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bennett lebow yacht

The greatest superyachts of the past 40 years

They took styling cues from bug-eyed Parisian buses, levied terrifying bets on contract speeds, tested the limits of structural glass, plated staircases in silver and redefined the explorer yacht. The last four decades in superyachting have offered a frenzy of innovation, passion and ingenious solutions. Marilyn Mower leads us through 40 of the most significant superyachts from the past 40 years...

Margaux Rose (now The Mercy Boys)

Builder Schweers | Length 49.6m (46m originally) | Year: 1986

This incubator of the expedition yacht craze was built for Fiat chairman Gianni Agnelli. Daring and versatile exterior designer Gerhard Gilgenast chose the cab-aft style of a commercial ship for her lines, which allowed Agnelli to delight guests with hot air balloon launches from the raised fo’c’s’le. John Munford ’s interior and de rigueur disco were refreshed by H2 in 2008.

In her wake: Cupani , Andiamo , Pangaea , Big Roi

Stefaren (now Maridome)

Builder Brooke Marine  |   Length 54m  |   Year 1989

In 1986 and riding high, wily New York investor Bennett LeBow ordered a yacht designed by Jon Bannenberg . While the boat was pretty flashy – the atrium staircase leading to the upper deck with flashing slot machines comes to mind – it had naval architecture by Diana Yacht Design and was noted for its hull being eight per cent more efficient than similar vessels due to its bulbous bow. Australian Solomon Lew purchased the yacht in 2006 and had her refitted at Nobiskrug with a Donald Starkey interior.

Builder Heesen  |   Length 43.6m  |   Year 1988

Hitting 53.17 knots with three MTUs and Kamewa waterjets, Octopussy was the fastest yacht in the world when delivered. Owner John Staluppi famously said he knew he couldn’t have the biggest yacht in the world so he wanted the quickest. Naval architect Frank Mulder drew up the hull and tank testing looked promising. There was only one builder, he said, who might accept such a challenge – or the penalty clause that Staluppi wouldn’t owe a dime if the boat didn’t go over 48 knots: Heesen. On the boat’s first run, Octopussy hit over 40 knots. Next speed run: 50 knots! But Mulder and Staluppi thought a small stern modification could make her even faster. Heesen hauled the boat and nervously made cuts where directed. Final speed run: 52.1 knots. Heesen was paid.

In her wake: El Corsario , Moonraker , The World is Not Enough

Cedar Sea II

Builder Feadship  |   Length 65.2m  |   Year 1986

No list of important yachts is complete without the 65-metre Cedar Sea II , launched in 1986 with an exterior and interior by Jon Bannenberg. She was built for a Lebanese-Canadian jeweller whose company made tiaras for European royals. Builder Dick van Lent recalls: “The owner had initially commissioned a smaller yacht, but when I told him how full the order books were, he said: ‘If I have to wait three years for a 40-metre yacht, I might as well have a 60-metre!’” It was worth the wait, with features including a 30-seat dining room, an underwater observation window set in a well, a medical centre, a computer room, and a swimming pool complete with waterfall and fountain.

Builder Blohm+Voss  |   Length 104.9m  |  Year 1990

She’s the genesis of all beach clubs and the first yacht with an indoor swimming pool – on the top deck no less. Diana Yacht Design and Blohm+Voss don’t get enough credit for this truly ground-breaking yacht that still looks modern at 33 years of age. To sum up the work that went into Lady Moura , just know the Luigi Sturchio interior ran $60 million over budget, and included a crew hospital, a bakery and a beauty salon.

Eco (now Zeus)

Builder Blohm+Voss  |   Length 74.5m  |  Year 1991

In the late 1980s, one-percenters were dropping wads of cash on lookalike yachts. But original owner Emilio Azcarraga tapped Martin Francis to draw a fast 50- to 60-metre with “wow factor”. This turned out to be Eco , “with bug-eyed windows inspired by Paris buses of the 1970s”, curved to minimise reflection. Twin diesels drove wing jets for cruising to 20 knots with the Lycoming LM1600 turbine, the largest built to date, dialling up the fun factor to 35 knots. Eco Supporter , a small tanker, enabled “mid-flight” refuelling on crossings – Azcarraga often along for the ride. None of the team of young designers and architects that was assembled to work on Eco had previous yacht experience but many later made their mark in the industry: François Zuretti , Clifford Denn , Espen Øino , Jonny Horsfield , Mark Smith and Dan Lenard all worked on the project at various times.

Katamarino (now Paris)

Builder Amels  |   Length 56.2m  |   Year 1991

The largest yacht designed by US naval architect Jack Hargrave , Katamarino introduced the concept of a half-deck separation between the fore and aft portions. Staggered deck heights reduced the length of stairs that Hargrave felt segregated guests and allowed room forward for laundry, refrigeration and storage. The idea spread, helping 50-metre-ish boats live larger. 

In her wake : Double Haven , Gallant Lady

Coral Island (now Coral Ocean)

Builder Lürssen  |   Length 72.6m  |   Year 1994

Built for a Saudi diving enthusiast, this was the largest yacht from Lürssen at her launch, its first with a wellness spa, and also notable because a Picasso masterpiece, Dora Maar, was stolen from the boat in 1999. Jon Bannenberg’s design was edgy but now seems timeless. The interior, secret until 2017 when Lürssen updated it for charter as Coral Ocean , was an inspired mix of Polynesia and Boho chic. Bannenberg once beat a brand-new custom chest with chains until it had the right patina to fit the decor. The yacht was sold to Aussie Ian Malouf in 2021.

Wallygator II (now Nariida)

Builder Concordia Custom Yachts  |   Length 32m  |   Year 1994

The 1991, 25-metre Wallygator, with naval architecture by Luca Brenta , was Luca Bassani’s personal laboratory for testing his thesis that a lightweight, high-performance sailing yacht could be sailed single-handedly. With propulsion, sail handling, anchor operation and daggerboard adjustments all muscled by hydraulics activated by joysticks and push-buttons, Wallygator was a pioneer of power-assisted sailing. Three years later Bassani followed up with the plumb-bow ketch Wallygator II , which included two game changers: diesel/hydraulic propulsion with twin retractable four-blade thrusters – one amidship and one in the bow – that allow the boat to move sideways or power ahead at 12 knots; and a change to the sailplan dumping big overlapping genoas in favour of self-tacking jibs and high-aspect mains. Both of these changes supported Bassani’s belief that sailing should be fast, easy and comfortable. By his third boat, 24-metre Genie of the Lamp , the industry began to follow.

Turquoise (now Double Trouble)

Builder Gunay Construction Company  |   Length 49.9m  |   Year 1994

Builder Mehmet Karabeyoglu quickly changed the name of his yard to Turquoise Yacht Construction to take advantage of this boat’s overwhelming success. Built for a US owner, her lines were by Ed Dubois and her interior and exterior design by Donald Starkey. European yards took notice of her modern, light interior and quality construction. In 1997 Karabeyoglu teamed up with the Proteksan yard; their combined output went from strength to strength, and in doing so put Turkey on the map for superyacht construction. In 2015 Mohammed Al Barwani, owner of Oceanco , acquired a majority stake.  

In her wake: Mosaique , Turquoise II

Tigre D'or

Builder  Amels  |   Length 49.9m  |   Year 1997

The first yacht meeting the new commercial LY1 rules was also the first of what became an eight-yacht series brokered by Burgess with Amels, and the precursor for the yard’s Limited Editions. Terence Disdale created the look for the first hull in 1997, which solidified with a 52-metre Tigre d’Or in 1999. From then, six of the boats were built for the same client – Ian McGlinn – to sell. Full-displacement, five-cabin yachts were perfect for private use or charter use and became the basis of the Amels 171. This concept of custom-quality platform boats produced with shortened delivery times has been parlayed into a billion-dollar business by Damen Yachting , with more than 52 Limited Editions vessels delivered.

Builder Feadship  |   Length 49.5m  |   Year 1998

Not since Eco had an owner ordered a superyacht that was all about speed, and this one was to take him to a Red Sea dive spot. The owner insisted on a speed clause in the contract, with a severe penalty if the boat failed to achieve the target. Semi-displacement hulls not being in De Voogt’s wheelhouse, speed merchant Don Shead supplied hull lines. Fun facts: Feadship cut its lightweighting teeth on composite superstructures with Sussurro ... The inspired beach-house and “found materials” theme by Terence Disdale is a funkier, boys’ weekend version of Pelorus . 

In her wake : Detroit Eagle, Ecstasea, Azzam

Builder Lürssen  |   Length 96.3m  |   Year 1997

The name of Leslie Wexner’s super secret yacht is a play on his company, The Limited. Wexner originally asked Jon Bannenberg for a boat that mimicked the look of Carinthia VI (which launched too early for this list), but larger and more modern, and Tim Heywood was assigned project lead. When Heywood went out on his own, he got Bannenberg’s blessing to take this project with him. Limitless was a pioneering yacht for Lürssen, with her diesel-electric propulsion system a novelty in 1997. While this yacht was starting, Carinthia ’s owners asked Heywood to draw Carinthia VII , just a teeny bit longer...

Stella Fiera

Builder Benetti  | Length 35m  |   Year 1998

The first Benetti Classic 115, Stella Fiera was the beginning of Benetti’s composite semi-custom lines. This clever little tri-deck package was a huge commercial success that helped the builder expand and then spin off the Tradition and Vision series. It was the brainchild of serial Benetti owner Ambrous Young, who was for a time an investor in the brand.

Builder Schweers  |   Length 59.2m  |   Year 1999

Jack Setton had already gone around the world on a Feadship and converted an ice-breaking tug, but for his next adventure he asked Martin Francis to come up with a yacht purpose-built for expeditions. Setton compared it to a Hummer, for its ability to go anywhere comfortably, and it went a long way to defining the modern expedition yacht. The boat has a helipad and carries numerous tenders and toys and can sleep 12 guests and 14 crew in a relatively small package. All cabins including the owner’s suite are on the lower deck since Setton thought the upper deck space, which might logically be an owner’s suite, would be better as an observation lounge. The interior is by Philippe Starck and the owner. Senses is now owned by Google co-founder and Alphabet CEO Larry Page.

