofering in February 2000
W solve the problem that ultimately limited the
ers why. hey found what he calls “the likely perpetrator.” get myself to regret going through it. Knowledge about your-
It’s a change in the way his body responds to the hor- self is a very seductive ofer. It’s one that Venter hopes will
mone testosterone. Testosterone works by tripping a cellular give him the data to inally deliver on the genome’s promise. F
BELFOR HOLDINGS
L
ess than a week ater call. Last year the privately held company, Southield Athletic Club in the
Hurricane Matthew based in Birmingham, Michigan, brought Detroit suburbs, which count-
sideswiped the south- in $1.5 billion in revenue. ed some of the city’s most no-
eastern United States in It’s low-margin work. he company torious Mob igures among its
October, Sheldon Yellen says it netted less than 3% last year, as in- patrons.
stands in a wind tunnel surance companies constantly push down Not that Yellen likes talk-
next to a resort outside prices. But proits jump during hurri- ing about that. “I’ve worked for
Jacksonville, Florida, canes—climate change is good for Bel- some Italian people that con-
imagining the scene of the storm. “Winds for—when there is plenty of work to do trolled a lot of turf,” he says
blowing upwards of nearly 200 miles an and not enough people who know how to cryptically at one point. When
hour, water was crashing all the way to this do it. Forbes estimates that the company is later asked about successful
hotel,” he says, wearing a bright-blue storm worth $900 million and that Yellen has a people from organized crime,
jacket, black slacks and a gold-chain neck- net worth of $320 million. he smirks and says: “You’re al-
lace. “It didn’t appear to be that strong of a It’s quite an accomplishment for this most asking me to conirm
storm because it was 30 miles ofshore, but 59-year-old high school dropout, and one that I was in that world. I’m
you’ll see the damage. here’s millions of that has come as he’s harbored a profes- not conirming that. I know
dollars of damage.” sional secret for three decades. “I’ve been I’ve lived two diferent lives,
Bad news for pretty much everyone shot at, I’ve had a gun pointed down my but I’m not conirming that
here. Good news for Yellen, who runs the throat, I’ve held guys at gunpoint,” says Yel- was the life.” Yellen later latly
disaster-cleanup company Belfor Hold- len, who stands just 5-feet-6-inches tall, denies that he ever worked in
ings. Operating on only a few hours of has a bit of a paunch and wears his hair organized crime, but ater I in-
sleep, three days into a tour of coastal dev- transplant slicked back. “People don’t know terview former federal inves-
astation, he guides me through the back that. I’ve never talked about that. I’ve done tigators, read stacks of court
door of the resort, which hired his com- 30-some years of keeping that private.” documents and mine thou-
pany to clean up ater Matthew. Inside, Eventually, he does talk, though, and in sands of pages of FBI iles, it
roughly 75 of Yellen’s workers from across greater detail. His background. His men- becomes clear that Yellen’s con-
the country have been drying out walls, re- tors. His tactics. Many have chronicled or- nections with reputed Mob ig-
placing windows and repairing ceilings for ganized crime businesses that have tried to ures helped him climb out of
days. Belfor employees started driving to- go “legit.” Yellen has built a legit business— poverty.
ward the hurricane when it was just a swirl but the lessons that he all but admits came According to two retired
on the radar out at sea, then rushed into from Maia igures helped turn Belfor into FBI agents, the man in charge
the hardest-hit areas as soon as the storm a billion-dollar juggernaut. of the Southield Athletic Club,
passed, in some cases arriving before any- where Yellen worked from age
one but the police and the National Guard. GROWING UP, YELLEN didn’t see much 14 to 22, was Maia associ-
When disaster strikes, Belfor gets of his old man, who sufered from diges- ate Leonard Schultz. His sons
called in to do the dirty work. Over the tive problems, spent two years in and out of also worked at the club. he place served as
course of its history, Belfor has cleaned the hospital and developed an addiction to headquarters for reputed mobster Antho-
up more than a million sites around the painkillers. Michigan records reveal a list of ny “Tony Jack” Giacalone, the Maia’s al-
world, whether scrubbing dust-illed drug convictions and prison sentences. “We leged street boss in Detroit who was long
buildings ater the September 11 attacks, thought he was a traveling salesman be- suspected of helping orchestrate the dis-
ixing up 20 of New Orleans’ high-rises cause he would show up every six months appearance of Jimmy Hofa (see box, p.
following Hurricane Katrina or collect- or year for a day or two,” Yellen says. “We 85). According to former FBI agents, Gia-
ing body parts in the French Alps ater would jump on his lap and want to throw a calone and his brother Vito (“Billy Jack”)
a deranged Germanwings pilot plowed baseball with him, just like you would with had hidden interests in a series of business-
his plane into the side of a mountain your dad. And he would do that for a day. es throughout town, including a juice man-
two years ago. When it isn’t dealing with hen he would disappear again.” ufacturer named the Home Juice Co.
high-proile disasters, Belfor handles ev- In his absence, Yellen’s mom, Lenore, Yellen got into business with Home
eryday messes like garage ires and base- scraped by on welfare and put her sons to Juice ater the Schultzes gave him clear-
ment loods. Its competition is fragment- work. It still wasn’t enough: Yellen came ance to run a juice concession inside the
ed: mostly local cleanup crews in any home one day and found a local oicial Southield Athletic Club. his wasn’t any
given market, who lack Belfor’s experi- warning his mother that they were facing ordinary lemonade stand. “You would
ence and scale. Hence, when insurance eviction. He got his irst job at 11, wash- say big deal, you sold papaya juice. I was
companies or multinationals like Wal- ing dishes at a hamburger joint for $1.10 17 or 18 years old, and I was selling thou-
Mart or General Electric have a big mess an hour. hree years later, a family friend sands of dollars a week,” Yellen initial-
on their hands, Belfor tends to get the irst got Yellen a gig cleaning toilets at the elite ly says. When subsequently pressed about
whether those sales were all legitimate, he ed a young furniture entrepreneur named vending machines and arcade games. At
insists they were. Two weeks later, he calls Harvey Leach to his house for a meeting. the time, the machines were worth be-
unannounced and says that he misre- It is unclear whether Leach ever arrived. tween $600 and $2,500 each.
