Scott Blum
Founder
Enfrastructure Inc.,
buy.com Inc.,
ThinkTank LLC
Scott Blum has landed money the old new-economy way: starting and selling companies.
A serial entrepreneur, Blum came into money after selling his first company, MicroBanks Unlimited, to IBM Corp. at age 21.
Early on, Blum worked as a valet at the Ritz-Carleton, where he told co-workers he would own a mansion some day.
After a year, Blum dropped out of Saddleback Community College to start MicroBanks, an Orange County memory products maker. In 1987, he founded what’s now Rancho Santa Margarita-based optical drive maker Pinnacle Micro Inc. with his father.
Mixed track record: accounting practices at Pinnacle brought shareholder lawsuits and Securities and Exchange Commission scrutiny. Blum settled securities charges without admitting guilt. He was bumped from Fortune’s 40 Under 40 ranking last fall after a $1.2 billion drop in his buy.com stake.
Buy.com was Blum’s big hit during the go-go dot-com days. After founding the now struggling Aliso Viejo-based online retailer, Blum launched technology incubator ThinkTank, which offers promising startups investment money, a package of professional services and guidance.
The venture is responsible for launching Aliso Viejo-based Enfrastructure, which has $100 million backing from IBM, Microsoft Corp. and Avaya Inc. Blum’s even dabbling in the car design business with ThinkTank’s Internet Motors.
As a teen, Blum was troublemaker who once was expelled for driving his principal’s golf cart into a swimming pool.
Became national junior championship swimmer at age 8, said he swam until he “got my car keys.”
,Andrew Simons
Fletcher “Ted” Jones Jr.
Chief executive, president,
Fletcher Jones Management Group
Fletcher Jones owns the much-talked-about, 177,000-square-foot “car palace” known as Fletcher Jones Motor Cars in Newport Beach.
Fletcher Jones Management owns another eight dealerships (seven in Las Vegas). Car-king dad, Fletcher Jones, who died in 1994, bought the Mercedes Benz dealership overlooking the Back Bay in the early 1990s from Jim Slemons.
Jones Jr., who took over the business, is credited with turning the then-struggling Mercedes dealer into one of the largest (and top-ranked) in the nation, according to automotive trade magazines. Fletcher Jones in Newport Beach reported 2000 revenue of $343 million, a steady rise from years past.
The dealership is widely known for its glamorous showroom floor, complete with cappuccino bar, putting green, children’s play area, manicurist and restaurant.
Fletcher Jones Motor Cars often made headlines in trade news for its rivalry with House of Imports in Buena Park. The two have been quick to qualify their leadership positions (both have claimed the No. 1 spot), and often nit-picked each other’s sales figures in newspapers. Fletcher Jones Motor Cars took the top spot on the last Business Journal auto dealers list.
Jones Jr., who literally jet sets to his Las Vegas dealerships every week, joined his dad’s business after college. Said he always loved the car business. To distinguish him from his dad, junior got the nickname “Ted” because he said he looked like a teddy bear.
Jones has sponsored events for a variety of philanthropic causes, including Opera Pacific, Pacific Symphony Orchestra, March of Dimes, Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Orange County Philharmonic Society, Orangewood Children’s Foundation, and the University of Southern California (his alma mater).
He lives in a mansion on Linda Isle, featured on a frou-frou dinner cruise tour of harborside estates. He’s also a big boat fan. He has a yacht called the Madrugador. But Jones plans to build a bigger one,a 118-footer,that eventually will fold into his retirement plans. He says he looks forward to the day when one of his kids takes over the business his dad began in the mid-1940s.
,Jennifer Bellantonio
WILLIAM FOLEY
Chairman, chief executive,
Fidelity National Financial Inc.,
chairman, CKE Restaurants Inc.,
chairman, Santa Barbara
Restaurant Group Inc.
Bill Foley accumulated most of his wealth building up Irvine-based Fidelity National, one of the largest title insurance companies that has diversified into other areas.
He holds 6.1% in Fidelity National,4.9 million shares valued at around $115 million at recent check, almost 75% of his estimated wealth.
Foley catapulted Fidelity National to the top tier of title insurers with the Chicago Title buy last year. The deal doubled the size of Fidelity. The combined company has more than 1,000 offices, 7,000 agents and 30% market share. Fidelity’s earnings for 2000 were $122 million, up $51 million from 1999. Its revenue increased 102% to $2.7 billion.
Foley is well-compensated. His salary and bonuses totaled more than $1 million last year.
Investors have given their nod to the Chicago deal: Fidelity’s stock was among the best performing in OC last year, rising 161%.
Foley is said to be fiercely competitive, whether at business, cards or golf.
Until 1999, he was the chief executive at Anaheim based-CKE Restaurants (Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s chains), then catapulted it with the 1998 purchase of Hardee’s to No. 3 in the burger universe, behind McDonald’s and Burger King and ahead of Wendy’s. But merger problems persist. CKE stock trades at about the price of a hamburger, down from a 1998 high of 46.
Foley and his partnership firm hold around 2.8 million shares in CKE, valued at $10 million.