Builder Nobiskrug  |   Length 92.4m  |   Year 2000

The handsome yacht was built for AT&T entrepreneur Craig McCaw but soon became part of Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s fleet. Davits on either side for launching large tenders make her easily identifiable, while the clean lines show Claus Kusch ’s influence. The panoramic lounge on the boat deck is superb, has its own private galley and can be incorporated into the owner’s two-deck apartment. At 3,229GT, the boat lives large, has 11 cabins and space for 30 crew.

Builder Lürssen  |   Length 70.7m  |   Year 2002

Skat was one of the earliest yachts to establish Espen Øino as a free thinker. Opionistas called her militaristic, but this bold yacht is all about the windows the owner enjoys at his ultra-contemporary home near Seattle. Inside, the brightly coloured interior by Marco Zanini is a 180-degree flip colour-wise, but minimalist to showcase modern art and provide a workspace when original owner Charles Simonyi assembled his Microsoft team. He sold the boat in 2022 in advance of taking delivery of his new 90-metre Norn . 

In her wake : Tanzu’s wood/epoxy series, Atlante , Bold , Mizu , Main , Sherpa , Pacific , Norn

Builder Lürssen | Length 126m | Year 2003

If there is ever a zombie apocalypse, this is the yacht you want to be aboard. The self-sufficient ice-class expedition yacht with 12,500nm range has a 36-metre two-level drive-in floodable garage at the stern, an underwater observation lounge, a control room for an ROV, a video editing suite, three galleys, multiple lifts, a medical suite, recording studio (just part of the 53 tonnes of AV and IT equipment), a basketball court and the capability to carry two Sikorsky S-76s. Add multiple bars, a cinema and a library, all in a traditional interior that made designer Jonathan Quinn Barnett’s career, and you can see why owner Paul Allen said Octopus was the place where all of his passions came together.

Builder Lürssen | Length 115m | Year 2003

When the owner of Coral Ocean asked Tim Heywood if his yacht could be lengthened to 85 metres, Heywood brilliantly said no, and drew him a new one much longer. The result, with Disdale interior, knocked everyone’s socks off with opening terraces on various decks, two pools, a diving centre and spa to die for. Pelorus is for sale, asking €185million – more than her cost 20 years ago.

Builder Royal Huisman | Length 90m | Year 2004

How cool it was that an owner who lives and works at the cutting edge of technology took delivery of a modern classic three-masted gaff schooner. With her clipper bow, long stern overhang and decks worthy of a proper promenade, Athena is a tour de force by Dykstra Naval Architects that reads classic in profile but with all the mod cons. The romantic interior by Pieter Beeldsnijder is just modern enough not to be a classic cliché. Nearly double the length of her owner’s previous yacht from Royal Huisman, the builder had to erect a new construction hall just to fit her.

Builder VT Shipbuilding | Length 77.6m | Year 2004

The world's largest single-masted sailing yacht was built for Joe Vittoria as Mirabella V . For speed and an uncompromised interior, naval architect Ron Holland chose to go sloop, and for access to Palm Beach he devised a massive lifting keel. This magnificent beast can set 3,380 square metres of sail area including the world's largest genoa. Sailing speed exceeds 19 knots.

Builder Lürssen | Length 138m | Year 2004

Built for Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, this statement yacht grew 18 metres during construction, allegedly to make it longer than Paul Allen’s Octopus , a rumour supported by the fact that the project code name was LE120. It was to be Jon Bannenberg’s last yacht and everything imaginable is included in her 8,000 square metres of living space, including a wine cave, double-height cinema and a basketball court. Ellison found Rising Sun a bit big and sold half of it to David Geffen a year later and the rest of it in 2010, just before taking delivery of his more personal size 88-metre Musashi in 2011.

Maltese Falcon

Builder Perini Navi | Length 88m | Year 2006

Maltese Falcon rewrote the book on sailing yachts. Period. Her US owner, the late Tom Perkins, was also an engineer. Working with naval architect Gerard Dykstra, they developed the engineering of the unstayed, rotating DynaRig first proposed in 1967. Appropriating an unused hull at the Turkish yard, he stripped everything above deck level and gave Ken Freivokh a blank canvas for the yacht’s radical styling and interior. Perini Navi was so sceptical of the technology that Perkins hired UK firm Insensys to build the carbon rig that would set 15 square sails at the touch of a button.

Turmoil (now Cupani)

Builder Royal Denship  |   Length 63.8m  |   Year 2006

Replacing a 46-metre Palmer Johnson of the same name and style, Turmoil is a top example of the cab-aft style expedition yacht that carries its tenders in a well deck forward. The previous one logged 100,000 nautical miles and this one was built to take US clothing brand Lands’ End founder and former Olympic sailor Gary Comer to the ends of the earth. Turmoil was equipped with a scientific climatology lab and research facilities to investigate the consequences of global warming in the oceans. Sadly, Comer lost his battle with cancer only a few months after taking delivery.

Ambrosia III

Builder Benetti  |   Length 65m  |   Year 2006

The third Benetti for Hong Kong businessman Ambrous Young, this is the first yacht to use ABB diesel-electric azimuthing pod drives. Built to cruise the world, it has a surveillance and deterrence sustem for navigating in dangerous waters. Fun fact: Linking the yacht's GPS to a controller for hundreds of fibre optic strands embedded in the ceiling of the upper deck's Stargate Room allows an accurate projection of constellations currently overhead.

Builder Oceanco  |   Length 81.3m  |   Year 2007 

Hats off to Carlo Nuvolari for his concept of a huge open beach club aft around a huge, technically challenging infinity pool. Cleverly, its floor can be raised to a safe depth for toddlers or made flush with the deck to become a helipad. Built for 12 guests and 12 crew, a skeleton crew of six has been minding the store since the yacht was seized from a sanctioned Russian owner in March 2022. The process of Alfa Nero's auction is currently under way, with the buyer rumoured to be Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Eleven other Oceancos from 80 to 91.5 metres were built on this platform: AALTO , Vibrant Curiosity , Sunrays , Amore Vero , Man of Steel , Barbara , Nirvana , Cloud 9 , DAR , DreAMBoat and Tranquility .

Builder Amels  |   Length 52.3m  |   Year 2007

In the mid-2000s Amels hired Tim Heywood to design a large yacht that could be built in series and started on spec. A 52-metre named Deniki became the cornerstone of the Limited Editions semi-custom programme when she went to the slipway in 2007. Heywood has created seven models in the Limited Editions series totalling 46 boats to date but none so successful as the 52s which morphed to 55 metres and were actually called the Amels 180. Twenty-five were built before the design was retired with Galene in 2020 and replaced with the Espen Øino-designed Amels 60 in 2022.

Motor Yacht A

Builder Blohm+Voss  |   Length 119m  |   Year 2008

In the past 15 years, the appearance of Motor Yacht A has grown on a lot of people. It is strange but purposeful. Owner Andrey Melnichenko’s brief was just length and six cabins (there are actually seven). French designer Philippe Starck dreamed up the boat in short order and it took Melnichenko just 15 minutes to say “yes”, grab the model and leave. Fun fact: Martin Francis had also proposed a design for Melnichenko; the Russian picked Starck’s plan, but kept Francis to make it work. The hull shape is extremely efficient and very dry, thanks in part to the gorgeous chine.

In her wake : Predator, Excellence, Forever One

Builder Royal Huisman  |   Length 58m  |   Year 2009

Bruce Katz’s 44-metre Juliet (1993) and Al Gore’s admonitions to go greener were Ethereal ’s antecedents. Employing Ron Holland and Pieter Beeldsnijder for lines and decor of their new yacht, software gamechanger Bill Joy and his documentary filmmaker wife, Shannon, set out to challenge the status quo and reduce the yacht’s carbon footprint. A three-day marathon meeting of experts, academics and suppliers subjected every element of the yacht’s design and operation to scrutiny. Energy expert Amory Lovins calls this “abundance by design” – reduce demand for energy and resources and then right-size the supply.

Silver Cloud (now Nurja)

Builder Abeking & Rasmussen  |   Length 40.5m  |   Year 2008

She’s the only one. This long-range yacht is a SWATH (small-waterplane-area twin hull) design. Most of the displacement is carried by big tubes located below water level, negating wave action and keeping living areas well above the water. Gyro-controlled horizontal fin stabilisers smooth out what pitching remains. Locating all the machinery in these tubes also greatly reduces noise and vibration. The 17.8-metre beam makes the flow of the interior superb with all guest cabins, living, dining and crew quarters on the main deck.

Palladium (now AV)

Builder Blohm+Voss  |   Length 95m  |   Year: 2010

The owner worked with Michael Leach Design to create an interior on this 95-metre that is masculine and somewhat moody, and an exterior that is a fantasy of line and shadow. Incredible sculptural furniture by the British maker Based Upon seemed to grow out of the floor. Instead of a beach club, there is a watersports staging zone aft with the spa tucked between the saloon and guest suites. Serial yacht owner Dennis Washington added the yacht to his fleet in 2022, shortening the Attessa handle to just A for his fifth superyacht.

In her wake : Anna, Lady S

Builder Blohm+Voss  |   Length 162.5m  |   Year 2010

Eclipse is Terry Disdale's magnum opus. Designing both the interiors and exterior brought him the freedom to approach Eclipse from how it needed to work. Design-wise, it's the intersection of function, artistry and proportion. The owner's requirement was multiple helicopter capability, Disdale's requisite was making it look balanced with helicopters on deck fore and aft. For three years it was the world's longest yacht. The statistics are staggering; 13,564GT, 6,000nm range, 66 crew, 56-metre-long owner's deck, 39,700-horsepower diesel-electric propulsion, 21.5-knot top speed, 18 guest suites, 16-metre pool-cum-dance floor - the largest at the time - nine decks, two SOLAS lifeboats and a mini-sub.