membered the revenue igure—the juice he next day, authorities found him in the When asked what he had done to earn
stand was taking in only hundreds of dol- trunk of a Lincoln Continental with his such a lucrative opportunity, Yellen starts
lars a week. Regardless, he is still thankful throat slashed, according to local police shiting in his chair. “I um, I um—man,” he
to Schultz, whom he calls a mentor. “Mr. records. Schultz was questioned by police mutters as tears ill his eyes (he cried sev-
Schultz was good to me,” Yellen says. “I but never charged. A lawyer connected eral times during my interviews with him).
didn’t have a dad around. I’m not saying to Giacalone eventually took over Leach’s He sits in silence for 25 seconds, staring at
he was my surrogate father . . . but he took furniture business, according to FBI iles. the carpet inside the Florida hotel, shak-
an interest in me.” he murder was never solved. Years later ing his head intermittently, then dodges
Not everyone remembers Schultz so it became public that Schultz had served the question. “I had a life on the streets,” he
fondly. Ultimately convicted of conspir- as an FBI informant. says. “I was exposed to things and to peo-
acy to distribute cocaine in 1987, Schultz Around the same time, Schultz helped ple, and I experienced being on both sides
started regularly appearing in local news- Yellen secure a line of credit to get start- of the tracks for various reasons.”
papers around the same time Yellen ed in the vending-machine industry, he streets proved to be dangerous.
CHARLIE RIEDEL/AP
opened his juice stand. Most of the sto- which former FBI agents say was heavi- One time, Yellen was collecting coins
ries centered on what happened on a cold ly iniltrated by the Maia at the time. Yel- when someone opened ire on him. He
March day in 1974 when Schultz invit- len eventually built up a business of 100 started wearing a bulletproof vest and car-
BELFOR HOLDINGS
rying a gun. he new tools came in handy side of the business, which relied on calls bringing in nearly $5 million of business
when three people tried to rob him. “I from insurance companies that needed by himself, about as much as the rest of
had to pull out my gun,” Yellen says. to ix damaged buildings. As a young guy the company.
“Having a gun pointed at three guys lay- with no connections in the industry, Yel- In 1989, Hurricane Hugo slammed
ing on the ground—‘Get on the ground. len found it diicult to get meetings with into Charleston, South Carolina, caus-
If one of you move, all three of you are insurance agents. So he mapped out 120 ing $7 billion of damage. Sensing oppor-
dead’—that’s scary.” insurance oices nearby and marched tunity, Yellen’s brothers-in-law told him to
into every one. He had a standard open- grab 25 workers and start driving south.
MARRIAGE PROVIDED him a way out ing line to the receptionists: “How are Along the way, he pulled into rest stops
of that life. When Yellen was 26, his wife’s you? I don’t have an appointment. I’m not and ofered a job to anyone with a pickup
brothers, Randy (a member of the South- going to stay and talk to you. Here’s my and a toolbox. Before long, he was trailed
ield club) and Mark Fenton, ofered him card. I’ll see you in two weeks, same time. by a caravan of 30 trucks. “Every truck
a job at their family company, Inrecon, Goodbye.” He tracked the meetings in his was more rusted than the one before it,”
which did $5 million in annual revenue notepads and showed up again two weeks Yellen says. he night they arrived, there
selling awnings and ixing up properties. later—same place, same time—and even- weren’t enough places to sleep, so Yel-
Eager for a more stable lifestyle, Yellen ac- tually became a familiar face to the in- len crashed on the beach. He eventual-
cepted the ofer and became Inrecon’s 19th surance businesses, which started calling ly moved his then-pregnant wife to South
employee in 1984. him when they had big jobs. By his sec- Carolina. He got some jobs, but the insur-
He jumped into the property-repair ond year at Inrecon, Yellen claims, he was ance companies delayed their payments,
into Manhattan’s inancial district ater the sitting with him in the lounge one time, and he said to me, ‘I understand you’re
World Trade Center attacks to clean dust a good boy.’ And he put his arm around me, and said, ‘Well, I’m glad you are.’ ”
out of buildings. Like so many irst re- Asked about Hofa’s disappearance, Yellen says: “I heard about it like everybody
sponders, they fell victim to toxic pollut- else. I knew nothing.” —D.A.
ants swirling around the site. Over the next
ive years, more than 100 plaintifs iled
lawsuits against Belfor, and it looked like a total of $22 million; many of them took One former shareholder says he has no
the company might have to pay hundreds out loans to inance their purchases. Yel- idea. It’s hard to be sure, since sharehold-
of millions in settlements. Belfor’s German len himself put in $8 million and lent em- ers don’t have yearly meetings, don’t get
owners, the Haniel family, wanted out— ployees another $4 million. Today he full inancials and haven’t received a list
and Yellen wanted in. controls 95% of the voting power at the of their fellow owners in more than ten
hrough a series of deals, he raised company, despite owning an estimated years. “My initial reaction to the whole of-
$322 million, the bulk of which came 30% of the business. It’s unclear who owns fering when it came out was: Do you trust
from JPMorgan and the Haniel family, the rest—Yellen initially said there are 52 these guys or don’t you?” says Rusty Am-
which put up $150 million each. He per- shareholders. Later his CFO said there arante, a shareholder and top executive.
suaded dozens of colleagues to hand him are 55 before they inally settled on 60. “Because who would invest in something
BELFOR HOLDINGS
where they have no vote, no say—there can ask for it. You’re going to get limited i- to Inrecon in 1999 and now serves as a re-
isn’t anything I can do from a stockhold- nancial information. If you don’t want to do gional manager in the southeastern United
er’s standpoint to inluence the company.” it, that’s great. But this is not a committee. States. “Sheldon is the type of guy, if you’ve
here is technically a two-person board of his is an opportunity.” got his back, he’s got your back.”
