Ronald Burkle
Ronald Wayne Burkle is an American businessman. He is the co-founder and managing partner of The Yucaipa Companies, LLC, a private investment firm that specializes in U.S. companies in the distribution, logistics, food, retail, consumer, hospitality, entertainment, sports and light industrial sectors.
Yucaipa has executed grocery-chain mergers and acquisitions involving supermarket chains including Fred Meyer, Ralphs and Jurgensen's and once owned stakes in about 35 companies, including the grocery chains A&P and Whole Foods Market before their respective demise and takeover.
Burkle's net worth was estimated at US$2 billion in February 2018, and ranked 633rd globally.
Burkle is an activist and fundraiser for the Democratic Party.
Early life
Ron Burkle was born on November 12, 1952, the elder of two sons, to Betty and Joseph Burkle in Pomona, California. Joseph worked seven days a week, managing a Stater Bros. grocery store in Pomona and investing his savings in apartment buildings. To see his father, Burkle stocked shelves in his father's store with bread and corralled shopping carts.By age 13, Burkle had joined United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 770. At age 16, he graduated from high school and entered California State Polytechnic University, Pomona to study dentistry. Less than two years later, Burkle dropped out.
At age 21, he married Janet Steeper, a Stater Bros. clerk and great-grandniece of the aviation pioneers, the Wright brothers. They had three children together. Burkle parlayed a $3,000 investment in American Silver and another metals company into $30,000 and began investing in and flipping undervalued grocery stores. He made at least one deal with the assistance of junk bond financier Michael Milken.
Burkle was promoted to store manager at Stater Bros. and later became a vice president at Petrolane, Inc., Stater's parent company. When he was 29, Petrolane decided to sell Stater Bros. Burkle secretly organized a leveraged buyout with Charles Munger, vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, who agreed to put up half of the equity. Burkle made his bid to Petrolane's board that was 20% lower than Petrolane's internal valuation. The board rejected Burkle's offer and fired him. Burkle's portfolio was by then worth some $5 million, and during the next five years, he continued to invest in stocks and oversaw his family's rental properties.
Career
In 1986, Burkle founded Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm which invests in U.S. companies in the hospitality, sports, entertainment, logistics, food, consumer, light industrial, retail, manufacturing, and distribution.During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Burkle refused to close his inner-city stores, a move for which he received praise.
He has been chairman of the board and controlling shareholder of numerous companies, including Alliance Entertainment, Golden State Foods, Dominick's, Fred Meyer, Ralphs, and Food4Less. He has been a corporate board member of the boards of Occidental Petroleum Corporation, KB Home, and Yahoo!
Burkle is often seen as a businessman who maintains close relationships with labor unions and works with unions to solve business problems.
NHL
Burkle is part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins of the National Hockey League, although his stake in the team is unknown. In 1999, he helped save the team by partnering with former Penguin Mario Lemieux to bring the team out of bankruptcy.Burkle played an active part in negotiations to construct the PPG Paints Arena for the Penguins.
Burkle's strong ties to union work also led him to be one of the owners helping Commissioner Gary Bettman negotiate an end to the 2012–13 NHL lockout.
The Penguins, under the ownership of Burkle, are the only North American sports team with ties to private equity that has won a championship.
MLS
On January 22, 2019, Burkle was announced as the new lead investor of Sacramento Republic FC.On February 26, 2021, Burkle announced that he was pulling out his interests in Major League Soccer expansion club in Sacramento due to the COVID-19 pandemic in California. This move placed Sacramento expansion hopes in doubt.
NWSL
In January 2021, Lisa Baird, the commissioner of the National Women's Soccer League, announced that an expansion team in Sacramento, led by Ron Burkle and in conjunction with Sacramento Republic FC's expansion bid into Major League Soccer, would join the NWSL in 2022. However, Burkle never confirmed the news publicly before exiting the Sacramento Republic's ownership group. Instead, on June 8, 2021, the NWSL announced San Diego as the location for an expansion team owned by Burkle, which began play as San Diego Wave FC in the 2022 NWSL season.Technology investments
Burkle has invested in technology startup companies through A-Grade Investments, a venture capital fund he founded with Ashton Kutcher and Guy Oseary. As of 2020, A-Grade's investment portfolio included SeatGeek, SoundCloud, Uber, Warby Parker, Spotify, Foursquare, and Airbnb.He has also invested in technology startup companies through Inevitable Venture, a venture capital fund founded by D. A. Wallach and Chris Hollod. Inevitable Ventures's investment include Picnic Health, 8i, Thrive Market, and Wiser Care.
