Steven Roth (born 1941) is a real estate investor, the founder and chairman of Vornado Realty Trust, the co-founder and managing general partner of Interstate Properties, and chairman and chief executive officer of Alexander’s.
Early life and education
Roth was born to a Jewish family, the son of Fred and Virginia Roth. He graduated from DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx. In 1962, Roth graduated with a B.A. from Dartmouth College and in 1963, he graduated with a M.B.A. from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.
Career
In 1964, with $250,000 in seed money from real estate investor David Mandelbaum, he formed Interstate Properties, a three-person partnership (Roth, Mandelbaum, and Russell Wight Jr.) tasked with purchasing, renovating, and leasing shopping centers with Roth as managing partner. He repaid Mandelbaum within a year. In 1979, Interstate purchased an interest in the New Jersey discount appliance chain, Two Guys and later gained control of its parent company Vornado, a former fan manufacturer (purchased by Two Guys in 1959 to utilize its tax loss carryforwards) and dissolved the chain, turning the stores into strip malls. His efforts were very successful and in 1980, he founded the New York-based real estate investment trust Vornado Realty Trust. In 1993, Roth took Vornado Realty Trust public. In 1995, Vornado purchased a controlling interest in Alexander’s – the former retailer that had declared bankruptcy in 1992 – for $54.8 million from Citicorp, adding Alexander’s substantial real estate holdings to his existent portfolio. In 1997, marking its first major acquisition outside of strip malls, Vornado purchased seven Midtown office buildings with 4 million square feet from Bernard H. Mendik for $656 million. In 1998, they purchased 20 more office buildings in Manhattan for $1.7 billion, including One Penn Plaza.
Political involvement
Roth was a major donor to Eliot Spitzer’s 2006 New York gubernatorial campaign. He served as one of the top economic advisers to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidentialcampaign in 2016 and was included in a March 2017 White House meeting on the Trump Administration infrastructure plan. The president later spoke of establishing a national panel of “very smart people that know how to spend money properly”, with Roth and another New York developer Richard LeFrak as co-heads, to review infrastructure projects.
Roth’s companies had past involvement in the Alexander’s deal with Trump and with Jared Kushner, Kushner’s father and the Kushner family’s real estate business. Jared announced sale of his interests to his family when accepting a senior Trump White House appointment in January 2017. Vornado’s involvement with the Kushner family in 666 Fifth Avenue continued as of March 2017.
Summary
| Steven Roth | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1941 (age 75–76) |
| Education | A.B. Dartmouth College M.B.A. Tuck School of Business |
| Occupation | real estate investor |
| Known for | founder of Vornado Realty Trust |
| Net worth |  US $ 1.0 billion (Sept 2015) |
| Spouse(s) | Daryl Atkins |
| Children | Jordan Roth Amanda Roth Salzhauer |
| Parent(s) | Fred Roth Virginia Roth |
Steven Roth and his wife Daryl move their philanthropy through the Daryl & Steven Roth Foundation, which gave away around $1.4 million in a recent year. The family has given millions to Dartmouth, where several family members graduated. Other interests include Jewish causes and the arts.
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