Ira L. Rennert | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | May 31, 1934 New York City, US |
| Alma mater | Brooklyn College New York University |
| Occupation(s) | Chairman and CEO, Renco Group |
| Spouse | Ingeborg Hanna |
| Children | 3 |
Ira Leon Rennert (born May 31, 1934) is an American billionaire businessman, and the chairman and CEO of Renco Group. As of November 2024, Forbes estimated his net worth at US$3.8 billion. [1]
Rennert's parents were immigrants from Poland and Romania. [1] He graduated from Brooklyn College in 1954, and earned his master's degree from New York University Stern School of Business in 1956, [2] where he later was on the board of overseers. [3]
Rennert started his career as a credit analyst on Wall Street in 1956. He also was a partner at Rubin, Rennert & Co. [4] before launching his own business, I. L. Rennert & Co., in 1962. At this time he was censured by the National Association of Securities Dealers for operating with insufficient capital. It occurred again in 1963, and as a result, his license was revoked on November 29, 1964, effectively banning him from the securities industry. According to a company spokesman, Jon Goldberg: "Due to market conditions, the firm found itself in violation of the net capital rule and Rennert raised capital and put it into the firm to bring it into compliance. However, the firm once more fell beneath the net-capital requirements and he shut the company down." [5]
Michael Milken—as a bond trader for Drexel Burnham Lambert—was successful in selling high-risk, high-yield bonds issued by struggling or undercapitalized companies. Integrated Resources raised $2 billion in junk bonds financed by Milken but ultimately collapsed amid scandal and defaulted on $1 billion of bond debt in May 1989 (see the 1991 book Den of Thieves about the junk bond scandal). As an outside board member, Rennert was not dragged down by the collapse and began to raise junk bonds on his own behalf to finance acquisitions for the Renco Group.[ citation needed ]
Rennert's strategy for building Renco was to acquire all the shares of struggling companies and to finance the acquisition by issuing junk bonds. Along the way, he paid substantial dividends out of the business to himself. In a series of junk bond issues since 1995, Renco's subsidiaries have borrowed an estimated $1.1 billion and transferred $322 million (29 percent) to Renco Group, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). [6] Backed by blue-chip mutual funds and hedge funds such as John Hancock Funds LLC and Putnam Investment Management LLC, Rennert now didn't have to invest much of his own money. His purchase of AM General in 1992 was bought with a down payment of just $10 million.[ citation needed ] In 1994, Fluor Corp. of Los Angeles sold the Doe Run Company to Renco, with the latter paying $52 million in cash, and approximately $60 million in debt payable over an eight-year period.[ citation needed ] In 1997, Doe Run went on to pay $247 million for a similarly environmentally troubled lead smelting complex from the Peruvian government, as well as borrowing more money to service its Fluor Corporation debt.[ citation needed ] And in 1998, Doe Run sold $305 million in junk bonds for financing its Peruvian acquisition as well as more lead mines in Missouri (according to Doe Run filings with the SEC).[ citation needed ] Since 1998 most Renco financings have been bank debt.[ citation needed ]
In 1988, Renco bought a Warren (Ohio) steel company from its bankrupt parent, LTV Steel Co., for a price tag of $140 million. This company then became WCI Steel Inc., and Rennert was able to ultimately sell bonds totaling $300 million, paying $108 million of the proceeds as a dividend to Renco. [6] In 1998, Renco Steel Holdings Inc. was created to serve as a holding company for WCI. The holding company then sold $120 million in junk bonds, this time paying an additional $100 million dividend to Renco.[ citation needed ]
At the time of the bankruptcy, if the pension plan had been terminated, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation calculated a $117 million shortfall. [7] Despite losing the company, Renco agreed to assume responsibility for the existing pension plan, with ongoing support from WCI. [8] Newspaper reports speculated that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation had threatened to put a lien on Rennert's personal estate in order to ensure the steelworkers' benefits. [9] Harbinger sold the business to Severstal, a steelmaker based in Russia. [10]
In 1989, Renco acquired the U.S.'s largest magnesium producer in Utah. Removing minerals from the water of the Great Salt Lake, Magnesium Corp. uses chemicals to refine the magnesium used in products ranging from bombs to bicycles. In 1996, Renco established Renco Metals, Inc. as a holding company for Magnesium Corp. and issued $150 million in bonds. Just like WCI, the company paid Renco $90 million in dividends by the year end.
