Ronald Perelman: the billionaire who is downsizing

Ronald Perelman acquired a fortune as a dealmaker during the 1980s takeover boom. Now he seems to be quietly selling up.

Ronald Perelman
(Image credit: © Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images)

After coming to prominence as one of the original “barbarians” of the 1980s junk-bond-fuelled takeover boom, Ronald Perelman settled into life as a collector. As well as a profusion of companies, a vast art collection and the usual stack of properties and yachts, “the pugnacious dealmaker” accumulated five marriages, eight children, a $12bn-$14bn fortune and “countless legal bills from run-ins with family members, business associates and regulators”, says the Financial Times. His biggest bauble is a controlling stake in cosmetics giant Revlon.

A complicated man

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Jane writes profiles for MoneyWeek and is city editor of The Week. A former British Society of Magazine Editors editor of the year, she cut her teeth in journalism editing The Daily Telegraph’s Letters page and writing gossip for the London Evening Standard – while contributing to a kaleidoscopic range of business magazines including Personnel Today, Edge, Microscope, Computing, PC Business World, and Business & Finance.

She has edited corporate publications for accountants BDO, business psychologists YSC Consulting, and the law firm Stephenson Harwood – also enjoying a stint as a researcher for the due diligence department of a global risk advisory firm.

Her sole book to date, Stay or Go? (2016), rehearsed the arguments on both sides of the EU referendum.

She lives in north London, has a degree in modern history from Trinity College, Oxford, and is currently learning to play the drums.