Malcolm Glazer

Malcolm Glazer Photo

Malcolm Glazer is a businessman, the chief executive officer and president of First Allied Corporation. He also has stakes in the famous Manchester United Football Club and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Glazer was born on 25th May 1928 in Rochester, New York to Lithuanian Jewish parents who had immigrated to the United States. After his father’s death he inherited his wholesale jewelry business along with just 300 dollars. In the next five years Glazer started making other investments. He began with property, mainly buying mobile homes parks in Florida during the 70s. Later on he became the president and chief executive officer of First Allied Corporation which was an American holding company for many businesses such as marine supplies, real estate, healthcare, broadcasting, energy exploration and food processing.

It was not all easy for Malcolm Glazer. His first attempt at a takeover was not successful in which he bid $7.6 billion to purchase Conrail, the freight rail company. He also failed in taking over Kitchen designer Formica in 1988 and Harley-Davidson, the motorcycle manufacturer. He was however successful in buying Zapata, an oil company that was founded by George H.W Bush. Glazer bought the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 1995 for $192 million. Soon after the purchase he professed that the team’s home ground was inadequate for many reasons. He contacted the government which then offered him many replacements. He agreed on building a state of the art $200 million Raymond James Stadium. In 1997 the Buccaneers made the playoffs, in 1999 the NFC Championship and in 2002 won the Super Bowl.

In 2003 Glazer bought Manchester United, the English football club for approximately $1.47 billion. The club’s fans were not happy with this buy-out. Ticket prices escalated, angering the fans. Consequently they formed a new club which they called the F.C United of Manchester, a strategy that proved successful attracting around two thousand fans every week. Songs and protests against Malcolm Glazer were sung during the F.C United and Manchester United games. However Glazer did not budge and denied any rumors of selling the club any time soon. Many people tried to buy the club such as Jim O’Neill, the chief economist of Goldman Sachs’ and a Qatari Royal family however Glazer has made it pretty clear that he is not going to sell the club despite the discontent of the fans and even some of the players such as David Beckham although he denies it himself. But the fans took Beckham’s wearing a green and gold scarf an ‘iconic movement’.

Glazer is married to Linda Glazer since 1961. He currently resides in Palm Beach, California with his five sons and one daughter. In April 2006 Glazer had a stroke that left him with speech problems and loss of movement in his right leg and arm. His son Joel stated that his father was in good spirit and the doctors are also hopeful about the improvement of his condition. However Glazer suffered another stroke a month later.