In 2001, the Department of Justice filed suit against Magnesium Corp. for multiple violations of hazardous waste law, and also it cited Rennert's removal of money from Magnesium Corp. through the bond issue, "leaving the companies insolvent and unable to pay their bills". [6] The suit went on until 2007, when a judge ruled in favor of Renco and against the DOJ.
On August 17, 2010, a 10th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling overturned a District Court judge's October 17, 2007, decision that the U.S. Magnesium facility in Rowley, Utah was not illegally disposing five wastes. The initial lawsuit DOJ filed on behalf of EPA in 2001 claimed U.S. Magnesium was not following regulations promulgated under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, which dictates how waste byproducts must be disposed. Renco continues to operate the business under the name US Magnesium. At this point, US Magnesium is the only magnesium producer in the United States.
The EPA published its proposal to place the US Magnesium facility on the National Priorities List (NPL, a "Superfund site" under CERCLA) in the Federal Register on September 3, 2008. The National Priorities List (NPL) is a list of places, commonly known as "superfund sites," considered national priorities for environmental remediation because of known or threatened releases of hazardous substances.USM filed its petition for review of the listing in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit on November 5, 2009. On January 14, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals sided with the EPA and upheld placing the site on the National Priority List. [11]
In 1993, Renco acquired AM General from the LTV Corporation to help LTV emerge from bankruptcy. Terms included a $67.5 million cash payment with the remainder to be paid in various forms over a 10-year period. AM General produced vehicles for industrial, military and government use, including the Humvee. On August 20, 2004, it was announced that Ronald Perelman's MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings company would buy 70% of AM General from Renco. The deal reportedly cost close to US$1 billion. [12]
The Renco Group's environmental record in the U.S. related to Doe Run provides a good example of this development. In 1998, the EPA placed Renco Group business holdings 10th on the nation's largest polluter list primarily because of emissions from US Magnesium in Utah (formerly MagCorp). [13] (US Magnesium was purchased by Renco in 1989 in the year in which its emissions peaked at 119,000 tons per year.) [14] By 1998, the year the Renco was placed on the EPA list, it had reduced emissions at US Magnesium by 50%. [15] By 2005, the most recent year of data released by the EPA, emissions had been reduced 97%. [15]
In 2001, the Justice Department and EPA filed suit against Renco. They demanded nearly $1 billion in fines, alleging MagCorp (a Renco Metals Inc. subsidiary) dumped toxic waste in ditches and ponds on the Great Salt Lake. [16] The suit claimed PCB-laced sludge and dust choked the plant's plumbing, wastewater ponds, landfill and ditches, where contaminants were 12 times the allowed limit for accidental release. [16] MagCorp maintained it was exempt from the federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, which requires companies to monitor certain kinds of hazardous waste. [16] Magcorp declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy shortly after the lawsuit began and a federal judge allowed Rennert to restructure MagCorp—now U.S. Magnesium—which exempted it from previous legal liability. [17] The EPA suit, however, remained outstanding until October 2007 when a federal judge ruled against the EPA and the Justice Department and in favor of Renco and MagCorp / US Magnesium. [18]
Today, US Magnesium is the third-largest magnesium producer in the world. Its environmental improvements and recent track record have been substantial and include a reduction of emissions by 90% since 2000 (97% since 1989). [15] The EPA data recognizes this as the single largest reduction in air emissions in the category of hazardous air pollutants since the TRI began in 1987 at any single facility. [19] The energy improvements in US Magnesium's manufacturing process have also caused a net reduction of 100,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide emissions. [19] US Magnesium was the recipient of a 2004 Climate Protection Award from the EPA [20] and won an MEP award in 2006 for Environmental Consciousness. [21]