Exuma (now Falco Moscata)

Builder Perini Navi  |   Length 49.5m  |   Year 2010

Exuma introduced the Vitruvius motor yacht concept by Philippe Briand and Veerle Battiau. Their slim and sleek designs aim to create the most efficient and balanced yachts possible, consuming 20 to 30 per cent less fuel and reducing their carbon footprints. Surprise; this deliciously sleek thing is an expedition yacht, which it proved by taking its original owner to the far corners of the globe. From the full beam owner’s suite to the gym and spa pool, nothing is missing except a sundeck, but there is a large teak-clad foredeck for use at anchor. 

In her wake : Galileo G, Grace E ( now Nautilus), Najiba

Builder Fincantieri  |   Length 133.9m  |   Year 2011

The first superyacht from an Italian cruise ship builder, this SOLAS-classed yacht’s volume is a staggering 8,231GT. Unique amenities among seven decks include multiple fireplaces, a spa with a snow room, a Nemo room with underwater viewing ports, two helipads and a helihanger, and stowage for a mini-sub. Her diesel-electric power plant is fuelled by eight MTUs. Espen Øino’s well-proportioned exterior is elevated by Reymond Langton’s imaginative and luxurious use of space and decor. Originally built for Russian vodka mogul Yuri Shefler, she was sold in 2014.

Builder Feadship  |   Length 78.2m  |   Year 2012

People might not have paid attention to the first superyacht with a vertical bow, except that it was designed by Philippe Starck and built for Steve Jobs. But it’s not just the bow, there was so much technology developed for Venus , it could fill a book; perhaps it will if the NDAs are ever lifted. Vertical bows are not novel – think ocean liners of the 1920s – but their application to increase yacht efficiency is. Builder Henk de Vries calls Venus “the project that moved the goalposts”. Starck says it was a yacht designed by the two biggest control freaks in the world and was “designed to be invisible by transparency”. Among the quantum leaps built into her are window walls engineered by Eckersley O’Callaghan that test the limits of structural glass. Venus is all about Job’s love of minimalism and streamlined design, which coalesced beautifully with Starck’s belief that 40 per cent of the “materiality” on most modern yachts is without purpose.

In her wake : Savannah , Syzygy 818 (now Pi )

Builder Lürssen  |   Length 85m  |   Year 2012

This gorgeous example of imaginative creativity set Winch Design up for more breakout boats to come, such as Madame Gu and Excellence . Creative control over both interior and exterior design allowed Winch to dare the unusual profile with large arches surmounted by oval balconies port and starboard. The interior defies description, in parts neoclassic, deco and contemporary, but everywhere over the top from the silver and ebony baroque staircase bannister to the spa to end all spas.

Builder Lürssen  |   Length 180.6m  |   Year 2013

This mammoth yacht was built to whisk her Emirati owner to his favourite Red Sea diving spot at speeds over 31 knots thanks to two diesels and twin gas turbines that together develop 97,000 horsepower. Designed by Italy’s Nauta Design and currently the world’s longest yacht, Azzam has a 13,136GT interior that is said to be in a “relaxed” 19th century Empire style, featuring lots of wood, marquetry and mother-of-pearl, styled by Christophe Leoni .

Builder Palmer Johnson  |   Length 64m  |   Year 2013

The PJ 210 was the flagship of the now-defunct US aluminium boatbuilder and the largest of the PJ SportYacht series designed by Nuvolari Lenard that began with a jazzy 120-footer in 2003 named Cover Drive . The 28-knot yacht features five M26000 Seakeeper gyros instead of stabiliser fins. Lady M's tender bay on the bow converts to a saltwater pool.

Ulysses (now Multiverse)

Builder Kleven  |   Length 116.2m  |   Year 2018

An immediate replacement for a 107-metre expedition yacht of the same name (now Andromeda ) launched in 2015, this one carries six more people, more fuel and bigger auxiliary craft. Multiverse's got an 8,000-nautical mile range, which is about the only cap on the original owner’s “no limits” cruising philosophy. Builder Kleven is a Norwegian commercial shipyard specialising in tough offshore support vessels. The hull is by Marin Teknikk , exterior design by Oscar Mike and the interior design is by RWD . She carries six tenders on deck including a 20-metre Princess. The covered side decks, enclosed wing stations, climate-controlled heli-garage and protected, partially recessed balconies are ready for cruising in polar regions.

Builder Feadship  |   Length 83.5m  |   Year 2015

Savannah is her builder’s first big leap forward in delivering environmentally friendly superyachts. Her hybrid propulsion system resulted from in-house R&D and pairs a centreline azipulling electric thruster with fixed props and a 1MW battery bank. A computer decides the most efficient combination of battery, main engine and gensets to deliver house power or propulsion at a 30 per cent fuel saving from conventional setups. She’s no slouch on amenities with a huge pool deck aft, a Nemo room with an underwater viewing port, a secret forward bow lounge and full-height windows throughout. 

In her wake : Elandess (now M'Brace ), Moonrise

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His Interest Is in Controlling

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Nobody tells Bennett LeBow what to do. Starting in the morning, the 58-year-old renegade financier likes to cook his own breakfast so he can eat exactly what he wants. All day long, LeBow demands control, either when he’s losing his cool stuck in traffic or when he’s provoking corporate chieftains with audacious takeover bids.

On Wednesday, the majority shareholder of Liggett Group, the smallest of the nation’s five major tobacco companies, struck again, breaking with the $50-billion-a-year tobacco industry by agreeing to settle a class-action lawsuit that claims the industry knowingly sells addictive nicotine products.

“Bennett LeBow sets the agenda, no matter what the issue,” said Stanley Witkow, vice president of MAI Systems Corp., an Irvine computer networking systems company that LeBow once controlled and, some critics say, ran into the ground. “This guy likes to be in control.”

The first-ever tobacco settlement could arm LeBow in his effort to gain control of No.-2 cigarette maker RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. and force it to spin off its Nabisco food unit.

“He’s trying to do the best for himself, with morals aside,” said Stephen Yacktman of Yacktman Asset Management, an RJR shareholder.

Chiding LeBow as lacking in morals is hardly the harshest criticism levied against the stocky, bearded Philadelphia native.

No surprise there: Two of his public companies--MAI Systems and New Valley Corp.--filed for bankruptcy. His Miami-based Brooke Group Ltd., Liggett’s parent, has reported losses for years and recently had to restructure much of its $400-million debt.

At MAI, which LeBow acquired through an investment partnership in 1985, his tenure was marked by a brief fling with success followed by several years of wrenching financial difficulties, hundreds of layoffs, turmoil in the top ranks and, finally, bankruptcy reorganization in 1993.

Angry Brooke shareholders repeatedly claimed that LeBow improperly helped himself to that company’s assets, allegations he denies.

He has also been criticized for his ostentatious lifestyle that has included a yacht, jets, several pricey homes and elaborate entertaining.

Shortly after acquiring MAI Basic Four, as it was called then, LeBow used the company to launch an aggressive hostile takeover bid for Massachusetts-based Prime Computer, a company three times MAI’s size. But after more than a year of legal wrangling in which MAI ran up more than $25 million in expenses, the effort failed when Prime agreed to be bought by a white-knight suitor.

MAI blamed costs of the aborted takeover battle and its 1990 switch from computer making to software development for a $64.5-million loss in 1991 that also resulted in the layoffs of about 800 workers.

Rapid expansion in the 1980s helped the company run up more than $145 million in debt that pushed it into Chapter 11 bankruptcy for seven months in 1993.

The company emerged from the bankruptcy early in 1994 and refocused its efforts on designing and installing computer networking systems. LeBow quit as chief executive in 1993, then resigned as chairman and left the board last year. For 1995, MAI Systems posted a $10.2-million profit.

Though the company suffered under LeBow’s control, the investor didn’t. By 1988, he had recouped his $10-million cash investment just from MAI stock dividends, and his shares at the time showed a paper profit of $84 million. MAI’s common stock closed Thursday at $7.25 a share on the American Stock Exchange, making the 1.65 million shares LeBow still holds worth almost $12 million.

The son of an insurance man and a schoolteacher, LeBow graduated from Drexel University with an engineering degree and started his own computer company in 1961.

Six years later, he rescued his company from failure through a merger and financial restructuring. In the ensuing two decades, he focused on troubled companies.

“The returns are higher,” he told Forbes magazine.

LeBow, who says he grew up poor, began to spend money as soon as he had it.

An avid scuba diver, he moved to south Florida in the late 1980s from New York, buying a home on tony Fisher Island.

In early 1989, according to numerous press reports, LeBow flew 150 friends on a chartered jet to London for a $3-million bash to celebrate the maiden voyage of his custom-built yacht, modeled after Queen Victoria’s private yacht.

The spending blitz came as financial pressures mounted. In November 1990, LeBow combined several unprofitable interests into Brooke Group, which was the renamed Liggett cigarette company LeBow acquired in a 1986 buyout.

Within months, LeBow was drawing millions of dollars in salary and personal loans from Liggett.

In 1992, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show LeBow drew a $1.5-million salary from Brooke while the company reported a $6-million loss. He also received loans and lines of credit from Liggett and Brooke topping $6 million.

LeBow, who has faced scores of shareholder suits, counters that he repaid the loans with interest, and that investors who stayed with Brooke from 1991 to 1995 reaped an annual return of 27%.

LeBow is a most unlikely shareholder activist in his fight with RJR, the focus of a titanic takeover contest between management and buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Brooke Group proposes an insurgent slate that includes LeBow to replace for RJR’s board. If elected, the new board would immediately spin off the company’s food business. LeBow claims this would benefit shareholders, who earned a 4% compound annual return on their investment in RJR in the past four years.

