October 5, 2015--Four Month's Work

Kenneth Griffin, 46, CEO of the investment firm Citadel, is worth a neat $7.0 billion.

His divorcing wife claims that last year he earned an average of $100 million a month, or $68.5 million for the year after taxes. Mr. Griffin is not denying that. And so, after just 11 years of marriage, it is going to be an expensive divorce.

Nonetheless, he has been on a real estate shopping spree.

Here's what four months of work, or $400 million in income, bought him--

According to the New York Times, in Chicago, where Citadel is based, he bought two whole floors of the Waldorf Astoria hotel. He bought the 37th floor for $13.0 million and paid $16 million for the 46th floor.

In New York this year, Griffin is purchasing three floors, totally 18,000 square, at 220 Central Park West. Still under construction, he shelled out $200 million for the triplex, a record for Manhattan. (He could have had our place on 9th Street for a lot less.)

Then in Miami Beach, he closed a deal recently for the 12,500 square-foot penthouse of Faena House (faena--"a series of final passes leading to the kill by the matador in a bullfight") for a Miami record $60 million. The condo has a media room, "great room," a 70-foot-long "infinity pool," and I assume a host  of bed and bathrooms.

Actually, the three purchases total "only" $390 million, which means he had to work even less than four months to earn enough to buy all of them for cash.

I almost forgot--Griffin also owns houses in Aspen and Hawaii.

Kenneth and Anne Dias Griffin In Happier Times