Another US unit of Renco also faced environmental issues in Herculaneum, Missouri and has made substantial improvements. Locals in Herculaneum claimed their children were suffering from lead poisoning traceable to toxic emissions coming from Renco's Doe Run lead smelting plant, which had been in operations locally since 1892. [22] In 2000, the EPA and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources tested area lead levels and ordered Doe Run to clean up locations where lead levels exceeded EPA standards. [22] A 2002 study showed more than half of the children living within a quarter mile of the smelter had high blood-lead levels. [22] Doe Run agreed to buy 160 homes in the contaminated area around the smelter at a cost of more than $10 million. [22] An EPA fact sheet noted the following: "Since 2001, EPA, MDNR and The Doe Run Company have addressed lead contamination in Herculaneum through a series of actions which have included residential soil replacements, home interior cleanups, and a voluntary residential buyout program. EPA and MDNR continue to work with Doe Run to address stabilization, erosion control, flood protection, stormwater collection and treatment, and wetland mitigation related to the slag pile area at the site. EPA and MDNR are also working with Doe Run to address soil recontamination of residences near the smelter and contamination along city haul routes."[ citation needed ] In the first quarter of 2007, Doe Run met all of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).[ citation needed ] By 2008, the conditional approval proposed, which covered air dispersion model selection as well as meteorological and emissions inventory data, among others, for the operation of the smelter was incorporated to the 2007 Consent Judgment between the company and the state of Missouri. [23] In 2013, Doe Run shut down its lead smelter, entirely discontinuing emissions in Missouri. [24]
Doe Run, Peru, (a Renco Group holding) operated a smelting plant in La Oroya, Peru until 2010, that had similar types of environmental challenges to those faced in Herculaneum, but on a larger scale. [25] The La Oroya smelter began operations in 1922 and was operated for many years by Centromin, a Peruvian government agency, without any environmental controls.
The smelter was sold to Doe Run in 1997 primarily because the Peruvian government passed a law that required environmental improvement at the business. This improvement was beyond the economic and technical capability of Centromin. As part of the sale to Renco, Centromin agreed to pay to remediate pre-existing (pre-1997) environmental problems and Doe Run Peru agreed to make substantial environmental investments. These investments were estimated to be approximately $100 million at the time of the deal.
In the end, Doe Run ended up investing more than $300 million in environmental remediation during its ownership and was not able to clean up the site to achieve the standards required by Peruvian law. [26] La Oroya was and remains a very polluted site. The Blacksmith Institute placed La Oroya on its list of ten most polluted places in the world, along with Chernobyl, Ukraine. [27] In August 2007, it was reported that air levels of arsenic levels were 85 times more than the "safe" level, cadmium 41 times, and lead 13 times more. [28] A study by St. Louis University scientists found that 97 percent of children in La Oroya suffer from mental and physical deficiencies related to their exposure to polluted air. [27]
Ultimately, Doe Run Peru was a bad investment for Renco on many counts. Renco received substantial negative publicity regarding its ownership and the environmental problems in La Oroya. The environmental problems were not solved despite huge investment by Renco, and Renco never made any financial profit from its investment. [26]
Doe Run Peru is currently in a dispute with the Peruvian government which in part relates to Doe Run's claims that Centromin did not live up to its obligations with regard to cleaning up the pre-existing pollution. [26]
Ira Rennert ranks #818 on Forbes magazine's list of the world's billionaires. [29] He also ranks #29 on The Jerusalem Post list of the World's 50 Richest Jews. [30]
Rennert and his wife Ingeborg have made many charitable donations to various organizations. They donated $5 million to establish the Wiesel Center at Boston University and $250,000 to the Lincoln Center. They also gave over $1 million to the World Trade Center Memorial and established the Rennert Entrepreneurial Institute of Sy Syms School of Business at Yeshiva University. They have endowed chairs at several different universities, including a chair in Jewish studies at Barnard College, a chair in Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, a chair in Stem Cell Biology at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and the Ira Rennert Professorship of Business at Columbia University. [31] They also established the Ira Leon Rennert Professor of Entrepreneurial Finance at New York University and founded the Ingeborg Rennert Center for Jerusalem Studies at Bar-Ilan University.
