| BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : MAY 10, 1999 ISSUE | ||||||||
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| COVER STORY
A Milken Primer 1946 Born, Los Angeles 1964 Graduates from high school where, as head cheerleader and prom king, he is voted ''most spirited'' in his class. 1964-1968 At UC Berkeley becomes obsessed with the credit markets. 1968 Weds Lori Hackel, his girlfriend since ninth grade. 1970 Finishes at the top of his class at Wharton Business School. Begins work as a researcher at Philadelphia investment bank Drexel Harriman Ripley. 1971 Convinces Drexel to fund a new noninvestment-grade bond trading operation. His unit gets 35% of company's profits. 1975-1976 Milken's junk bonds generate 100% of Drexel's profits as smaller companies turn to firm rather than banks for financing. 1976 Learns his father has terminal cancer. He moves his entire 28-member department to Los Angeles to be close to his family. 1977-1983 Drexel underwrites huge high-yield deals for such startups as MCI, Turner Broadcasting, and Mirage Resorts. 1984-1985 Corporate raiders backed with Drexel junk bonds launch barrage of hostile takeovers. Victor Posner (right), Ron Perelman, Carl Icahn, and others emerge as big players in the take-over game. 1986 Pays himself $550 million for one year's work. U.S. Justice Dept. subpoenas Milken after arbitrageur Ivan Boesky implicates him in securities fraud. 1989 Milken and brother Lowell resign from Drexel after firm settles with the government. SEC charges Milken with 98 counts of racketeering and securities fraud. 1990 Milken pleads guilty to six felonies, receives 10 years in prison. Drexel files for bankruptcy as junk market tanks and several big leveraged deals go south. 1991 Enters prison, a minimum-security work camp in Pleasanton, Calif. Begins to pay the first of $1.1 billion in fines and settlements. 1993 Judge Kimba Wood reduces Milken's prison sentence to time served. Milken learns he has incurable prostate cancer. Doctors give him 12 to 18 months to live. 1993 Establishes CaP CURE, a foundation to cure prostate cancer. Begins raising $75 million to fund research scientists. Becomes vegetarian, embraces meditation, aromatherapy, and yoga. 1996 Invests $250 million with brother Lowell to create Knowledge Universe (KU), an educational-services company. Oracle CEO and Milken friend Larry Ellison (right) puts up another $250 million. 1997 Hires Merrill Lynch chief economist Donald Straszheim to head his Milken Institute public-policy and economics think tank. 1996-1998 Under former Mattel exec Tom Kalinske, KU nabs over 30 companies and starts up half a dozen more. 1998 Milken publishes The Taste for Living Cookbook with tips for fighting cancer. Book hits Amazon.com best-seller list. 1999 With $1.5 billion in sales, KU's reach extends from educational toys and preschools to corporate consulting and technical training. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP |
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 The Reincarnation of Mike Milken COVER IMAGE: The Reincarnation of Mike Milken TABLE: A Milken Primer PHOTO: Milken at a CaP CURE Meeting, 1993 TABLE: The Dealmaker Is Back PHOTO: Milken with Nobel Laureates, March, 1999 Money Floods in to Fight a Killer ONLINE ORIGINAL: Education Stocks 101 INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online | |||