The slate is expected to be voted on April 17 at RJR’s annual meeting.

Fiends say LeBow has mellowed and sold his yacht, two jets and two of his homes.

One thing hasn’t changed.

Says Tom Hoenes, an analyst at Fitch Investors Service: “Bennett LeBow is going to look after his own interests to the absolute exception of everything else, including shareholders and employees.”

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Bennett LeBow, flashy financier, ‘likes to be…

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Bennett LeBow, flashy financier, ‘likes to be in control’ rTC Setting the agenda for tobacco industry

Author

MIAMI – Nobody tells Bennett LeBow what to do.

Starting in the morning, the 58-year-old renegade financier likes to cook his own breakfast so he can eat exactly what he wants. All day long, Mr. LeBow demands control, losing his cool when he’s stuck in traffic or provoking corporate chieftains with audacious takeover bids.

This month, the majority shareholder of Liggett Group, the smallest of the United States’ five major tobacco companies, struck again, breaking with the $50 billion-a-year tobacco industry by agreeing to settle a class-action lawsuit that claims the industry knowingly sells addictive nicotine products.

“Bennett LeBow sets the agenda, no matter what the issue,” said Stanley Witkow, vice president of MAI Systems Corp., an Irvine, Calif., computer company that Mr. LeBow controls. “This guy likes to be in control.”

The first-ever tobacco settlement could arm Mr. LeBow in his effort to gain control of No. 2 cigarette maker RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. and force it to spin off its Nabisco food unit.

“He’s trying to do the best for himself, with morals aside,” said Stephen Yacktman of Yacktman Asset Management, an RJR shareholder.

Chiding Mr. LeBow as lacking in morals is hardly the harshest criticism levied against stocky, bearded Philadelphia native.

No surprise there: Two of his public companies MAI Systems and New Valley Corp. filed for bankruptcy. His Miami-based Brooke Group Ltd., Liggett’s parent, has reported losses for years and recently had to restructure much of its $400 million debt.

Angry Brooke shareholders repeatedly claimed that Mr. LeBow improperly helped himself to company assets, allegations that he denies.

He’s also been criticized for his ostentatious lifestyle that has included a yacht, jets, several pricey homes and elaborate entertaining.

The son of an insurance man and a schoolteacher, Mr. LeBow graduated from Drexel University with an engineering degree and started his own computer company in 1961. Six years later, he rescued his own company from failure through a merger and financial restructuring. In the ensuing two decades, he focused on troubled companies.

Mr. LeBow also prospered with the backing of since-fallen junk-bond king Michael Milken and Drexel Burnham Lambert, which provided junk-bond financing for a string of LeBow acquisitions.

Among his conquests: reported.

In 1987, a LeBow company bought a majority stake in Western Union Corp., then a grab bag of money-losing assets with a negative net worth of $200 million.

The company, renamed New Valley, ended up filing for bankruptcy, selling assets and repaying bondholders in full. The company sold its interest in Western Union Financial Services Inc. for $1.2 billion, leaving it with more than $300 million.

Mr. LeBow, who says he grew up poor, began to spend money as soon as he had it.

An avid scuba diver, he moved to south Florida in the late 1980s from New York, buying a home on tony Fisher Island.

In early 1989, according to numerous press reports, Mr. LeBow flew 150 friends on a chartered jet to London for a $3 million bash to celebrate the maiden voyage of his custom-built yacht, modeled after Queen Victoria’s private yacht.

The guests stayed at the posh Claridge hotel and were met at the port by a marching band in full regalia. Mr. LeBow doled out souvenirs, including gold coins with a likeness of the financier donning a Lord Nelson hat.

The spending blitz came as financial pressures mounted.

In November 1990, Mr. LeBow combined several unprofitable interests into Brooke Group, which was the renamed Liggett cigarette company acquired in a 1986 buyout. Within months, Mr. LeBow was drawing millions in salary and personal loans.

Securities and Exchange Commission filings show that in 1992 Mr. LeBow drew a $1.5 million salary from Brooke while the company reported a $6 million loss. He also received loans and lines of credit from Liggett and Brooke.

Mr. LeBow, who has faced scores of shareholder suits, counters that he repaid the loans with interest, and that investors who stayed with Brooke from 1991 through 1995 reaped an annual return of 27 percent.

Mr. LeBow is a most unlikely shareholder activist in his fight with RJR, the focus of a titanic takeover contest between management and buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

Brooke Group proposes an insurgent slate that includes Mr. LeBow to replace RJR’s board. If elected, the new board would immediately spin off the company’s food business. Mr. LeBow claims this would benefit shareholders, who earned a 4 percent compound annual return on their investment in RJR in the past four years.

The slate is expected to be voted on at RJR’s April 17 annual meeting.

Pub Date: 3/24/96

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Joshua Davis

Come to LeBow Country

Dan Dienner steps out of his 150-year-old barn looking like an Amish rock star. He's wearing the standard-issue straw hat and the classic half-beard, but he's also got a square-jawed handsomeness, blue-tinted sunglasses, and a Nextel cell phone holstered on one hip.

The 43-year-old farmer greets me at the edge of a recently harvested tobacco field bordering his barn. The Pennsylvania countryside is beautiful - horses pulling small black carriages trot by on a narrow paved road, and tree-covered hills can be seen behind Dienner's wood-frame house.

David Henry Stewart

But the bucolic setting isn't exactly what it seems. Drying inside Dienner's barn are 10,000 pounds of genetically modified tobacco - one of the most scientifically advanced agricultural products in the world. "Amish law doesn't say anything about growing genetically modified tobacco," he says.

Inside his house, Dienner offers me a seat beneath a kerosene lamp and explains why he accepted a contract from Vector Tobacco - America's fifth-largest tobacco company - to grow a plant whose DNA has been reengineered to block nicotine biosynthesis. He doesn't seem bothered that the innovation is under attack from the tobacco industry, public health experts, and pharmaceutical conglomerates. Or that the transgenic plants have been confiscated, burned, or outlawed almost everywhere Vector has tried to grow them. "Most Amish don't really know what genetically modified means," Dienner says, noting that Vector is paying nearly double the market rate compared with standard tobacco. "We only know that it's got no nicotine in it."

While Amish law doesn't prohibit GM crops, it does dictate that farming be done without the aid of modern machinery. Which explains why mule teams and homemade plows are helping to bring to market the vision of a computer scientist turned tobacco CEO named Bennett LeBow. His plan? Get people to quit smoking by selling them cigarettes.

At 64, Bennett LeBow should be nearing the pinnacle of his career as a tobacco tycoon. Instead, he's struggling to prove himself. After 16 years as CEO of Vector, he hasn't managed to push the company's market share above 3 percent. And while Vector is one of the Big Five - along with R.J. Reynolds, Philip Morris, Brown & Williamson, and Lorrilard - it's a kind of bottom-feeder, selling discount cigarette brands you've probably never heard of: Epic, Liggett Select, Pyramid, Grand Prix. LeBow himself is a pariah, shunned by his colleagues for having been the first industry executive to cooperate with the anti-tobacco lawsuits filed by 40 states in the mid-1990s.

But LeBow, who once owned Western Union and later tried to take over R.J. Reynolds, remains a man of grand ambitions. He wants to develop a major brand of his own and redefine the industry. That's where the January launch of the nicotine-free Quest comes in. "Asking people to stop smoking is like asking them to stay out of the sun," LeBow explains in his no-bullshit staccato when I meet him at Vector's Manhattan headquarters. "It's just not practical. So, instead of telling people to spend their lives indoors, you sell them sunscreen."

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With his close-cropped beard and monogrammed shirts, LeBow suggests Hemingway done over as a multimillionaire corporate executive. He motions for me to sit beside him at Vector's hulking conference table. His theory is that Americans like to make lifestyle changes the easy way. We'd rather eat low-fat food than eat less. We prefer Prozac to psychotherapy. The newest passive solution, he says, will be his three-tiered cigarette series - the Quest 1, 2, and 3. The first two deliver 17 and 58 percent less nicotine, respectively, than the average light cigarette by blending regular tobacco with Vector's genetically modified, nicotine-free product. Quest 3 contains only the nicotine-free tobacco. Try as you might, it won't give you a buzz. But, as Vector execs admit, all three still contain almost all of the carcinogens present in other cigarettes. They'll give you cancer and heart disease just like regular smokes.

David Henry Stewart

The idea is that people will be able to wean themselves from nicotine while continuing to smoke. Smokers are attached to the ritual, LeBow explains. Forcing them to fight both the addiction to nicotine and the habit of smoking makes it less likely that they'll succeed in quitting. With the Quest, nicotine dependency can for the first time be separated from the ritual. Once the addiction is addressed, smokers will have an easier time breaking the habit.

LeBow jumps up from his chair, disappears around a corner, and comes back with a test carton of Quest 3. The packaging is certainly not Marlboro man. Shades of light blue alternate with indigo, and the words NICOTINE FREE are featured prominently. "Seventy percent of smokers say they want to quit, and 40 percent of them try," he explains, sliding the carton in front of me. "If we can make products that speak to even a fraction of those people, we'll make a lot of money."

The irony is that by enthusiastically admitting cigarettes are deadly, LeBow has opened a new market for his company. He's positioned himself to do well by doing good. So why is it that just about everyone is trying to stop him?

Monday, July 14, 1997, started out as a typical day for Vector's CEO. He arrived at his midtown Manhattan office early, fired up his PC, and began scanning the day's tobacco news. That's when he spotted a short Bloomberg News item that changed his business:

A geneticist in North Carolina had discovered the tobacco gene responsible for nicotine production.

LeBow was on the lookout for just such a breakthrough. His plan was to build a new kind of tobacco company, one that used science and technology to create a better, safer, less addictive cigarette. Unlike the bigger tobacco firms, Vector had little to lose - and plenty of premium-price market share to gain.