The Rennerts also helped to fund the construction of The Western Wall Heritage Foundation in Jerusalem (the visitor's center is called The Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Hall of Light). Rennert's wife and children are named as the donors of The Jonas Mendel (Yonah Menachem Ben Mendel) Rennert Memorial Chapel at the Center for Jewish History. The Rennerts are known to have donated to Rabbi Aharon Bina's new yeshiva in Israel, Yeshivat Netiv Aryeh, and are additionally honored with a plaque as well as their family upon entrance into the building. They also donated hundreds of Torah scrolls to communities in Israel. [32] The family also funded the construction for a new mikvah at the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, which was completed in May 2010.
Rennert is a major Republican donor. He has contributed money to John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and other candidates. [33]
Together with his spouse, Rennert contributed $900,000 to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign. [34]
Rennert is married to Ingeborg Hanna Rennert, a former airline ticket agent who is a convert to Judaism. [35] She serves as the Director of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, Inc. [36] They have three children:
Rennert is a member of the Fifth Avenue Synagogue, an Orthodox synagogue [41] where he is also honorary chairman. [42]
Rennert caused controversy among his neighbors by building a beach front home in Sagaponack, New York, considered one of the largest occupied residential compounds in the United States. [43] The house outraged locals, who claimed Rennert originally planned to use it as a spa, a hotel, or a religious retreat. He denied such allegations, and the local paper later issued an apology. [44] He named his home after the adjoining body of water, Fairfield Pond.
The house faces the Atlantic Ocean and its grounds measure 63 acres (250,000 m2). The buildings, which total over 110,000 square feet (10,000 m2), including the 66,000-square-foot (6,100 m2) main house, have an Italianate facade, 29 bedrooms, and 39 bathrooms. The house has a dozen chimneys and a Mediterranean-style tile roof as well as a 91-foot (28 m) long formal dining room, a basketball court, a bowling alley, two tennis courts, two squash courts, a carousel, a large swimming pool, a large round kiddie pool, and a $150,000 hot tub, surrounded by another pool. Its property taxes in 2007 were $397,559.00. Based on these taxes, the home is currently valued at $198 million, [29] making it the most valuable home in the United States. Besides his house in Sagaponack, Rennert owns a duplex apartment on Manhattan's Park Avenue, and a home in Israel. He previously lived in Atlantic Beach, NY.
Herculaneum is a city in Jefferson County, Missouri, and is a suburb of St. Louis. The population was 4,273 at the 2020 United States Census. The City of Herculaneum was the first county seat of Jefferson County from January 1, 1819, to 1839. The city celebrated its bicentennial throughout 2008.
Sagaponack is a village in the Town of Southampton in Suffolk County, on the East End of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population of the village was 770 at the 2020 census. Sagaponack is the second wealthiest zip code in the United States.
Alcoa Corporation is an American industrial corporation. It is the world's eighth-largest producer of aluminum. Alcoa conducts operations in 10 countries. Alcoa is a major producer of primary aluminum, fabricated aluminum, and alumina combined, through its active and growing participation in all major aspects of the industry: technology, mining, refining, smelting, fabricating, and recycling.
ASARCO is a mining, smelting, and refining company based in Tucson, Arizona, which mines and processes primarily copper. The company has been a subsidiary of Grupo México since 1999.
The Renco Group, Inc. is an American New York City-based holding company controlled by Ira Rennert that invests in other companies across a range of industries.
The Southeast Missouri Lead District, commonly called the Lead Belt, is a lead mining district in the southeastern part of Missouri. Counties in the Lead Belt include Saint Francois, Crawford, Dent, Iron, Madison, Reynolds, and Washington. This mining district is the most important and critical lead producer in the United States.
Grupo México is a Mexican conglomerate that operates through the following divisions: Mining, Transportation, Infrastructure and Fundacion Grupo Mexico.