directors, but when asked, Yellen says he How much people get paid is also a Until he doesn’t. During the cleanup
doesn’t know who the other board mem- secret. Every January, Yellen, his broth- ater Katrina, a group of subcontracted
ber is; his chief inancial oicer tells him er Michael and Ciolino sit down and de- workers sued Belfor, saying they labored
it is Bernd Elsner, the retired head of Bel- cide on bonus packages for the compa- 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, without
for’s European operation. ny’s top 350 managers. On average, 50% overtime. he parties eventually settled
What is clear: Yellen’s timing and luck of their annual pay comes in the form of the case; Belfor agreed to pay all overtime
couldn’t have been better. Shortly ater the a bonus. But it’s all discretionary: If Yellen wages but did not admit to any wrongdo-
Germans told Yellen they wanted to sell, and his inner circle want, they can choose ing. In a separate case, an original investor
Hurricane Katrina slammed into New Or- to pay no bonus at all. For the top ten em- who was later ired by Belfor, James Cole-
leans, causing more damage than any other ployees, Yellen himself decides the size man, sued his former employer, alleg-
storm in U.S. history. he deal still went of the checks. he vast majority of their ing that the company ofered him a pal-
through. He lucked out with the lawsuits as compensation comes in a single payment, try amount of money when he tried to sell
well. In 2011 and 2015, President Obama which is not disclosed to shareholders. his stake. hey eventually reached a coni-
signed bills to compensate 9/11 victims, (Yellen insists he takes only a small salary, dential settlement.
April 2- 6
H E S T R AT ED EVENT
THE HIG
F O R B E S HISTORY
IN
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Today seems so easy when tomorrow is
all figured out.
When your financial future is in order, everything else seems to fall into place. We’ll
give you the tools and support you need to find the long-term investment solution
that works for you, from self-planning resources to step-by-step assistance from a
retirement consultant.
The best returns aren’t just measured in dollars.
I
n this age of second and third career acts, 401(k)s
instead of pensions and increasing longevity, deci-
sions about when, where and how to retire are highly
personal. With that in mind, our annual Retirement
Guide ofers blueprints to help you build your own suc-
cessful plan.
We start with a model portfolio that will get you
thinking about whether your nest egg is suiciently
diversiied. Next, we’ve got ten techniques for structur-
ing assets so that you report less income to the IRS and
escape tax and Medicare penalties that hit the well-of.
HEADLINE TREATMENT BY PETER AND MARIA HOEY FOR FORBES
calculated hypo-
EXTREME DIVERSITY thetical 25-year re-
THIS COLLECTION OF ETFS, HEAVY ON DEPRESSED COMMODITIES AND INTERNATIONAL INVESTMENTS, HAS TENS
OF THOUSANDS OF SECURITIES INSIDE. OBJECTIVE: LOW RISK, HIGH RETURN.
sults for an equal-
5-YEAR ly weighted mix of
ASSETS1 ANNUALIZED EXPENSE the nine asset class-
EXCHANGE-TRADED FUND TICKER ($BIL) RETURN1 RATIO INVESTMENT
es represented in
BONDS the ten-fund model
SPDR BLOOMBERG BARCLAYS INTL TREASURY BOND BWX $1.5 –1.4% 0.50% $130,000 portfolio. He rebal-
VANECK VECTORS JP MORGAN EMER MKTS LOC CURR BOND EMLC 2.4 -1.5 0.47 100,000 anced annually so
VANGUARD TOTAL BOND MARKET BND 31.4 2.1 0.06 90,000 that each class had
COMMODITIES 11.1% of the port-
ISHARES GOLD TRUST IAU 7.3 -5.7 0.25 110,000 folio.
POWERSHARES DB COMMODITY TRACKING DBC 2.6 -10.0 0.85 50,000 he tutti-frut-
STOCKS ti blend would have
VANGUARD FTSE ALL-WORLD EX-U.S. VEU 14.6 5.4 0.13 170,000 earned 8% a year
VANGUARD FTSE EMERGING MARKETS INDEX VWO 43.9 1.5 0.15 140,000 and sufered volatil-
VANGUARD GLOBAL EX-U.S. REAL ESTATE VNQI 3.2 8.6 0.18 40,000 ity, as measured by
VANGUARD REIT VNQ 32.7 11.8 0.12 60,000 annualized standard
VANGUARD TOTAL STOCK MARKET VTI 69.9 14.6 0.05 110,000 deviation of month-
COMPOSITE PORTFOLIO 2.5 0.25 $1,000,000 ly returns, of 9.8%.
1
TO DEC. 31. SOURCES: SUPERNOVA; MORNINGSTAR. Had you put 100%
of your money into
ade. Why? Because those returns are not in the table above. here is one each in U.S. stocks you would have landed a per-
closely correlated with the returns on eight asset classes and a pair for the last centage point more of annual return but
stocks. By itself, gold is an extremely un- class (real estate). sufered considerably higher volatility, at
safe place to park money. Inside a port- he abbreviated Kurtz list has no 14.3% (see graph, p. 91).
folio that is mostly stocks and bonds, it TIPS; you get your inlation hedge from A 100% allocation to domestic equi-
adds stability. REITs, commodities and foreign cur- ties might be ine for someone with Buf-
he surprises come far away from de- rencies. he portfolio has three times fett’s temperament and a very long in-
veloped markets. Kurtz would have a $1 as much allocated to foreign stocks as vestment horizon. It’s not such a good
million saver putting $3,000 into Peru- U.S. ones and twice as much in foreign idea for the average investor, who would
vian government bonds denominated in bonds as domestic ones. It leans toward have struggled to stay put during the two
the sketchy local currency and $900 in recent laggards. Indeed, had you bought Dow crashes of the past quarter-century.