In 1999, Foley turned over his CKE duties to Tom Thompson, who Andrew Puzder replaced last year. Foley also dropped his chairmanship of Rally’s Hamburgers Inc. but still remains chairman of Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc., and the Santa Barbara Restaurant Group Inc., operator of La Salsa and other eateries. He’s also a director of Micro General Corp., Miravant Medical Technologies Inc. and American National Financial Inc.
Foley’s other holdings include two wineries and two vineyards in Santa Barbara. His wineries produce 20,000 cases of wines a year. And he’s expanding his wine plantations. Foley has 24 acres of vineyards and has planted another 250 acres. In all, he owns 425 acres of vineyards in Santa Barbara and wants to eventually produce 60,000 cases of wine annually.
Foley jets between his main office in Santa Barbara (where he has an oceanfront home) and Fidelity in Irvine. He’s a graduate of West Point, where he honed strategic skills playing bridge, chess and the board game Blitzkrieg, which he seldom lost.
Foley then followed his dad’s footsteps into the Air Force. He holds a master’s of business administration from Seattle University and a law degree from University of Washington.
,Rajiv Vyas
Robert Martini
Chairman, chief executive,
Orange-based Bergen Brunswig Corp.
Robert Martini built up drug distributor Bergen Drug Co.,and a fortune along the way.
He joined Bergen Brunswig Corp.’s predecessor company in 1956, after serving as a captain in the U.S. Air Force. His father, Emil Martini Sr., established Bergen Drug in 1947 in a converted Hackensack, N.J., garage.
Martini is edging closer to stepping off the stage, though, with what stands to be his crowning achievement: Bergen Brunswig is awaiting final word from the Federal Trade Commission on its acquisition by Valley Forge, Pa.-based AmeriSource Health Corp.
If regulators sign off, Orange County stands to lose its second-largest public company by sales in the deal, but federal filings have indicated that a Western management center, information technology and e-commerce operations will remain in Orange.
Martini became a director of Bergen Drug in 1962; Bergen Drug went public in 1963. He became executive vice president in 1969, the same year that Bergen acquired Brunswig Drug Co., a larger Los Angeles-based wholesaler.
Martini then became president of Bergen Brunswig in 1981, chief executive in 1990 and was elected chairman in 1992, after the death of brother Emil Jr.
The company has retained a family flavor, including son Brent’s role as president of Bergen Brunswig Drug Co., the company’s largest subsidiary.
Martini, who once described himself as a “gentle power” executive, came out of semi-retirement in 1999 to nurse Bergen, a major wholesale distributor of pharmaceutical products, back to financial health.
Bergen’s shares fell to as low as the 5 level last year. It’s shot back, however, and was trading in the 21 range as of late July. On the financial front, Bergen just reported revenue of $6.7 billion in the quarter ended June 30 and earnings of $35.2 million.
Bergen employs around 10,300 employees companywide, including about 900 in Orange.
Martini was educated at Ohio State University College of Pharmacy, where he received a bachelor’s degree in 1954.
He’s involved with and supports many philanthropic interests.
,Vita Reed
MILAN PANIC
Founder, chairman,
Chief executive,
Costa Mesa-based
ICN Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Panic founded ICN Pharmaceuticals more than 40 years ago with just $200 and a washing machine he used as a centrifuge.
Through the years, Panic’s stake in the drug maker has grown into a personal fortune. As of last week, ICN counted a market value of $2.5 billion.
In June, Panic lost a bitter proxy battle with dissident investors looking to overhaul ICN’s board and speed a breakup of the company. Now Panic says he plans to settle into more of an oversight role.
ICN “is my life,” he said in June. “I will have influence through the ownership of stock. In an honorary position, you can do a lot if you’re concerned.”
Panic is a colorful figure who can be as combative as he can be charming. Last year, he announced a plan to split ICN into three separate public companies. The plan would leave ICN in firm control of jewel Ribapharm, a biotech research laboratory and drug business. The other two parts to be separated are ICN International and ICN Americas.
Panic is set to be chairman and chief executive of ICN International and nonexecutive chairman of ICN Americas. No role is planned for him in Ribapharm.
The 71-year-old’s global career has encompassed politics. He was a former prime minister of Yugoslavia and unsuccessfully mounted a gutsy bid for the 1992 Serbian presidency against since-ousted dictator Slobodan Milosevic.
In 1999, his ICN plant was seized in Yugoslavia, leading to a $235 million write-off. Panic has been close to former President Clinton, but opposed the Serbian bombing campaign.
Panic has engaged in running battles with ICN shareholders and has survived several ouster attempts. He also has tangled with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Earlier this year, a federal grand jury opted not to indict Panic and other executives over claims they misled investors about ICN’s ribavirin drug. Panic also has settled six sexual harassment lawsuits.
As a teen, Panic fought in Yugoslavia’s Nazi resistance. He defected from the then-communist country for the West during a bicycle race. He attended the University of Belgrade, University of Heidelberg and the University of Southern California. In 1986, he received the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
