Thread by @bizalmanac

Thomas Barrack, Jr. formed Colony Capital in 1990 as a 43 year with a diverse curriculum vitae. After graduating law school in 1972, Barrack joined the law firm of Herbert M. Kalmbach, then President Nixon’s personal attorney. (1/13)

Two months into his time working for Kalmbach, Barrack travelled to Saudi Arabia on behalf of the firm and its client, the construction company, Flour. (2/13)

After a chance meeting over a squash game, Barrack resigned from Kalmbach to work as a representative for a cadre Saudi Arabian princes. (3/13)

In 1974, Haiti held hostage an oil shipment owned by one of Kalmbach’s clients, prompting the firm to appeal to Barrack, as translator and Saudi Arabia, as the most powerful OPEC member, to resolve the impasse. (4/13)

The envoy flew to Port-au-Prince and successfully negotiated with Jean-Claude ‘Papa Doc’ Duvaliar for the release of the oil shipment. (5/13)

Kalmbach’s client, Lonnie Dunn, was impressed enough to offer the lawyer turned diplomat the opportunity to manage his real estate investments, which Barrack did for 8 years. (6/13)

After short stints as the Deputy Undersecretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior and as head of real estate investment banking for E.F. Hutton, Barrack joined the Robert M. Bass Group in 1984. (7/13)

“’I would not be where I am today if it were not for Robert M. Bass,’ acknowledges Barrack… Colony’s investment theme, the way we’re organized, the way we analyze, the ethical and moral tombstones we abide by are just a transition of what I learned at Bass… (8/13)

It was finding that inefficiency in operating companies that are real estate rich. ‘And that was the onset of Colony – starting in distress.’ Says Barrack. ‘We became the largest acquirers of RTC assets, distressed assets, from 1990 to 1994.’ (9/13)

‘Then Europe went in the tank and we took there that same set of principles, rules, and disciplines launching our European headquarters in Paris,’ he explains. ‘Then in 1997 the Asian contagion hit and we did the same thing and saw another opportunity. (10/13)

Colony Financial IPO’d in September 2009, soon after deploying $14B during the Great Financial Crisis. The Company’s current form emerged in April 2015 when Colony merged their asset owning entity, Colony Financial, into their asset managing entity, Colony Capital. (11/13)

The combined entity earned investment management fees from Colony’s outside investors and investment income and gains / losses from their own investments. In 06/2016, (12/13)

The Company announced an all-stock merger with NorthStar Asset Management and Northstar Realty Finance, a publicly listed asset manager and asset owner pair (13/13)