Colombian stocks. Yech! But if you are it ive years ago you would have earned here are still plenty of investment
turned of by Latin America’s history of only 2.5% a year. But remember: You’re managers who make their living the old
coups, expropriations and hyperinla- not buying the past. You’re buying the way, charging a percentage point a year
tions, then so are other investors. So you future. to pick stocks. But the world is mov-
are buying cheap. Naïve investors assemble portfolios ing in Kurtz’s direction, with trillions of
Can’t Treasury bonds be a counter- the opposite way. hey take money away dollars marching out of active manage-
weight to U.S. stocks? hey can, up to a from laggards and give it to winners. ment and into the passive portfolios run
point. But don’t be fooled by the 35-year Doing that, says Kurtz, is a prescription by Vanguard, BlackRock and others.
bull market in U.S. stocks and bonds. If for buying high and selling low. He can- “Asset allocation is being commod-
we get staglation again, both Treasurys not know, of course, that the pendulum itized,” says Kurtz, referring to the price
and blue chips will sufer. You’ll wish you is just now about to swing back toward war among the new crop of roboadvi-
had stashed more money abroad. better performance from commodities sors like Supernova. “What’s not com-
It’s not hard to implement a global and foreign assets. But it will swing back moditized is inancial advice.” You might
mix using exchange-traded funds. he i- at some point, and the turn becomes still pay a handsome fee to be told when
nancial planners who subscribe to Su- more likely with each upward tick in the to pay of your mortgage and how much
pernova’s portfolio service, at a fee of ap- Dow. to put in your grandchildren’s 529 col-
proximately a quarter point a year, wind Obsessed with statistics—he spent lege savings accounts, he says. But if you
up with 21 of those things. At Forbes’ re- a year constructing historical returns are paying much more than a quarter of
quest, Kurtz consolidated the recom- for obscure asset categories—Kurtz can a point for portfolio construction, ask
mendations into ten positions, displayed quantify what diversiication does. He what you’re getting for it. F
ACT WITH
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all market conditions. Brokerage commissions trademarks of Standard & Poor’s Financial S&P 500 ETF Trust, a unit investment trust.
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BLUEPRINT FOR RETIREMENT TAX STRATEGIES
A
PETER AND MARIA HOEY FOR FORBES
djusted gross income—line like New York, kick up property taxes for about promoting college or adoption or
37 of the 1040—drives all people with high AGIs. retirement yet trim the cost.
manner of penalties, surtax- he tax code is littered with assaults he problem is likely to get worse, not
es and phaseouts of beneits. on your AGI. Some education or adop- better. Republicans are gunning for cuts
Noteworthy is an AGI-powered boost in tion credit or tax-deferred IRA will be in the visible tax rates. But the country
Medicare premiums that will cost a cou- dangled, then snatched away if line 37 is is already $14 trillion in the hole. Solu-
ple up to $8,899 in 2017. Some states, too high. his is how politicians can brag tion: Declare tax cuts or entitlements in
WHERE
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Why has advanced manufacturing grown to be our largest industry? Why do
more than 6,200 companies employ over 92,000 workers in the financial and
insurance industry in Iowa? It’s simple. Iowa has built a business environment
that breeds success. We believe in working hard. And living well. It’s a healthy
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iowaeconomicdevelopment.com
iowaeconomicdevelopment businessiowa
the headline, then take them back in the account compound indeinitely and use If you otherwise would have used appre-
footnotes. it late in life to reimburse yourself for ciated stock to be philanthropic, bypass-
What do you do? Doctor your income medical expenses incurred years earlier. ing capital gains en route, the choice is
so that line 37 goes down. Here are ten It acts like a supercharged IRA. more complex. Use tax sotware to see if
ways to do this. you are better of bypassing AGI or by-
DUCK REFUNDS. If you overdo your passing capital gains.
MAXIMIZE RETIREMENT. Your con- estimated state income taxes for 2017, you
tribution of up to $18,000 ($24,000 for get a deduction for the outlay, but some or TAKE LOSSES. It’s almost always a
those 50 and up) to a 401(k) reduces AGI. all of the resulting refund will boost your good idea to sell stinkers from your
If neither you nor your spouse has a re- AGI in 2018. (Just how much depends on portfolio. Capital losses can absorb any
tirement plan in a current job, you can the estimated tax you pay on January 15, amount of capital gains (say, from un-
deduct $5,500 ($6,500 for oldsters) going 2018 and other factors.) To put it in other wanted mutual fund distributions) plus
into an IRA. words: Having an oversize deduction one up to $3,000 of other income. Both ab-
year followed by extra income the next sorptions lower AGI.
BUILD YOUR HSA. Health savings ac- does not leave you whole. If your bracket
counts are triple-tax-free: a deduction, stays the same, the boomerang leaves you OWN INDEX FUNDS. In your taxable
tax-free compounding and tax-free with- worse of because it inlates AGI. accounts, go for something like the Van-
drawals. If your family is covered by a guard Total Stock Market ETF (VTI). his
high-deductible health insurance plan, DONATE FROM AN IRA. Once you giant fund, which has a lot of overlap with
you can deduct contributions of up to turn 70½, use distributions sent direct- the S&P 500, has done a hair better than
$6,750 ($1,000 more if you are 55-64). ly from your IRA to a charity to cover that index over the past decade. And it
Withdrawals are tax-free if used to cover contributions you would otherwise has done so with minimal tax pain to the
medical costs. have made in cash. he outlay (max: customers. It doesn’t pay out capital gains.
You have to stop contributing when $100,000) counts toward mandatory IRA Contrast that with Growth Fund of
you’re in Medicare, but you can let the withdrawals but never shows up in AGI. America, which has tied VTI over the de-
When you need something shipped immediately, Old Dominion Expedited delivers. Our focus on
premium service means every shipment arrives with one of the lowest claims ratios and one of the
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Old Dominion Freight Line, the Old Dominion logo, OD Household Services and Helping The World Keep Promises are service marks or registered service marks of
Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc. All other trademarks and service marks identified herein are the intellectual property of their respective owners.