La Oroya is a city on the River Mantaro and capital of the Yauli Province, located in the Department of Junin in central Peru. It is situated on the eastern watershed of the Andes at an altitude of 3,745 m, some 176 km east-north-east of the national capital, Lima. La Oroya is the location of a smelting operation that earned the town a place on the Blacksmith Institute's 2007 report on "The World's Worst Polluted Places". It is also the eastern endpoint of the Central Highway of Peru.
Severstal is a Russian company mainly operating in the steel and mining industry, headquartered in Cherepovets. Severstal is listed on the Moscow Exchange and LSE and is the largest steel company in Russia. The company is majority-owned and controlled by billionaire Alexey Mordashov.
Sparrows Point is an industrial area in unincorporated Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Edgemere. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelmaking and shipbuilding. In its heyday in the mid-20th century, it was the largest steel mill in the world. The site of the former Bethlehem Sparrows Point Shipyard and steel mill is now renamed Tradepoint Atlantic in a revitalization program to clean up the environment and make it one of the largest ports on the East Coast of the United States. Today Sparrows Point is home to many distribution centers, fulfillment centers, training lots, storage lots, and the like, including those operated by Under Armour, Amazon, Home Depot, Volkswagen, and McCormick & Company.
The Acid Rain Program is a market-based initiative taken by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in an effort to reduce overall atmospheric levels of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which cause acid rain. The program is an implementation of emissions trading that primarily targets coal-burning power plants, allowing them to buy and sell emission permits according to individual needs and costs. In 2011, the trading program that existed since 1995 was supplemented by four separate trading programs under the Cross-State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR). On August 21, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia issued its Opinion and Order in the appeal of the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR) for two independent legal reasons. The stay on CSAPR was lifted in October 2014, allowing implementation of the law and its trading programs to begin.
Chemetco was formerly one of the largest United States refiners of copper from recycled or residual sources.
The Doe Run Resources Corporation, known by the trade name The Doe Run Company, is a privately held natural resources company and global producer of lead, copper, and zinc concentrates. It owns four mills, six mines and a lead battery recycling plant, all in southeast Missouri, United States, and a subsidiary Fabricated Products Inc. with locations in Arizona and Washington. It also owns two former primary lead smelter sites in the U.S. that are currently being remediated. It is wholly owned by The Renco Group, Inc
The United States produced 5.2 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2020, the second largest in the world after greenhouse gas emissions by China and among the countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions per person. In 2019 China is estimated to have emitted 27% of world GHG, followed by the United States with 11%, then India with 6.6%. In total the United States has emitted a quarter of world GHG, more than any other country. Annual emissions are over 15 tons per person and, amongst the top eight emitters, is the highest country by greenhouse gas emissions per person.
Missouri Coalition for the Environment, a non-profit, non-partisan, 501(c)(3) state-level conservation organization, campaigns for clean air, clean water and clean energy in Missouri. The organization is member and grant supported.
Environmental Defense v. Duke Energy Corporation, 549 U.S. 561 (2007), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that while a term may be used more than once in a statute, an agency has the discretion to interpret each use of the term in a different way based on the context. It involved the Environmental Defense Fund and Duke Energy. In a unanimous decision, the court held in favor of the plaintiff's argument.
Plants for the production of lead are generally referred to as lead smelters. Primary lead production begins with sintering. Concentrated lead ore is fed into a sintering machine with iron, silica, limestone fluxes, coke, soda ash, pyrite, zinc, caustics or pollution control particulates. Smelting uses suitable reducing substances that will combine with those oxidizing elements to free the metal. Reduction is the final, high-temperature step in smelting. It is here that the oxide becomes the elemental metal. A reducing environment pulls the final oxygen atoms from the raw metal.
Rowley is an industrial area in Tooele County, Utah, United States. Rowley sits on the western shore of the Great Salt Lake, approximately 15 miles north of I-80, Exit 77, serving Timpie/Rowley Junction.
Fair Field is a large private house in Sagaponack, Long Island, in New York State in the United States. The main house is approximately 64,000 sq ft (5,900 m2), and the total floor area is 110,000 sq ft (10,000 m2). It is valued between $267 and $500 million for tax purposes. Built in 2003, it is owned by Ira Rennert.
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