LeBow saw a huge market for a nicotine-free product. After all, GlaxoSmithKline was pulling in $500 million a year selling the nicotine gum Nicorette and the NicoDerm patch. With seven out of ten smokers saying they want to quit (and, of those who try, four out of five failing), the market for a smokable product to help them seemed much bigger than that.

When Vector's North Carolina office found the geneticist - Mark Conkling, director of the biotechnology program at North Carolina State University - he made no guarantees about his ability to deliver a tobacco plant that would be reliably nicotine free. LeBow told him to try and gave the university $100,000 to fund the research.

It took three years, but in 2000, Conkling succeeded. By essentially turning off the nicotine gene, he reduced nicotine production to trace levels. LeBow thought his cigarettes would be on the market within 18 months, but it turned out that the next step - finding someone to grow the bioengineered plants - would be even more difficult.

David Henry Stewart

Vector had never been in the farming business. Like all the other tobacco companies, it employs middlemen called leaf dealers. The dealers buy the plants from farmers, separate the stems from the leaves, and sell the parts to the cigarette manufacturers.

But the leaf dealers were leery of LeBow and his nicotine-free seedlings. Before making any agreement, they ran the idea past executives at the larger companies. The reaction was swift and unequivocal: If the dealers helped Vector, they'd lose the business of the larger players.

Philip Morris argued that the genetically modified tobacco might crossbreed with nonmodified varieties. That contamination, they said, would cause a panic in Europe and Japan, where smokers are willing to take their chances with regular carcinogenic tobacco but want nothing to do with GM smokes.

LeBow was in a bind. He had a nicotine-free tobacco plant and nobody to grow it, let alone process it. He decided to abandon efforts to cultivate the crop in the US and began looking abroad for farmers who weren't under Big Tobacco's thumb. He settled on Argentina and, in the spring of 2000, shipped seeds to the country's Tucumén province. Back in North Carolina, construction began on a $20 million, 328,000-square-foot facility to handle the processing that the leaf dealers refused to do. Vector was rapidly becoming a new kind of tobacco company, one that grew, processed, manufactured, marketed, and sold its own cigarettes.

But LeBow's competitors weren't done with him yet. According to him, scouts from "other tobacco companies" started sneaking around his fields in Argentina and snipping samples of his plants. Representatives of Philip Morris soon visited the region's agricultural secretary, Roberto Sanchez Loria. These reps, Sanchez Loria told The Wall Street Journal in 2001, warned that they'd stop buying from the province if there was transgenic tobacco being grown there. That, the minister realized, would be a catastrophe for the region. He quickly ordered Vector's crop seized and burned, citing a lack of required permits. The entire crop went up in smoke, and LeBow was back to square one.

"The big companies haven't bought up here for years," says Dan Dienner as he watches his wife and children navigate a small horse-drawn buggy into their "garage" - a section of the barn beneath the area where Vector's tobacco is hung to dry. The family has just returned from the grocery store, and the kids are soon pulling boxes of Wheaties and Fruit by the Foot out of the buggy's hatchback trunk.

Dienner tells me that Vector's offer of $1.50 per pound was hard to refuse, given that the going rate at the time for regular tobacco was hovering around 80 cents. So far, more than 600 Amish families in Pennsylvania have signed up to cultivate 3,800 acres of the transgenic crop - enough to produce 345 million cigarettes. The influx of cash has been a boon to the community, whose primary source of income over the past decade has been the depressed milk market.

The crop's popularity in the region causes wagon jams at Vector's New Holland, Pennsylvania, collection warehouse. During the fall harvest, Amish men in wagons overflowing with tobacco waited their turn to unload the harvest onto comparatively massive 18-wheel trucks, which then ferried the product to North Carolina for processing.

Back in Manhattan, LeBow is smiling. "We're over the hump," he announces in a merry tone. "The big tobacco companies can't stop us now. We've got the Amish on our side."

LeBow's tenacity has deep roots. As an engineer in the early '60s, he believed in the power of computers when few others did. He taught computer design while working toward a PhD in engineering at Princeton, then went on to install early data systems at the Pentagon to fulfill his ROTC obligation.

But the world of academia didn't satisfy his ambitions. "I didn't see PhDs being driven around in Lincoln Town Cars," he says. Rather than return to Princeton when he left the Army in 1962, LeBow started a firm that continued the Pentagon project, eventually selling the business for a profit in 1971. Using the money from that sale, LeBow began accumulating increasingly larger companies, buying Information Displays, a workstation manufacturer, in 1975 and computer maker MAI Basic Four in 1985. The year after that he made his biggest purchase to date: the tobacco company called the Liggett Group, later rechristened Vector.

He didn't know anything about the business and had quit smoking 15 years previously because, he says, the health effects "scared the hell out of me." But Liggett's financials looked good. The customer base was locked in, and despite Liggett's 2 percent market share the cash flow was constant. LeBow paid $137 million for the company and later appointed himself CEO.

The business yielded steady dividends for eight years, allowing LeBow to focus on other ventures, such as buying and liquidating Western Union and attempting (unsuccessfully) to take over R.J. Reynolds. But by the mid-'90s, large class-action lawsuits against the industry began to proliferate. He knew that if the tobacco companies lost even one case, Vector wouldn't be able to pay its share of the damages.

LeBow saw an opportunity in the dire circumstances. In 1996, he began secret negotiations with the state attorneys general, offering to turn over damning internal documents and testify about the dangers of smoking in exchange for immunity from most penalties - all while Philip Morris was paying Vector's legal fees to maintain industry solidarity.

The attorneys general were happy to let Vector off the hook in exchange for juicy evidence against giants like Philip Morris and Brown & Williamson. So LeBow became the first tobacco executive to publicly admit that cigarettes cause cancer. He even agreed to testify against his own company in the first class-action lawsuit, a 1997 case organized by flight attendants exposed to secondhand smoke on airplanes.

Public health officials hailed him as a hero, but the real picture was more complex. Vector gained an advantage when its competitors were forced to settle with the states and pay heavy penalties for each pack of cigarettes sold. When the other companies raised their prices to accommodate the penalties, Vector jacked up what it charged and pocketed the money. In 1999 - the first year the price increase showed up on the bottom line - Vector's profits rose by a factor of 10. LeBow hadn't made any friends in the tobacco business, but he wasn't looking for any. He now had a Lincoln Town Car and a chauffeur. And a yacht. And a jet.

David Henry Stewart

What he didn't have was a name-brand cigarette.

While work on the Quest was in full swing, LeBow serendipitously hit on yet another way to use technology to create new products.

In 1998, a Vector scientist stumbled upon a sealed canister in the basement of the old Liggett research lab in Durham, North Carolina. The canister contained cigarettes from a secret research initiative known as Project XA, an attempt to produce cigarettes with reduced toxins - a safer smoke. Liggett canceled the program in the '70s, reportedly after being pressured by other companies. The industry feared that the introduction of a reduced-toxin cigarette would be a tacit acknowledgment that cigarettes were harmful, an unthinkable admission two decades ago.

But times had changed, and LeBow dived in. By 2000, a research team completed what its predecessors couldn't. Using palladium to treat tobacco, they produced a cigarette that caused 70 percent fewer tumors in mice. Trumpeting the research, LeBow launched a $25 million advertising campaign in 2001 and released what was dubbed the Omni.

It was a huge failure. The brand has managed less than $6 million in sales to date - that's about what Marlboro does in four hours - and, though it's still available, the Omni is not being advertised. "The fact is," LeBow now says, "it's hard to build a marketing campaign around reduced polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons because nobody knows what they are." He pauses. "But everybody knows what nicotine is."

Ironically, all the work that health officials have done to educate the public about the addictive nature of cigarettes has laid the foundation for the Quest's marketing campaign. For decades, nicotine has been identified as the addictive element in cigarettes - to such an extent that nicotine is often viewed as the most dangerous ingredient.

It isn't. It's the 4,000 chemicals in smoke that cause cancer, emphysema, strokes, and heart disease. Nonetheless, nicotine has become the symbol of all that is scary in cigarettes. Vector has only to say "Nicotine free," and smokers are apt to conclude that the Quest is safer.

That prospect has public health advocates fuming. "Smokers like whatever sounds like a panacea," says Alan Blum, an outspoken industry critic who heads the Center for the Study of Tobacco and Society at the University of Alabama. "But no matter what you do to smoke, it's still smoke. Maybe you can make it a little better, but it's like jumping off the 40th floor instead of the 50th."

David Henry Stewart

The Quest, however, neatly sidesteps the debate over reduced-harm cigarettes. LeBow learned from the Omni that marketing a healthier cigarette is next to impossible. Instead, he's decided to introduce the Quest as a way for smokers to wean themselves off nicotine. In other words, it's a smoking-cessation product, much like Nicorette. This puts LeBow in a difficult position. In order to market the Quest as a cigarette that helps people kick the habit, Vector must submit extensive research proving its efficacy to the FDA, which regulates health claims. Vector began the research in October, but it won't be ready for at least nine months.

LeBow isn't willing to wait that long to launch the Quest. So he's in the position of introducing a smoking-cessation product without uttering the words "smoking cessation." That's leading to some bizarre marketing materials. Rather than straightforwardly explaining the step-by-step process for kicking nicotine, the colorful Quest insert exhorts smokers to "Step to nicotine free!" And then obliquely asks, "Which to try first? Why not low-nicotine Quest 1?" It sounds like a game of Taboo, where you lose if you say the forbidden word. But Vector officials don't seem to be having any fun. With straight faces, they repeatedly stress that they are making no health claims about their product.

Public health types aren't buying it. "When we show these 'we're making no claims' ads to the 600 smokers in our studies, we find that smokers do in fact perceive health claims," says Connolly, of Massachusetts Tobacco Control, a state-funded watchdog group that conducts advertising research.