© 2016 Old Dominion Freight Line, Inc., Thomasville, N.C. All rights reserved.
cade. But its active management churns up help you. hey create less gross income. LEVERAGE RENTAL PROPERTY. Up
capital gains. If you owned $100,000 of it Suppose part of your retirement in- to a point. Let’s say your balance sheet
in December, you had $5,570 of needless come is going to be interest on $1 mil- is destined to have $400,000 of mortgage
taxable income thrown into your AGI. lion of bonds in a taxable account, and debt. It could be on a home you live in
you’re in a combined 33% federal/state or it could be on an apartment building
TAPER YOUR CAREER. Objective: tax bracket. Choice 1: Vanguard Inter- you hold for investment. Either way, the
maximize the above-line-37 deduction for mediate Corporate Bond ETF (VCIT), interest is deductible. So it seems not to
health insurance. You can write of pre- yielding 3.4%. hat’s $34,000 of income matter where the mortgage goes. But it
miums, including Medicare premiums, before tax and $23,000 ater. Choice 2: does matter. Investment property inter-
against self-employment income; you Vanguard Tax-Exempt Bond ETF est comes out of line 17, so it shrinks the
can’t write them of against other income. (VTEB), yielding 2.3%. hat delivers AGI on line 37. he home-mortgage in-
Say you’re a self-employed lawyer in $23,000 net of federal tax and a bit less terest is claimed below line 37. It doesn’t
your early 60s making $120,000 and plan- ater state tax. protect you from the AGI bandits.
ning to work one more year. And let’s say Putting aside the somewhat higher Caveat: his is a tricky business. You
health insurance for you and your spouse credit quality of the munis, this is pret- may not be able to deduct the interest
is running $16,000 a year. ty close to a tie so far. But the muni fund if you mortgage the apartment building
Work one year full-time and you’ll de- lessens the havoc on line 37. ater buying it, and you will probably run
duct $16,000. Work three years at one- Under present law, VTEB keeps into trouble if the mortgage interest puts
third time and you’ll deduct $48,000. $34,000 out of the AGI igure used to de- your rental into the red.
termine how much income gets whacked
OWN MUNIS. Tax-exempt bonds aren’t by the 3.8% ObamaCare tax. he next PLAN YOUR DIVORCE. Alimony
entirely tax-exempt: he interest gets added tax cut may repeal the 3.8% tax. But it (but not a lump-sum settlement)
to AGI in some of the AGI penalty formu- will almost certainly leave in place the moves AGI from one ex to the other.
las, such as the one boosting Medicare pre- Medicare premium penalty. VTEB is he potential tax beneit should be part
miums. But even here, the municipal bonds $11,000 better than VCIT on that score. of the negotiation.
WHERE WE STAND:
AMERICA’S RETIREMENT SCORE
For many Americans, retirement can seem like an abstract concept. But the steps you take today can
have a lasting impact. Here, we pause to take stock of our collective situation and provide suggestions
for increasing your own retirement score.
310
# concern in out of Americans are such as traditional 401(k)s and Roth IRAs, and take advantage
ability to cover
healthcare expenses.
& cuts to Social
Security beneits.
1
of any match your employer offers.
Room For Improvement The closer you are to retirement, the more it makes sense
to play it safe. But investors in their 20s, 30s and 40s
Unsurprisingly, baby boomers—who are closer to should consider going for growth with a mix of U.S. and
retirement age—have a higher total savings rate than international stocks and stock mutual funds.
Gen Xers and millennials. But we all have room for
improvement.
3 RETIRE LATER.
1
TOTAL SAVINGS RATE BY GENERATION
Working longer not only gives you more time to grow your savings,
but it can also help you get the most from your Social Security
beneits, which may increase as much as 30% if you
wait to ile for the monthly beneits until your full retirement age,
usually between 65 and 67, depending on your date of birth.
Remember:
9.7 8.2
BABY BOOMERS
%
GEN XERS
%
7.5
MILLENNIALS
%
However far away the future may seem, it’s never too early
to start saving more—and it’s never too late to ramp up
your retirement readiness.
The good news is that small changes to your retirement
strategies can make a big difference in the long run. To find out your retirement score, visit www.forbes.com/retirementcheckup.
[1] 2016 Retirement Savings Assessment Executive Summary, Fidelity Investments. [2] Suggestions based on Fidelity Viewpoints® article, “Reality check—ind out your retirement score,”
12/21/2016; [3] The 10x savings rules of thumb are developed assuming age-based asset allocations consistent with the equity glide path of a typical target date retirement fund, a 15% sav-
ings rate, a 1.5% constant real wage growth, a retirement age of 67 and a planning age through 93. The replacement annual income target is deined as 45% of preretirement annual income
and assumes no pension income. This target is based on Consumer Expenditure Survey 2011 (BLS), Statistics of Income 2011 Tax Stat, IRS 2014 tax brackets and Social Security Beneit
Calculators. Fidelity developed the salary multipliers through multiple market simulations based on historical market data, assuming poor market conditions to support a 90% conidence level
of success. These simulations take into account the volatility that a typical target date asset allocation might experience under different market conditions. Volatility of the stocks, bonds and
short-term asset classes is based on the historical annual data from 1926 through the most recent year-end data available from Ibbotson Associates, Inc. Stocks (domestic and foreign) are
represented by Ibbotson Associates SBBI S&P 500 Total Return Index, bonds are represented by Ibbotson Associates SBBI U.S. Intermediate Term Government Bonds Total Return Index, and
short term are represented by Ibbotson Associates SBBI 30-day U.S. Treasury Bills Total Return Index, respectively. It is not possible to invest directly in an index. All indices include reinvest-
ment of dividends and interest income. All calculations are purely hypothetical and a suggested salary multiplier is not a guarantee of future results; it does not reflect the return of any particular
investment or take into consideration the composition of a participant’s particular account. The salary multiplier is intended only to be one source of information that may help you assess your
retirement income needs. Remember, past performance is no guarantee of future results. Performance returns for actual investments will generally be reduced by fees or expenses not reflected
in these hypothetical calculations. Returns also will generally be reduced by taxes.
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC, 900 Salem Street, Smithield, RI 02917. © 2017 FMR LLC. All rights reserved. 713550.2.0
FEBRUARY 28, 2017 FORBES | 98
RETIREMENT CHECKUP BEST PLACES
No Car, No Problem
THE TOP SPOTS FOR THE AGE OF RIDE SHARING AND WALKABLE CITIES.
