Taking Stock

Kirk Kerkorian, indecisive billionaire, has died at the age of 98. He built an airline, then sold it, then bought it back, then sold it again; not satisfied, he bought and sold MGM three times. Which makes him the only guy who actually understands the end of Trading Places. His father’s get-rich-quick schemes took a century to pull off, and centered on having his 8th grade dropout, boxing, poker-playing daredevil pilot of a son build the world’s largest hotel on three different occasions, con Ted Turner into buying struggling MGM for $1.2 billion more than he would buy it back for, trump Howard Hughes’ casino-building efforts and snaking Mirage Resorts out from under Steve Wynn. In 1995, for reasons surpassing understanding, he decided to buy an American car company, but his hostile takeover of Chrysler fell apart. He tried and failed again in 2007. He accumulated a 6% stake in Ford, and lost a half billion for his trouble, and had similar success with GM. His net worth in 2008, according to Forbes magazine, was $16.0 billion, making him the 41st richest person in the world, but those 1 percenters are hurting too, and by 2013 he had fallen to 412 with a net worth of $3.9 billion.