GlaxoSmithKline is even angrier. Before bringing NicoDerm and Nicorette to market, the pharmaceutical giant was required to submit both to the government for approval. But the Quest is protected by the 2000 US Supreme Court ruling that bars the FDA from regulating the tobacco industry - as long as Vector doesn't make health claims. "With Glaxo's products, there's extensive guidance about how to pick your dose," says Jack Henningfield, a Glaxo consultant and public health expert. "With the Quest, Vector isn't offering any guidance about how to taper off. The fact that they would unleash this on the marketplace and use the American public as a laboratory is appalling." Glaxo has already petitioned the FDA to regulate a nicotine lozenge produced by Star Scientific, a small tobacco company in Chester, Virginia. Though Glaxo won't comment on any plans to compel the FDA to regulate the Quest, the company is clearly concerned about competing on an uneven playing field.

Still, a few in public health give Vector credit. "LeBow's been a leader in reforming the tobacco industry," says Tobacco Control's Connolly.

"But he doesn't have the resources to do it all at once. Do we crack down on LeBow and allow Philip Morris to become the monopoly of safe cigarettes because they're the only people with the resources to meet FDA standards?"

LeBow nearly loses his temper when asked about the criticism.

"It's almost like these people want cigarettes to stay dangerous," he says. "If a company like Vector wasn't around, who would come out with these products? Who would have the commitment to introduce a nicotine-free cigarette?"

Clearly, LeBow is a businessman first and a public health trendsetter second. After all, his discount cigarettes are fueling Vector. Still, LeBow seems to relish being a tobacco executive on a public health crusade. "Sure, the Quest might put us out of business in the long run," he says, fingering the 10-pack carton sitting on the table. "But it's important that I'm here to beat up the industry and force these guys to do better." He leans forward and his face brightens. "And I intend to make a lot of money along the way."

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Bennett S. LeBow, a longtime businessman, with a great love for Drexel, his alma mater

He's been called a corporate raider, a business tycoon, a maverick financier, and a volatile one-man band. He's been labeled "pugnacious" and "colorful" and "renegade."

Tuesday, however, when he visits his alma mater, Drexel University, Bennett S. LeBow is likely to be addressed as "Sir."

LeBow, 72, Drexel's largest benefactor, is donating $45 million to build a new academic center for Drexel's business school, which is already named in his honor.

"The current building is completely inadequate," he said Monday in an interview from his home on the exclusive Fisher Island in Miami. "It was an obvious thing to do."

What LeBow sees as obvious is not always apparent to other entrepreneurs, said Howard Lorber, a longtime friend and business partner.

"He's a financial genius," said Lorber, who met LeBow after work one evening in the bar at New York's elegant Sherry-Netherland hotel more than 30 years ago. "He had this nose for smelling deals where other people couldn't find them."

The elder son of an insurance salesman and a teacher, LeBow graduated from West Philadelphia High and studied electrical engineering at Drexel. His younger brother died at 18 from a sudden illness.

After graduating in 1960, LeBow studied computers at Princeton University and became a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army. He then took a civilian post in the Army Chief of Staff's office before starting his business career in 1968.

In his first venture, he formed a computer services company, DSI Systems Inc., in Rockville, Md. The company went public in 1969 and, after growing pains, LeBow sold it to a rival.

He began consulting for troubled companies, then started putting small deals together. His first big-time investment was MAI Basic Four Inc., a struggling computer company, in 1985. Within three years, he turned the company around and made millions.

He went on to invest in a series of unstable companies during the 1980s. One of his more successful ventures was to buy the bankrupt Western Union. Capitalizing on the rise in the money-transfer business, LeBow turned a $400 million profit when he sold the company in the early 1990s.

"It's my business getting involved in troubled situations," LeBow says. "Luckily the ones that worked out worked out well."

In the corporate world, LeBow became best known as the first tobacco company executive, as head of Liggett Group Inc., to openly admit that smoking cigarettes leads to cancer.

A smoker who eventually quit the habit, LeBow reached settlements with several attorneys general in 1996 who had filed class-action suits. Among other concessions, he agreed to put health warnings on his company's cigarettes.

He did so, he said, because it was "the right thing to do," although his critics said he was motivated less by altruism than business savvy, predicting that the class-action lawsuits would sink his company if he did not acknowledge the health risks and reach a settlement.

Both loyal and generous, he once flew 150 of his friends, including a dozen Drexel executives, to London to celebrate the launching of his new yacht.

According to the news reports of the event, his guests stayed at the Claridge's Hotel for the weekend, traveled on the Orient Express, and were regaled by the Scots Guard bagpipers and the Royal Marines band.

"Greatest party I ever went to," said Lorber.

As Drexel's largest benefactor, LeBow has a love for Drexel that is returned in equal measure.

"He is a careful and thoughtful steward of his alma mater, and his philanthropy has strengthened our ability to attract top-notch faculty, professors who are actively engaged in creating new knowledge," George P. Tsetsekos, dean of the LeBow School of Business, said in an e-mail.

LeBow and his wife, Geri, who met at Drexel, have two daughters and five grandchildren. (Despite his efforts to persuade them to attend Drexel, three, so far, have chosen the University of Pennsylvania.)

As he is about to turn 73 next month, he remains chairman of the Vector Group Ltd., a holding company that owns Liggett Group L.L.C. and Vector Tobacco Inc., which "manufacture and market high quality cigarette products to adult smokers in the United States," according to Vector's website.

Lebow shows no sign of slowing down in his pursuit of long-shot business deals. In May, he invested $25 million in the Borders bookstore chain and took over as chairman of its board. He added the title of chief executive officer in June.

"They overexpanded too much, too quick," LeBow said. "But I believe bookstores are going to be around for a long, long time."

As in all of his previous quests, he said, "you go into any big company, you always find something that makes it work. Have we found it yet? Not yet. But we're working on it."

TOBACCO BIZ BOMBSHELL LEBOW ONLY MARCHES TO HIS…

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TOBACCO BIZ BOMBSHELL LEBOW ONLY MARCHES TO HIS OWN DRUM

New York Daily News

Nobody tells Bennett LeBow what to do. Starting in the morning, the 58-year-old renegade financier likes to cook his own breakfast so he can eat exactly what he wants. All day long, LeBow demands control, losing his cool when stuck in traffic or provoking corporate bosses with takeover bids. Today, the majority shareholder of Liggett Group, the smallest of the U.

‘s five major tobacco companies, struck again, by agreeing to settle a lawsuit with anti-smoking foes. “Bennett LeBow sets the agenda, no matter what the issue,” said Stanley Witkow, vice president of MAI Systems Corp., an Irvine, Calif., computer company that LeBow controls. But some critics said LeBow’s move yesterday allows him to reverse a tattered reputation by painting himself as a hero to the anti-smoking lobby. “He’s trying to do the best for himself, with morals aside,” said Stephen Yacktman of Yacktman Asset Management, an RJR shareholder. No surprise there, critics charge. Two of his public companies MAI Systems and New Valley Corp. filed for bankruptcy. His Miami-based Brooke Group, Liggett’s parent, has reported losses for years and recently had to restructure much of its $400 million debt. Angry Brooke shareholders repeatedly claimed that LeBow improperly helped himself to company assets, allegations he denies. He’s also been criticized for his ostentatious lifestyle that has included a yacht, jets and several pricey homes. The son of an insurance man and a schoolteacher, LeBow graduated from Drexel University with an engineering degree and started his own computer company in 1961. Six years later, he rescued his own company from failure through a merger and financial restructuring. In the next two decades, he focused on troubled firms. LeBow also prospered with the backing of junk-bond king Michael Milken, who provided financing for a string of purchases. Among his conquests: Brigham’s, a Massachusetts ice cream chain; the gold jewelry operations of a British firm; and even the English boat yard that built his $21 million yacht. In 1987, a LeBow company bought a majority stake in Western Union, then a grab bag of money-losing assets with a negative net worth of $200 million. The company, renamed New Valley, ended up filing for bankruptcy, selling assets and repaying bondholders in full. LeBow, who says he grew up poor, began to spend money as soon as he had it. An avid scuba diver, he moved to south Florida in the late 1980s from New York, buying a home on tony Fisher Island.

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Bennett LeBow

  • Bennett LeBow

Chairman at VECTOR GROUP LTD.

Net worth: 248 663 $ as of 2024-01-30

Bennett S. LeBow is a businessperson who has been the head of 7 different companies and currently holds the position of Chairman for Vector Group Ltd. and Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of LeBow Holdings, Inc. Mr. LeBow is also on the board of LeBow Gamma, Inc., Lebow 2011 Management Trust and Somerset Coal International, Inc. and Partner at LeBow Alpha LLLP, Manager for Lebow Epsilon 2001 LLC and Managing Member at Lebow Holdings LLC. In the past he occupied the position of Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of Borders Group, Inc., Chairman & Chief Executive Officer for New Valley LLC, Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of New Valley Corp., Chairman for Signal Genetics, Inc., President & Chief Executive Officer of Vector Tobacco LLC and Assistant-Vice Chief of Staff at The United States Army (District of Columbia). He received an undergraduate degree from Drexel University.

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Bennett lebow active positions, former positions of bennett lebow, training of bennett lebow, experiences positions held.

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Cruising the Moskva River: A short guide to boat trips in Russia’s capital

bennett lebow yacht

There’s hardly a better way to absorb Moscow’s atmosphere than on a ship sailing up and down the Moskva River. While complicated ticketing, loud music and chilling winds might dampen the anticipated fun, this checklist will help you to enjoy the scenic views and not fall into common tourist traps.

How to find the right boat?

There are plenty of boats and selecting the right one might be challenging. The size of the boat should be your main criteria.

Plenty of small boats cruise the Moskva River, and the most vivid one is this yellow Lay’s-branded boat. Everyone who has ever visited Moscow probably has seen it.

bennett lebow yacht

This option might leave a passenger disembarking partially deaf as the merciless Russian pop music blasts onboard. A free spirit, however, will find partying on such a vessel to be an unforgettable and authentic experience that’s almost a metaphor for life in modern Russia: too loud, and sometimes too welcoming. Tickets start at $13 (800 rubles) per person.