BY WILLIAM P. BARRETT AND LAUREN GENSLER
B
aby Boomers have had a lifelong right locale. Forbes screened hundreds of ruled out cities where high crime means
love afair with autos. In retire- cities to ind the top 25 towns for carless you might not want to walk, but we didn’t
PETER AND MARIA HOEY
ment, however, they might con- living—places with walkable neighbor- cut places just because they’re expensive.
sider taking a cue from their Mil- hoods (meaning you can hoof it to stores, Neighborhoods in nine of our picks are de-
lennial kids, who have demonstrated that services and activities); public transit; Uber scribed below. For the full list, go to
you can live happily without a car, in the and Lyt; and car rentals by the hour. We forbes.com/retire-without-a-car.
BEACON HILL
CLARENDON/COURTHOUSE
CAPITOL HILL
TOP HOOD: Clarendon/Courthouse. A compact TOP HOOD: Beacon Hill. Famed historic neighborhood TOP HOOD: Capitol Hill. Get a workout scaling the
commercial district ofers Vietnamese-style and other (onetime home to John Hancock, Louisa May Alcott and steps on the western entrance of the State Capitol
casual-dining restaurants. Or head to Top of the Town, Edward Kennedy) sits by the nation’s oldest public park, Building and you’ll be precisely 5,280 feet above sea
with its panoramic views of the Potomac River and Boston Common, and the Public Garden, with its swan level—the origin of the city’s Mile High nickname.
Washington, D.C., which is just two metro stops away. boats. Walk to the Boston Opera House. Inside the building: rare Colorado rose marble.
ALSO CONSIDER: Ballston, Lyon Village ALSO CONSIDER: Back Bay, North End ALSO CONSIDER: Downtown, Cherry Creek
COLEE HAMMOCK
PARKSIDE
TOP HOOD: Colee Hammock. Bounded by a river and TOP HOOD: Lowry Hill East. Leafy neighborhood by a TOP HOOD: Parkside. Home of Deering Oaks Park, a
a canal, it features grand old homes and waterside parks. chain of lakes, an area with spacious paths for walking 55-acre gem created in 1879. Today, it provides tennis
Just a 30-minute waterfront walk to the site where the and biking. A nearby art museum founded in 1927 courts, a winter skating pond, a 38-variety rose garden
1960 spring-break classic, Where the Boys Are, was by lumber baron homas Barlow Walker now ofers and a weekly farmers’ market to this up-and-coming
ilmed. movies, live performances and a sculpture garden. but still afordable neighborhood.
ALSO CONSIDER: Flagler Village, Downtown ALSO CONSIDER: Lyn-Lake, Whittier ALSO CONSIDER: West Bayside, Downtown
NOB HILL
BELLTOWN
COLLEGE HILL
TOP HOOD: College Hill. Home to Brown University, TOP HOOD: Nob Hill. Originally home to the city’s rich TOP HOOD: Belltown. Visit a waterfront park and walk
the Rhode Island School of Design and a historic and powerful. Its mansions were destroyed in the 1906 to the Museum of Pop Culture, a ballet-and-opera
district. Stroll by colonial and Victorian homes, view quake. What was rebuilt was plenty high-end but with hall, or the Space Needle, where an annual charity
MAPS BY BING
textiles at the RISD Museum or take in frequent theater more hotels and restaurants. Walk uphill to Huntington event provides the ittest a chance to climb 98 lights of
and dance performances at Brown. Park, with its Fountain of the Tortoises. open-air stairs.
ALSO CONSIDER: Federal Hill, Fox Point ALSO CONSIDER: North Beach, Hayes Valley ALSO CONSIDER: Queen Anne, Downtown
800.FIDELITY | Fidelity.com/score
Be sure to consider all your available options, including staying in plan,
and the applicable fees and features of each before moving your retirement assets.
There is no opening cost or annual fee for Fidelity’s traditional, Roth, SEP, and rollover IRAs. A $50 account closeout fee may apply. Fund investments held in your account may be
subject to management, low-balance, and short-term trading fees, as described in the ofering materials. For all securities, see Fidelity.com/commissions for trading commission and
transaction fee details.
IMPORTANT: The projections or other information generated by the Fidelity Retirement Score regarding the likelihood of various investment outcomes are hypothetical in nature,
do not reflect actual investment results, and are not guarantees of future results. Results may vary with each use and over time.
The Fidelity Retirement Score is a hypothetical illustration and does not represent your individual situation or the investment results of any particular investment or investment strategy,
and is not a guarantee of future results. Your score does not consider the composition of current savings and other factors.
Guidance provided by Fidelity through the Fidelity Retirement Score is educational in nature, is not individualized, and is not intended to serve as the primary basis for your investment
or tax-planning decisions.
Investing involves risk, including the risk of loss.
The trademarks and/or service marks appearing above are the property of FMR LLC and may be registered.
Fidelity Brokerage Services LLC, Member NYSE, SIPC. © 2016 FMR LLC. All rights reserved. 773775.15.0
BLUEPRINT FOR RETIREMENT STATE TAXES
WASHINGTON
No income tax
Only income-tax-free
state that imposes an
estate tax; it kicks in on
assets over $2.1 million.
OREGON
9.9% above
$250k
Good news: Oregon has
no sales tax. Bad news:
A 9% income tax bracket
Blue State
kicks in at just under
$17k per couple.
NEVADA
Blues
No income tax
T
he great tax divide has been widening as Republicans
have hacked away at progressive income taxes while
Democrats have raised rates on high-income folks. he
GOP now has sole control (the governor’s mansion and
both legislative houses) of half the states, and not coincidentally,
only one of those states (Iowa, which just came under full GOP
control) ranked among our ten worst tax states for the rich.
he November elections reinforced the trend. California voted
ALASKA
overwhelmingly to extend its 13.3% rate (the highest in the na-
tion) until 2030, while voters in Democratic-leaning (if quirky) No income tax
Faced with declining oil
Maine voted to raise the top rate from 7.15% to 10.15% for 2017. revenue, legislators are
Meanwhile, in Iowa, Republicans are promising to use their ex- considering adding a 3%
panded power to push through rate cuts. state sales tax on top of
local sales taxes of up
his map shows the ten best and worst states for the wealthy to 7.5%.
based on high-income tax rates, as well as the income level at
which the most punishing rate kicks in (calculated for a married
couple in 2016). Seven of the ten best states have no income taxes
at all, and the other three exempt large swaths of income. Keep in
mind, however, that some states without income taxes wallop re-
tirees with high real estate or sales taxes, while some high-income
tax locales (Hawaii, for example) have generous exemptions for
retirement income.
