The Rich Get Richer

By Margaret Lyons in News on Dec 26, 2007 5:44PM

Things are looking up in Margaritaville! We know, we know, wrong Buffett--but we always think Jimmy first. Sorry, Warren. Go cry in your mountain of money.

Anyhow, one of the world's richest men but only second-most-famous Buffett is making a $4.5 billion deal with Chicago's own Uncle Money Pants, the Pritzkers. Buffett is buying a 60 percent share in the Pritzker's Marmon Holdings, Inc. Over the next five or six years, he's going to buy the rest of the company, too.

[Marmon Holdings, Inc has] a collective revenue of about $7 billion and includes business interests ranging from construction and railroad and intermodal tank cars to specialty pipes, metal fasteners, crane leasing, store fixtures and food-preparation equipment. It employs about 21,000.

Perhaps you've heard of the Pritzkers. They're famous for owning the Hyatt Hotel chain, and apparently Marmon is the lesser-known part of the empire. The family own Royal Caribbean, AmeriSuites, TransUnion, and most of the spots in the gossip/society pages of this city, even though no one cares about that stuff at all. The U of C's med school is the Pritzker School of Medicine, there's a Pritzker Architecture Prize, the Pritzker Military Library, and Pritzker Pavilion in Millennium Park. How has no one from this family gotten a reality show yet? [Trib, Sun-Times, Business Week

We're not calling anyone here Scroogey. We're just saying they're all swimming in money.