Bigger boats offer smoother sailing and tend to attract foreign visitors because of their distinct Soviet aura. Indeed, many of the older vessels must have seen better days. They are still afloat, however, and getting aboard is a unique ‘cultural’ experience. Sometimes the crew might offer lunch or dinner to passengers, but this option must be purchased with the ticket. Here is one such  option  offering dinner for $24 (1,490 rubles).

bennett lebow yacht

If you want to travel in style, consider Flotilla Radisson. These large, modern vessels are quite posh, with a cozy restaurant and an attentive crew at your service. Even though the selection of wines and food is modest, these vessels are still much better than other boats.

bennett lebow yacht

Surprisingly, the luxurious boats are priced rather modestly, and a single ticket goes for $17-$32 (1,100-2,000 rubles); also expect a reasonable restaurant bill on top.

How to buy tickets?

Women holding photos of ships promise huge discounts to “the young and beautiful,” and give personal invitations for river tours. They sound and look nice, but there’s a small catch: their ticket prices are usually more than those purchased online.

“We bought tickets from street hawkers for 900 rubles each, only to later discover that the other passengers bought their tickets twice as cheap!”  wrote  (in Russian) a disappointed Rostislav on a travel company website.

Nevertheless, buying from street hawkers has one considerable advantage: they personally escort you to the vessel so that you don’t waste time looking for the boat on your own.

bennett lebow yacht

Prices start at $13 (800 rubles) for one ride, and for an additional $6.5 (400 rubles) you can purchase an unlimited number of tours on the same boat on any given day.

Flotilla Radisson has official ticket offices at Gorky Park and Hotel Ukraine, but they’re often sold out.

Buying online is an option that might save some cash. Websites such as  this   offer considerable discounts for tickets sold online. On a busy Friday night an online purchase might be the only chance to get a ticket on a Flotilla Radisson boat.

This  website  (in Russian) offers multiple options for short river cruises in and around the city center, including offbeat options such as ‘disco cruises’ and ‘children cruises.’ This other  website  sells tickets online, but doesn’t have an English version. The interface is intuitive, however.

Buying tickets online has its bad points, however. The most common is confusing which pier you should go to and missing your river tour.

bennett lebow yacht

“I once bought tickets online to save with the discount that the website offered,” said Igor Shvarkin from Moscow. “The pier was initially marked as ‘Park Kultury,’ but when I arrived it wasn’t easy to find my boat because there were too many there. My guests had to walk a considerable distance before I finally found the vessel that accepted my tickets purchased online,” said the man.

There are two main boarding piers in the city center:  Hotel Ukraine  and  Park Kultury . Always take note of your particular berth when buying tickets online.

Where to sit onboard?

Even on a warm day, the headwind might be chilly for passengers on deck. Make sure you have warm clothes, or that the crew has blankets ready upon request.

The glass-encased hold makes the tour much more comfortable, but not at the expense of having an enjoyable experience.

bennett lebow yacht

Getting off the boat requires preparation as well. Ideally, you should be able to disembark on any pier along the way. In reality, passengers never know where the boat’s captain will make the next stop. Street hawkers often tell passengers in advance where they’ll be able to disembark. If you buy tickets online then you’ll have to research it yourself.

There’s a chance that the captain won’t make any stops at all and will take you back to where the tour began, which is the case with Flotilla Radisson. The safest option is to automatically expect that you’ll return to the pier where you started.

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On Park Avenue, Dizzying Views for $44.8 Million

bennett lebow yacht

By Vivian Marino

  • April 22, 2016

The financier Bennett S. LeBow paid $44,833,408.54 for a spacious aerie on the 64th floor of 432 Park Avenue , the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, reaching 1,396 feet, a transaction that was the most expensive closed sale of the week, according to city records .

On the other side of town, at 137 Riverside Drive, a century-old apartment building on a far smaller scale — but, some might say, with comparable cachet for its time — was the next biggest sale. A sprawling triplex penthouse that was once part of the publisher William Randolph Hearst’s palatial home sold for $20 million .

Mr. LeBow, who, like Mr. Hearst, founded a business empire with numerous holdings — his company is the publicly traded Vector Group of Miami — bought the sponsor unit 64A, two-thirds of the way up the 96-story 432 Park, paying around $5,500 a square foot.

The apartment has five bedrooms, five full and two half-bathrooms and a laundry room and is 8,000 square feet, according to Jacqueline Finkelstein-LeBow, Mr. LeBow’s wife. There is an enormous master suite that includes two baths, two large walk-in closets and a sitting room.

And like all the 104 residences at 432 Park, on “Billionaires’ Row” between 56th and 57th Streets, the apartment has 12.6-foot ceilings and 10-by-10-foot windows, which provide an abundance of light and dizzying park, river and cityscape views. Each apartment also has a private elevator landing.

The building was designed by Rafael Viñoly Architects and developed by Macklowe Properties and the CIM Group .

Mr. LeBow is the chairman of Vector, which has real estate and tobacco holdings. Vector’s real estate investment subsidiary New Valley Realty is a majority owner of Douglas Elliman Real Estate; Douglas Elliman Development Marketing is handling sales for 432 Park.

The week’s runner-up, the triplex at 137 Riverside Drive, known as the Clarendon, between 85th and 86th Streets, was sold by the investor Benedict Silverman, according to property records. Like Hearst, Mr. Silverman and his wife, Jayne Bentzen, an actress, are avid art collectors, and they decorated the apartment’s 7,000 square feet with some of their varied collection, including Art Deco and German Expressionist works.

17 Rooms for $20 Million

View Slide Show ›

The apartment, which has 10,000 square feet of terraces that provide striking Hudson River views, has a monthly maintenance of $10,098. It entered the market two years ago with a $38 million price tag; its most recent price was $24 million. Joy Handler and Fabienne Lecole of the Corcoran Group were the listing brokers. Adam D. Modlin of the Modlin Group represented the buyer, the A.H. 2012 Family Trust.

Mr. Silverman and his wife moved into the apartment after the 12-story limestone-and-brick building, with a copper mansard, converted to a co-op in the mid-1980s. They commenced a top-to-bottom renovation of the space, which had remained empty since the Hearst family left in 1938. Hearst took over the top three floors of the Clarendon in 1907, just after the building opened, and about six years later, he bought the entire building .

Much of the apartment’s grandeur remains. A private landing leads to a formal entrance hall with a sweeping staircase and a Tiffany chandelier. The walls are paneled in lacewood, and the floors are embellished with inlaid marquetry designs. The living room has 17-foot ceilings and curved windows, as well as a carved Art Nouveau mantelpiece.

There are seven bedrooms and six and a half baths. The master suite has its own terrace, along with a dressing room and walk-in closets. The glass-enclosed solarium on the top floor has a 2,000-square-foot deck.

Big Ticket includes closed sales from the previous week, ending Wednesday.

The Big Ticket feature last Sunday, about the sale of an apartment at 432 Park Avenue for $44.8 million, referred incompletely to its square footage, misstated its price per square foot and misstated the number of bedrooms and bathrooms it has. While it is in fact “over 4,000 square feet,” the actual size is 8,000 square feet. Its price per square foot is about $5,500, not “just over $11,000.” It has five bedrooms, not three; and five full bathrooms and two half-baths, not four bathrooms.

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Restaurant-Yacht Chaika

Ratings and reviews, location and contact.

Pleasantly surprised, service is good so is the food. Great selection of Fusion food, a mixture of Italian, Japanese, European, Asian etc. A pleasantly nice dining experience, highly recommended, a must try!

Thank you for your feedback and invite you to have lunch or dinner again aboard the ship in an atmosphere of high standards of yacht hospitality.

everything was perfect - the food, the service, the desserts were the best, nice atmosphere and the location - magical

Best food, best view in Moscow. absolutely faultless from arrival to finish. Best risotto i had for many years absolutely perfectly cooked. The view on Ukrainian hotel and the white house by night is amazing

Had to wait for the food for 1.5 hours and then another 20 minutes for the check. Finally called for the manager and he offered... a 10% discount as a compensation. Simply pathetic! The food is mediocre at best. Not bad per se, but one... would expect something better considering the prices. There are many places to eat in area that are much better. Avoid this one at all costs. More

Hello, Alexander Your comment is extremely important for us, thank you a lot for it. We are terribly sorry for your time that you`ve spent waiting your order and we have already taken actions to improve quality of our service and it would be realy... More

Food is very expensive,very pretentious, doesn't worth that money. Portions are very small. We ordered ravioli and there were 4! Four raviolis! For almost 15 euros. Then we asked to bring us dessert menu but nothing, they didn't even bothered, so we payed and left... without dessert. Very poor service for that price. More

This is a very good restaurant. The food is really good, maybe the best in Moscow. The service is also good. The view from the restaurant is great. The prices are very high.

I often visit this restaurant and must say it’s one of the best in Moscow in terms of quality and service. Staff really try hard to make sure that you are happy and satisfied. Customer service is a huge problem in Moscow but Chaika sets... a great example for others in the industry! Food is delicious and the menu has lots of options for everyone! Atmosphere is great and view is beautiful on the embankment. Special thanks to German & Oleg! More

Thank you for your feedback! Again aboard the yacht restaurant "Chaika" in accordance with the high standards of yacht hospitality.

Highly recommended, great location in the city center of Moscow with a superb atmosphere. Too many menu choices, though all delicious!

bennett lebow yacht

Thx a lot for your review! We are looking forward to see you in our restaurants.