SOURCES: WOLTERS KLUWER TAX & ACCOUNTING; TAX FOUNDATION.
NEW HAMPSHIRE
5% flat tax, only
on interest and
dividend income
WYOMING
No income tax
IOWA
8.98% above PENNSYLVANIA
$70k NEW JERSEY
3.07% flat rate on
taxable income 8.97% above
Partial retirement haven: $500k
exempts unlimited
retirement income,
including Social Security,
pensions and IRA
payouts, from tax. But
heirs face inheritance tax.
WASHINGTON, D.C.
TENNESSEE 8.95% over
TEXAS 5% flat tax, only $1 million
on interest and
No income tax dividend income
Texas has the highest
Tennessee has the
mean real estate tax rate
nation’s highest average
of the no-income-tax
combined state and local
states.
sales tax—9.46%. FLORIDA
No income tax
HAWAII
8.25% over $96k
PETER AND MARIA HOEY FOR FORBES
A Cut Above
After more than 30 years as the king of California cuisine,
Wolfgang Puck finally plants his steak in New York.
BY MAGGIE MCGRATH
Puck stops here: he saw a picture of the Empire State Building. he was in L.A., and he goes to New York,” Puck says.
“Everybody goes to
New York,” he says 102-story skyscraper inspired two thoughts. he “I said I have to stay in L.A. and defend L.A.”
in his first Manhattan irst: “I want to build something like that.” he sec- But with restaurants now in Las Vegas, Lon-
restaurant. “I said I
have to stay in L.A. ond: “What lies beyond our mountains?” don and even Bahrain Bay, the call of Manhattan
and defend L.A.” he answer was New York City. became too strong to resist. Last fall Puck opened
Presented By
#ForbesCIOSummit
FORBES LIFE DINING
Cut, his steak-house concept, in New York’s Fi- tal to build and operate a restaurant, Puck’s team
nancial District. It’s his 27th ine-dining restaurantworks for a management fee that comes of the BUY
and his sixth Cut. top line and an incentive fee that comes of the THIS
“I think New York is the holy grail,” says Tom bottom line. ISLAND
Kaplan, Puck’s longtime business partner. “We’re hese types of deals mean that in inally mov-
really proud to be there, and we know we have to ing to New York, Puck is largely inoculated against
earn our stripes.” many of the challenges that face Manhattan-based
Indeed they do. he city’s most prominent cu- restaurateurs (challenges that shuttered Bobby
linary voices have given Cut a bit of a New York Flay’s Mesa Grill and forced Danny Meyer to
welcome (in December New York Times crit- relocate his Union Square Café ater 30 years).
ic Pete Wells wrote that “nothing on the menu Cut is operated by the Four Seasons, and Puck
breaks new ground”), though Puck insists the leases the space in the newly opened down-
place has been busy and has already established a town hotel.
rotating cast of regulars. So if not for the real estate risk, what took him
Cut is a distinctly Puckian creation—the chef so long to get to the big city? Puck and his part-
himself had a hand in curating everything from ners describe the protracted wait for a Manhattan
the rich interior design to the music playing over- outpost as a matter of strategy: holding out for the TRUMP
head to, of course, the menu, which has been dust- right time and the right location.
ed with inluences from his signature Spago. “It took a long time to get this project of the
ISLAND
ground, to get the build- No, this 29-acre
Puck doesn’t seem worried about the new ing built,” he says. “We ac- property, set among
Washington State’s
restaurant’s success: “Now that we’re in tually started ive years ago.
San Juan Islands, is not
So it was ive years in the
New York, we might as well have two.” making.”
owned by or named
after you-know-who.
It was the recession in But the president might
Big-eye tuna tartare with wasabi, togarashi 2009 and its efects on Las Vegas—a city that hous- have had an efect on
crisps and tosa soy starts the menu and gives way es six of his restaurants, ine and casual—that the list price, which
to dishes like handmade tortelloni, bone marrow prompted Puck and his partners to focus on ex- during the week of his
inauguration increased
lan and Wagyu beef sashimi with Japanese cu- panding internationally. he Singapore Cut opened
13% to $8.75 million. For
cumbers. Main courses are a carnivore’s dream: in 2010, and London’s version in 2011; Spago and that you get the land
here’s locally sourced angus ilet, 28-day aged Cut spinofs in exotic locales soon followed, but and a 7,000-square-foot
prime beef from Creekstone Farms in Kansas and Puck says it was the London trips that made him home (built in 2000)
35-day dry-aged cuts. realize that he “might as well” stop in New York on with six bedrooms,
And Puck is banking on New York’s storied his way from Beverly Hills to the Old Smoke. four and a half baths,
“In my mind, he’s taken a pretty big risk there,” a greenhouse, wine
history as a mecca for meat lovers. During a recent
cellar, private dock and
lunchtime rush, he was working the dining room says Paul Pruitt, a restaurant consultant who has separate caretaker’s
in his chef ’s whites, shaking hands with diners and done work for the beef-driven BLT Restaurant cottage. As for the
asking them if there’s anything he can do. He likes brand. “And that’s probably what’s played in his name, the new owner
to visit a dining room twice a night, but some- mind a little bit as well. He could’ve never opened can change it, but good
times these rotations take longer than they should in New York and retired respected and beloved. luck: You’ll have to apply
because he gets caught up in conversations. It takes some gravitas to put yourself out there to the U.S. Board of
Geographic Names, part
Puck’s famously ebullient demeanor belies his at this stage in your career when you really have
of the Department of
tenacity and shrewdness as a businessman. he nothing to prove.” the Interior.