Media investments
In January 2012, Burkle invested in Artist Group International, a concert-booking firm whose clients include Billy Joel, Metallica, and Rod Stewart. In March 2013, Burkle invested in a branded entertainment company, Three Lions Entertainment, which focuses on branded entertainment events and cross platform marketing. In 2014, he bought Artist Group International and, through the Paradigm Talent Agency, partnered with London's CODA Music Agency and X-ray Touring. That same year, Burkle acquired a minority stake in Independent Talent through Yucaipa fund.Ron Burkle was a close friend and business partner of Harvey Weinstein, with whom he produced several films. Burkle financed the Weinstein brothers' attempt to take over Miramax in 2010. In 2018, Burkle attempted an unsuccessful takeover the bankrupt Weinstein Company as part of an investor consortium.
In 2018, Burkle's investment firm Yucaipa acquired a minority stake in the Spanish music festival Primavera Sound.
In 2020, Burkle made a major investment in the musical festival production Danny Wimmer Presents.
On April 5, 2023 it was announced that Burkle along with Anthony Kiedis and Bob Forrest had formed the production company Said and Done Entertainment. Their first project will be an animated series for TBS called Hellicious which is based on the comic book of the same name. Burkle, Kiedis and Forrest will also serve as executive producers on the series.
Burkle is an Executive Producer with Taylor Sheridan on the hit streaming show "Landman."
Other investments
was an operator of natural foods stores and farmers' markets in North America. Burkle started buying Wild Oats stock in February 2005. By the time Whole Foods Market, a natural-foods grocer, agreed to pay $565 million for Wild Oats, Burkle was the largest shareholder of Wild Oats.Burkle sold his majority stake in supplier Golden State Foods to St. Louis-based Wetterau Associates for about $110 million. Golden State, one of McDonald's biggest suppliers, operates 11 distribution centers in the United States and abroad and two U.S. processing plants.
In 2014, Burkle acquired Soho House, a chain of hotels and private members’ clubs.
In 2019, Burkle sold a 50% stake in the Sydell Group to MGM Resorts International. He maintains ownership stakes in a number of other hotel properties.
Burkle's investments and transactions include:
- Sold Dominick's chain to Safeway in 1998 for over $200 million in profit;
- Owns 26% stake in Americold Realty Trust;
- Leveraged buyouts of Jurgensen's, Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less, and Ralphs supermarket chains, and sold to Kroger for $13.5 billion;
- Signed Fleming Companies, Inc. as sole food supplier to Kmart;
- Majority stake in Pathmark grocery stores;
- Cyrk, the former Beanie Baby promotion agency;
- Merged Alliance Entertainment with Source Interlink;
- 49% of British jewelry brand Stephen Webster purchased in 2007;
- Invested $100 million in Sean Combs's Sean John clothing line in 2003;
- Purchased Enthusiast Media publications and assets of Primedia for $1.2 billion;
- Burkle's investment firm, Yucaipa Cos., owns 18.7% of the common stock of Barnes & Noble. In early 2010 he sought to raise his stake to 37% without triggering the shareholders' rights plan. B&N Chairman Len Riggio, with 27.8% ownership of the bookseller's common stock, is Barnes & Noble's largest shareholder.
- Burkle offered to purchase the financially troubled Sacramento Kings franchise and prevent the team from relocating to Anaheim; however, a conflict of interest as a part-owner of Relativity Sports forced him to drop out.
- Debt holdings of Relativity Media, an independent studio company. As part of the deal, Burkle joined the board of directors of the company.
- Burkle provided Amalgamated Bank with a $100 million loan in 2011, taking a combined 41% stake in Amalgamated along with Wilbur Ross.
Political activities
In January 2011, he hosted a fundraiser to support efforts to overturn Proposition 8, California's ban on same-sex marriage.
In 2004, Burkle helped finance the launch of Al Gore's Current TV, which was sold in January 2013 to Qatar-based cable news channel Al Jazeera.
During Bill Clinton's presidency, Burkle was a key fundraiser and they became close friends. In 2002, Burkle hired Clinton as a senior advisor on two Yucaipa domestic investment funds. Clinton invested in a Yucaipa global fund focused on foreign companies. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal, then-U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton expressed concern that such investments could be used by foreign governments as "instruments of foreign policy."
In 2009, Bill Clinton ended his relationship with Yucaipa due to potential conflicts of interest. Following "months" of negotiations, the two were not able to agree on a final payment for Clinton's advisory services, estimated at up to $20 million, and Clinton "walked away" from the potential payout.
During a visit to the White House to celebrate the Pittsburgh Penguins' Stanley Cup victory in 2017, US President Donald Trump described Burkle as “a friend of mine for a long time.”