Visited this lovely restaurant with a friend of mine. It was relaxingly warm August evening - so the place on the river seemed like a good idea. We came quite early and the restaurant was not full. The hostesses kindly offered several places to sit... and we chose to sit on the sofas. We had some wine, which was good. We struggled a bit when deciding about the food as few options (scallops) were not available. Fish on ice on display did not look very fresh. To be honest it was an unusually hot August and it is probably understandable that some see food options were not available. However, we did manage to order something and sat waiting and looking onto the river. My long-legged friend struggled sitting at the low sofa and the manager noticed that, offering as a very good, proper table beside the open window. It was nice touch and I was very pleased by their polite observations and immediate reaction to solve the problem. Food was quite good and presentation was perfect. Perhaps I can something about the food, but 1 visit is not enough to criticize or make a definitive opinion. Overall, quality place, which of course, does not come cheap. I would recommend this restaurant without hesitation. More

Good afternoon! Thank you for your detailed feedback! We are looking forward to seeing you again, we are sure that you will be delighted with our dishes!

I've been here several times during two business trip in Moscow. The overall quality for both service and food is absolutely top-notch, plus the location is very unique.

Hello! Thank you for your feedback! We are looking forward to visiting again!

Located on a boat at Krasnopresenskaya River Bank this 5 Star Restaurant transforms into a party location due to multiple groups hosting events. Impressive wine selection, Asian and European kitchen...

bennett lebow yacht

Thx a lot! We are waiting for you!

It is a nice place to gather specially at the lounge The service and staff very good I like the river view The food is almost like all restaurants in Russia they serve different cuisine. Staring Russian appetizer till Asian dishes Presentation and taste amazing... I consider it overpriced little bit More

Good location. Nice views. Good choice of food and drinks. European and Asian menu. Nice service. Pricey enough.

Had a large group dinner here. Food was above average and service quite good. The real attraction is the view of Moscow from the river on a nice night. Great place for a larger group dinner. More

Hello, John We are really pleased by reading that you and your friends were satisfied by our service, client`s experience is the highest value for us. We will be happy to see you again, come and enjoy some new dishes from our chef and nice... More

The luxurious atmosphere of this place, the view and the location make it quite outstanding. We had dinner here with friends and the dishes were amazing, accompanied by a chilled bottle of Chablis, it really made me feel as if it was a part of... the classic Russian movie. More

RESTAURANT-YACHT CHAIKA, Moscow - Presnensky - Menu, Prices & Restaurant Reviews - Tripadvisor

  • Service: 4.5
  • Atmosphere: 4.5

bennett lebow yacht

IMAGES

  1. 2000 Custom Carolina 47 Bennett Brothers Yacht For Sale

    bennett lebow yacht

  2. 2000 Custom Carolina 47 Bennett Brothers Yacht For Sale

    bennett lebow yacht

  3. 2000 Custom Carolina 47 Bennett Brothers Yacht For Sale

    bennett lebow yacht

  4. 2000 Custom Carolina 47 Bennett Brothers Yacht For Sale

    bennett lebow yacht

  5. 2000 Custom Carolina 47 Bennett Brothers Yacht For Sale

    bennett lebow yacht

  6. 2000 Custom Carolina 47 Bennett Brothers Yacht For Sale

    bennett lebow yacht

COMMENTS

  1. MARIDOME Yacht • Solomon Lew $30M Superyacht

    Originally built in 1989 by Brooke Marine as Stefaren for tobacco tycoon Bennett S. LeBow, the Maridome yacht boasts an impressive history and design. LeBow named the yacht after his daughters, Stephany and Karen, and commissioned renowned Bannenberg Design for both its exterior and interior styling. Power and Performance

  2. Bennett S. LeBow

    Bennett S. LeBow is an American businessman and philanthropist. He is the founder and chairman of the board of Vector Group . [1] After LeBow acquired the cigarette manufacturer Liggett Group in 1986, the company became involved in anti-tobacco lawsuits culminating in the 1998 Tobacco Master Settlement Agreement .

  3. The greatest superyachts of the past 40 years

    Builder Brooke Marine | Length 54m | Year 1989. In 1986 and riding high, wily New York investor Bennett LeBow ordered a yacht designed by Jon Bannenberg.While the boat was pretty flashy - the atrium staircase leading to the upper deck with flashing slot machines comes to mind - it had naval architecture by Diana Yacht Design and was noted for its hull being eight per cent more efficient ...

  4. No One Needs a Superyacht, but They Keep Selling Them

    A string of Bannenberg yachts were built for the British businessman Gerald Ronson, who also did jail time for fraud, and the American magnate Bennett LeBow was forced to repay millions of dollars ...

  5. His Interest Is in Controlling

    In early 1989, according to numerous press reports, LeBow flew 150 friends on a chartered jet to London for a $3-million bash to celebrate the maiden voyage of his custom-built yacht, modeled ...

  6. The superyacht industry: revelations from Dickie Bannenberg and Simon

    And U.S. tycoon Bennett LeBow was forced to pay millions of dollars back to his companies, which had been collecting debts just to pay for his passion for boats. The body of Robert Maxwell, a famous publisher and crook, was found at sea, ... «After the yacht was delivered, Simon saw a picture in the newspaper of our client being taken away in ...

  7. Bennett LeBow, flashy financier, 'likes to be in control' rTC Setting

    In early 1989, according to numerous press reports, Mr. LeBow flew 150 friends on a chartered jet to London for a $3 million bash to celebrate the maiden voyage of his custom-built yacht, modeled ...

  8. Come to LeBow Country

    Vector CEO Bennett LeBow, father of the nicotine-free Quest. ... And a yacht. And a jet. David Henry Stewart. Clockwise from top left: An indoor test crop takes root in Timberlake, North Carolina ...

  9. LEBOW: THE MIDAS TOUCH THAT WASN'T

    In the 1980s, Miami financier Bennett S. LeBow bet he could turn a series of troubled companies, like Durham cigarette maker Liggett Group Inc., into big profit makers. He was

  10. New Valley, Old Management

    The problem can be summed up succinctly: Bennett S. LeBow. ... Brooke was forced to write off $4.8 million from a failed yacht builder it had bought from Mr. LeBow in the name of diversification ...

  11. TURNAROUND ARTIST: Bennett S. LeBow; Collecting Wall Street's

    Mr. LeBow and his partners put up just $5 million in equity for MAI. As of last week, the value of the 51 percent stake still held by Mr. LeBow, his family trusts and a partner, William Weksel, is ...

  12. Bennett S. LeBow

    Bennett S. LeBow (born 1938, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.) American businessman who became the first tobacco executive to publicly admit to the dangers of cigarettes.. LeBow received an engineering degree in 1960 from Drexel University in Philadelphia and did postgraduate work at Princeton University.In 1961 he formed a computer company, DSI Systems, Inc., which he sold in 1971.

  13. Bennett S. LeBow, a longtime businessman, with a great love for Drexel

    He's been called a corporate raider, a business tycoon, a maverick financier, and a volatile one-man band. He's been labeled "pugnacious" and "colorful" and "renegade."

  14. LEBOW LIKES TO MAINTAIN TOTAL CONTROL

    Bennett LeBow, the majority shareholder of Liggett Group, is his own man. Skip to main content Skip to main content. Register for more free articles. Sign up for our newsletter to keep reading. ...

  15. Tobacco Biz Bombshell Lebow Only Marches to His Own Drum

    Nobody tells Bennett LeBow what to do. Starting in the morning, the 58-year-old renegade financier likes to cook his own breakfast so he can eat exactly what he wants. All day long, LeBow demands c…

  16. Bennett LeBow: Positions, Relations and Network

    Bennett S. LeBow is a businessperson who has been the head of 7 different companies and currently holds the position of Chairman for Vector Group Ltd. and Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of LeBow Holdings, Inc. Mr. LeBow is also on the board of LeBow Gamma, Inc., Lebow 2011 Management Trust and Somerset Coal International, Inc. and Partner at LeBow Alpha LLLP, Manager for Lebow Epsilon 2001 ...

  17. Cruising the Moskva River: A short guide to boat trips in Russia's

    Surprisingly, the luxurious boats are priced rather modestly, and a single ticket goes for $17-$32 (1,100-2,000 rubles); also expect a reasonable restaurant bill on top.

  18. Radisson cruises along the Moscow river

    Radisson cruise from Gorky park. 2,5 hours. Yacht of the Radisson Royal flotilla. Best water route in Moscow. Panoramic views of the capital from the water in winter and in summer. Restaurant with signature cuisine. Next tour: 1600 ₽. Learn more.

  19. On Park Avenue, Dizzying Views for $44.8 Million

    The financier Bennett S. LeBow paid $44,833,408.54 for a spacious aerie on the 64th floor of 432 Park Avenue, the tallest residential tower in the Western Hemisphere, reaching 1,396 feet, a ...

  20. Bennett S. LeBow Commits $45 Million for New Building

    LeBow's new gift will support construction of a 12-story, $92 million academic center for the College of Business, replacing Matheson Hall, which was built in 1965. Demolition of Matheson Hall is scheduled to begin late summer of 2011, with the new building opening in 2014.

  21. RESTAURANT-YACHT CHAIKA, Moscow

    Restaurant-Yacht Chaika. Claimed. Review. Save. Share. 185 reviews #494 of 10,700 Restaurants in Moscow $$$$ Italian Seafood Mediterranean. Krasnopresnenskaya Emb., 12A Berth International Exhibition, Moscow 123610 Russia +7 495 777-87-88 Website Menu. Open now : 12:00 PM - 12:00 AM.

  22. Insider Sell Alert: Director Bennett Lebow Sells 171,054 Shares of

    On the day of Bennett Lebow's sell, Vector Group Ltd's shares were trading at $11.69, giving the company a market cap of $1.754 billion. The price-earnings ratio of 10.32 is lower than both the ...

  23. Hotel Artcourt Moscow Center 4* Moscow

    Welcome to the comfortable 4-stars Artcourt Moscow Center hotel (ex-Courtyard Moscow City Center). The hotel is located in the heart of the capital, 10 minutes from the Kremlin and Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral and Lenin's Mausoleum. Within walking distance from the hotel are the legendary Bolshoi Theatre, Helikon Opera, the Moscow State ...