67-year-old chef has grown his brand into an en- But Puck doesn’t seem all that worried about
terprise doing north of $400 million in annu- the success of his new restaurant. “Now that we’re
al sales (in addition to the ine-dining segment, in New York,” he says, “we might as well have two.”
whose restaurants can reap upwards of $13 mil- He also has a plan that has nothing to do with
lion in sales per location, the Wolfgang Puck a kitchen. A high school dropout, Puck has an un-
companies boast 72 casual dining spots, a line of fulilled wish—one covered in ivy.
kitchenware and even eponymous canned soups) “I have done almost everything I wanted,” he
by partnering with airports and hotel and casi- says. “My new thing is I want to go to Harvard.
no chains like MGM Grand, Sands and the Four hey have this executive’s program. I’m going to
Seasons. If a hotel or casino provides the capi- go next year.”
FINAL THOUGHT
“ ‘Chef’ doesn’t mean that you’re the best cook—it simply means ‘boss.’ ” —TOM COLICCHIO
T
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retirement investors. Low interest rates mean conservative }ÊLÕÌÊL}ÊÀiÌÕÀÃ]»ÊÃiÊÃ>ÞðʺÊi}>ÌÛiÊÀiÌÕÀÊýÌÊiÛiÊ
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portfolios struggle to generate returns. A legacy of un- >LiÊ>ÌÊÌÃÊ«Ì°»Ê,>ÌiÀÊÌ>Ê}ÀÜÊvÀÕÃÌÀ>Ìi`ÊLÞÊViÌÃÊ>Ã}ÊÌÊ
dersaving has left many retirees facing a funding shortfall. V>ÃiÊÀiÌÕÀÃ]Ê
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>>}}Ê for investor performance-chasing. Investors are bombarded by
partner at Chicago-based WWM Investments, LLC.
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pletely changes the income assumptions in their plan for decades
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selves up for failure, forcing WWM to reevaluate the relationship. Ê>`ÛÃÀÃÊi«}ÊViÌÃÊÕ`iÀÃÌ>`ÊÌiÊÀÃÃÊ>ÃÃV>Ìi`ÊÜÌÊ
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ÕVÊvÊÌiÊÃvÌÊÊiÝ«iVÌ>- different investments and asset classes, and helping them invest
tions, says Jennifer Kim, a Los Angeles-based senior partner at >««À«À>ÌiÞÊL>Ãi`ÊÊÌiÀÊ}>ð»
Acura · Audi · BMW · Buick · Cadillac · Chevrolet · Chrysler · Dodge · Ferrari · Ford · GMC · Honda · Hummer · Hyundai · Infiniti
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Longevity
“Days and
months are
itinerants on an
“I’M JUST eternal journey;
ONE OF the years that
THE LUCKY pass by are also “Nowadays,
travelers.” I don’t want a
PEOPLE. —MATSUO BASHO perfect face and
I HAVE body—I want
NO OTHER to wear the life
REASON I’ve lived.”
FOR MY —PAT BENATAR
LONGEVITY.”
—JOHNNY MATHIS “I think my life will run out
before my work does. I’ve
planned it that way.”
—TOWNES VAN ZANDT
FRANS SCHELLEKENS/REDFERNS/GETTY IMAGES; BETTMAN/GETTY IMAGES; ROBERT WALLIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES; ANDREW TOTH/FILMMAGIC/
“The afternoon “I may not have “GROW OLD
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: DAILY EXPRESS/GETTY IMAGES; NEWSCOM; KEVIN MAZUR/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES; CSU ARCHIVES/NEWSCOM;
gone where I WITH ME! this long, I’d have
knows what the
GETTY IMAGES; HOWARD SOCHUREK/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION/GETTY IMAGES; HERB BALL/NBCU PHOTO BANK VIA GETTY IMAGES
intended to go, THE BEST IS taken better care
morning never YET TO BE.” of myself.”
but I think
suspected.” I have ended —ROBERT BROWNING —EUBIE BLAKE
—ROBERT FROST up where I
needed to be.” “I have turned away
from the con game
—DOUGLAS ADAMS
which the gods run
in their heavenly
sideshow. . . . I have
my moment, which is
quite enough.”
—ROBERT SHECKLEY
“THE SECRET
IS NOT TO
FINAL
LOOK BACK.” THOUGHT
—NORMAN ROCKWELL
“Each of us is a
“NOW IS THE “BETTER IS THE END OF A THING THAN THE survivor of the
TIME TO BECOME BEGINNING THEREOF; AND THE PATIENT IN
SPIRIT IS BETTER THAN THE PROUD IN SPIRIT.”
fittest of many
generations.”
A MYTH.” —ECCLESIASTES 7:8 —B.C. FORBES
—DIANE VON FURSTENBERG
SOURCES: NARROW ROADS OF OKU, BY MATSUO BASHO; GOODREADS.COM;
THE LONG DARK TEA-TIME OF THE SOUL, BY DOUGLAS ADAMS; THE TIMES BOOK
OF QUOTATIONS; BETWEEN A HEART AND A ROCK PLACE, BY PAT BENATAR.
110 | FORBES FEBRUARY 28, 2017
INT’L
STOCKS
IEFA
INSPIRED TO HELP
YOUR START-UP, START.
U.S.
BONDS
AGG
U.S.
STOCKS
IVV
INSPIRED TO BUILD.
1. Source: Morningstar, as of 12/31/15. Comparison is between the average Prospectus Net Expense Ratio for the iShares Core Series ETFs (0.11%) and
the average Prospectus Net Expense Ratio of active open-end mutual funds (1.24%) available in the U.S. (excluding municipal bond and money market
funds) on 12/31/2015. Visit www.iShares.com or www.BlackRock.com to view a prospectus, which includes investment
objectives, risks, fees, expenses and other information that you should read and consider carefully before investing.
Investing involves risk, including possible loss of principal. Buying and selling shares of ETFs will result in brokerage commissions. The
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THE ROAD LESS TR AVELED WAS MADE FOR A CAR LESS ORDINARY.
T H AT ’ S C O N T I N E N TA L