Barry Stuart Sternlicht (born November 27, 1960) is an American
billionaire
A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least one billion (1,000,000,000, i.e., a thousand million) units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. The American busi ...
and the co-founder (with
Bob Faith), chairman, and CEO of
Starwood Capital Group
Starwood Capital Group is an investment firm headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida. It is managed by Barry Sternlicht. It was co-founded by Sternlicht and Robert Faith in 1991. In 1993, Faith left Starwood to found Greystar Real Estate Partne ...
, an
investment fund
An investment fund is a way of investing money alongside other investors in order to benefit from the inherent advantages of working as part of a group such as reducing the risks of the investment by a significant percentage. These advantages inc ...
with over $60 billion in
assets under management.
[ He is also chairman of Starwood Property Trust.] He is the co-founder of Starwood and served as its CEO from 1995 to 2005.[ As of January 2022, his net worth was estimated at $4.3 billion.]
Sternlicht is on the board of directors of the Estée Lauder Companies Baccarat Crystal
Baccarat () is a French luxury brand and manufacturer of fine crystal located in Baccarat, Meurthe-et-Moselle, France. The company owns two museums: the Musée Baccarat in Baccarat, and the Musée Baccarat in Paris on the Place des États-Uni ...
,[ ]Robin Hood Foundation
The Robin Hood Foundation is a charitable organization which attempts to alleviate problems caused by poverty in New York City. The organization also administers a relief fund for disasters in the New York City area. In 2010, a key supporter gave ...
Dreamland Community Theatre, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation
JDRF is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization that funds type 1 diabetes (T1D) research, provides a broad array of community and activist services to the T1D population and actively advocates for regulation favorable to medical research and approval o ...
’s National Leadership Advocacy Program,[ and the Business Committee for the Arts. He previously serves on the boards of directors of the Pension Real Estate Association and the ]Real Estate Roundtable
The Real Estate Roundtable is a non-profit public policy organization based in Washington, D.C. that represents the interests of real estate. It focuses on policy areas governing tax, capital and credit, environment and energy, and homeland sec ...
, and is a past trustee of his alma mater, Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
.
Sternlicht's style has been described as "intense and impetuous."
Early life
Sternlicht was born in New York City in 1960[ and grew up in ]Stamford, Connecticut
Stamford () is a city in the U.S. state of Connecticut, outside of Manhattan. It is Connecticut's second-most populous city, behind Bridgeport. With a population of 135,470, Stamford passed Hartford and New Haven in population as of the 202 ...
. His father, Maurycy “Mark” Sternlicht, was a plant manager and a survivor of The Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europ ...
from Poland. His mother, Harriet, was from New York and worked as a biology teacher and stockbroker.[ In 1982, he graduated ]magna cum laude
Latin honors are a system of Latin phrases used in some colleges and universities to indicate the level of distinction with which an academic degree has been earned. The system is primarily used in the United States. It is also used in some Sou ...
, from Brown University
Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...
. He then worked as an arbitrage
In economics and finance, arbitrage (, ) is the practice of taking advantage of a difference in prices in two or more markets; striking a combination of matching deals to capitalise on the difference, the profit being the difference between t ...
trader on Wall Street
Wall Street is an eight-block-long street in the Financial District of Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs between Broadway in the west to South Street and the East River in the east. The term "Wall Street" has become a metonym for ...
. In 1986, he received a Master of Business Administration
A Master of Business Administration (MBA; also Master's in Business Administration) is a postgraduate degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration such as accounti ...
from Harvard Business School
Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate business school of Harvard University, a private research university in Boston, Massachusetts. It is consistently ranked among the top business schools in the world and offers a large full-time MBA ...
.
Career
After graduation, he went to work for JMB Realty
JMB Realty was a real estate investment company based in Chicago. In 1993, after suffering during the early 1990s recession, the company spun off its retail properties as Urban Shopping Centers, Inc., which was acquired by Rodamco in 2000 and bro ...
, a real estate investment company in Chicago. In 1989, at the start of the savings and loan crisis and the early 1990s recession
The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incu ...
, he was laid off.
In 1991, at the age of 31, with Bob Faith, Sternlicht launched Starwood Capital Group
Starwood Capital Group is an investment firm headquartered in Miami Beach, Florida. It is managed by Barry Sternlicht. It was co-founded by Sternlicht and Robert Faith in 1991. In 1993, Faith left Starwood to found Greystar Real Estate Partne ...
to buy apartment buildings that were being sold by the Resolution Trust Corporation, created by the federal government to hold and liquidate the real estate assets owned by failed banks after the savings and loan crisis. Sternlicht raised $20 million from the families of William Bernard Ziff Jr.
William Bernard "Bill" Ziff Jr. (June 24, 1930 – September 9, 2006) was an American publishing executive. His father, William Bernard Ziff Sr., was the co-founder of Ziff Davis Inc. and when the elder Ziff died in 1953, Ziff took over the mana ...
and Carter Burden of New York to fund these purchases.
In 1993, Sternlicht contributed the apartment portfolio to Sam Zell's Equity Residential
Equity Residential is a publicly traded real estate investment trust that invests in apartments.
As of December 31, 2021, the company owned or had investments in 310 properties consisting of 80,407 apartment units in Southern California, San Fra ...
in exchange for a 20% stake in the company.
In 1994, when Sternlicht was 36, his company purchased Westin Hotels & Resorts in a $561 million transaction in partnership with Goldman Sachs
Goldman Sachs () is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered at 200 West Street in Lower Manhattan, with regional headquarters in London, Warsaw, Bangalore, Ho ...
