The Debt King
The New York Times
Ron Perelman seemed to have everything. Until the bill arrived.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about Ronald O. Perelman is he’s one billionaire who didn’t get richer during the pandemic.
For much of the last three decades, he lived in a townhouse on East 63rd Street that connects to the offices of MacAndrews & Forbes, the holding company where, as chairman and chief executive, he lords over a mini-empire of businesses that have included online gambling (Scientific Games) and supermarket coupons (Vericast), and were — especially in recent years — less well known than he is.
The exception, of course, is Revlon, the cosmetics colossus Mr. Perelman acquired for $2.7 billion in 1985 through a hostile takeover. The purchase turned Mr. Perelman into an emblem of the “greed is good” era and earned him the cachet to shape shift for the one that followed.