,[ Sternlicht's innovations included ]W Hotels
W Hotels is an American upscale lifestyle hotel chain owned by Marriott International that is marketed towards a younger age group.
History
W Hotels was launched in 1998 with W New York, a conversion of the former Doral Inn hotel on Lexingt ...
and the Westin Heavenly Bed. The bed was modeled after the bed in Sternlicht's home.
In January 1995, Sternlicht purchased Hotel Investors Trust, an almost-bankrupt real estate investment trust
A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, warehouses, hospitals, shopping cente ...
,[ and took over as CEO.][
In 1997, Sternlicht's company acquired ]Sheraton Hotels and Resorts
Sheraton Hotels and Resorts is an international semi-luxury hotel chain owned by Marriott International. As of June 30, 2020, Sheraton operates 446 hotels with 155,617 rooms globally, including locations in North America, Africa, Asia Pacific, Cen ...
in a $13.3 billion transaction, topping a bid by Hilton Worldwide
Hilton Worldwide (legally Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc.) is an American multinational hospitality company that manages and franchises a broad portfolio of hotels and resorts. Founded by Conrad Hilton in May 1919, the corporation is now led by ...
.
Barry Sternlicht also makes venture investments out of his family office, JAWS Capital - which has also engaged in three separate SPACs.
Awards
In 1998, Sternlicht received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet ...
.
In 2004, Sternlicht was named "America’s Best Lodging CEO" by Institutional Investor
An institutional investor is an entity which pools money to purchase securities, real property, and other investment assets or originate loans. Institutional investors include commercial banks, central banks, credit unions, government-linked ...
magazine.
In 2005, Sternlicht was inducted into the Interior Design
Interior design is the art and science of enhancing the interior of a building to achieve a healthier and more aesthetically pleasing environment for the people using the space. An interior designer is someone who plans, researches, coordin ...
Magazine Hall of Fame.
In 2010, Commercial Property Executive named Sternlicht "Executive of the Year" and "Investor of the Year".[
]
Personal life
Barry Sternlicht was married to Mimi (née
A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...
Reichert) Sternlicht, whom he met at Brown University, but they separated in 2016. They have 3 children together.
In 2016, Sternlicht moved to Florida.
Wealth
According to ''Forbes
''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also r ...
'', Sternlicht has an estimated net worth
Net worth is the value of all the non-financial and financial assets owned by an individual or institution minus the value of all its outstanding liabilities. Since financial assets minus outstanding liabilities equal net financial assets, net ...
of $4.4 billion and is ranked 260th on the Forbes 400
The ''Forbes'' 400 or 400 Richest Americans is a list published by ''Forbes'' magazine of the wealthiest 400 American citizens who own assets in the U.S., ranked by net worth. The 400 was started by Malcolm Forbes in 1982 and the list is pub ...
.[
]
Philanthropy
In 2007, Sternlicht funded a $1 million grant to the Harvard Stem Cell Institute to support research for a cure for diabetes
Diabetes, also known as diabetes mellitus, is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by a high blood sugar level ( hyperglycemia) over a prolonged period of time. Symptoms often include frequent urination, increased thirst and increased ...
.
Political contributions
Sternlicht has historically identified as a Republican, though more recently has characterized his political views as independent.
Sternlicht is a "self-described friend and golf partner" of Donald Trump
Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who served as the 45th president of the United States from 2017 to 2021.
Trump graduated from the Wharton School of the University of P ...
but was disappointed Trump did not move to the political center as President of the United States
The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...
. In 2008, Sternlicht donated first to the Hillary Clinton 2008 presidential primary campaign
Hillary Clinton won many primaries, but lost the Democratic Party nomination to Barack Obama during the 2008 United States presidential election.
Campaign developments 2007
Early opposition from two sides
In February 2007, '' The Los Angel ...
and then to the Barack Obama 2008 presidential campaign
The 2008 presidential campaign of Barack Obama began on February 10, 2007, when Barack Obama, then junior United States senator from Illinois, announced his candidacy for President of the United States in Springfield, Illinois. After winning a ma ...
. In 2012, Sternlicht contributed $70,800 to the presidential campaign of Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts ...
. In 2016, Sternlicht contributed $125,000 to Right to Rise, the political action committee created to support the Jeb Bush 2016 presidential campaign
The 2016 presidential campaign of Jeb Bush, the 43rd Governor of Florida, was formally launched on June 15, 2015, coming six months after announcing the formal exploration of a candidacy for the 2016 Republican nomination for the President of ...
. Sternlicht also contributed $1,000 to oppose 2008 California Proposition 8
Proposition 8, known informally as Prop 8, was a California ballot proposition and a state constitutional amendment intended to ban same-sex marriage; it passed in the November 2008 California state elections and was later overturned in cou ...
, which would have banned same-sex marriage
Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...
in California
California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...
.
When asked if he identified as a Republican in a 2020 interview, Sternlicht commented "What are you, crazy? I’m an independent. I’m socially liberal
Cultural liberalism is a social philosophy which expresses the social dimension of liberalism and advocates the freedom of individuals to choose whether to conform to cultural norms. In the words of Henry David Thoreau, it is often expressed a ...
and fiscally conservative. I think capitalism is the best form of government, but I think it needs to be regulated."
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sternlicht, Barry
American billionaires
American chief executives of travel and tourism industry companies
American people of Polish-Jewish descent
American philanthropists
American real estate businesspeople
Brown University alumni
Harvard Business School alumni
Jewish American philanthropists
Living people
1960 births
21st-century American Jews