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Liesel
Pritzker, Meet Meadow Soprano
By DAN ACKMAN
Is Liesel
Pritzker getting advice from Meadow
Soprano? The idea may seem far-fetched, but it's worth considering.
Liesel Pritzker is an heir to the Chicago Pritzker
family. She is also a movie actress and a freshman at Columbia University,
where Meadow Soprano of the northern N.J. Sopranos is an upperclasswoman.
Ms. Soprano is fictional, but seems real. Liesel Pritzker really exists,
though she seems fictional. Still, it seems their paths may have crossed.
The Pritzker family, according to press reports, is
planning to break up its $15 billion real estate and hotel empire by
liquidating many holdings, perhaps making the Hyatt hotel chain public in the process. The
reason the famously private and tight-knit clan is breaking up is to
appease a group of family cousins. Under the plan, the details of which are
still secret, each of eleven cousins, third-generation heirs of family
scion Jay Pritzker, who died in 1999,
would receive fortunes in excess of $1 billion. Three cousins, Thomas, 52,
Nicholas, 57 and Penny Pritzker, 43, would run the parts of the family
business that are not sold off.
It sounds like a fine arrangement, but Liesel
Pritzker, 18, is not happy. She is suing her father, Robert
Pritzker, 76, Jay's brother, and other family members, accusing them of
mismanaging and diverting money from her trust, causing her damages of $1
billion. The suit, which was filed on Nov. 26, says she should be paid an
additional $5 billion or more in punitive damages, evincing a nicely
vindictive sentiment. She says she and her brother Matthew are not being
treated on par with much older cousin Thomas
Pritzker.
Meanwhile Meadow Soprano, Liesel's schoolmate, also
has a beef against her father, Tony
Soprano. For the Sopranos, the financial stakes are not nearly as
great, but the grudge is no less intense and it, too, involves a very
private family business. The Soprano family has interests in construction,
waste management, adult entertainment and low-income housing.
Meadow's style is not litigation. But her family
history gives her some insight into exacting revenge after years of pent-up
frustration. She has been known to counsel younger students and is a good
listener. Her own family's misfortunes have become increasingly public as
the family TV show, The Sopranos, achieved record ratings Sunday
night for HBO, a unit of AOL Time Warner.
In the Pritzker case, the family owns Hyatt, a
chain that owns or operates 207 hotels worldwide. The family also controls
industrial companies, real estate, cruise lines, banks, mining, railroads
and the TransUnion credit bureau. To
generate cash for distribution to family members, Hyatt may be taken
public--something Forbes pointed out as likely back in September
(see: "Shaking
The Family Tree")--though no final determination has been made.
As U.S. family fortunes go, the Pritzkers trail
only the Newhouses, the Coxes of Cox
Communications wealth, the Mars family, and, of course, the Waltons,
who lead the pack by far on the strength of their holdings in Wal-Mart.
Yesterday, family members responding to Liesel's
lawsuit issued a statement expressing "regret" and adding,
"We do not agree with her assertions."
It points to what it calls the family's
"long-standing business principles of prudence, stability and
diversification," as well as "the importance of sharing our good
fortune with the community--a principle instilled in all of us by our parents
and grandparents." As for the lawsuit, the statement says
"we...remain united in our hope for a fair resolution for all
involved."
"As a family, we have traditionally shied away
from publicity in order to attempt to lead our lives in private," the
statement reads. "However, now that Liesel Pritzker has taken action
in a public forum," the family said it had no choice but to respond.
The Chicago Sun Times says nine cousins
signed the statement, but Robert, the plaintiff-daughter's father, was not
one of them.
For Liesel, whose stage name is Liesel Matthews,
life seems to mirror fiction in more ways than one. She starred in the 1995
film adaptation of A Little Princess. The movie tells the story of a
young British girl whose father enlists in World War I, which requires her
to go to a boarding school in New York. Her belief that "every girl's
a princess" is tested when word comes that her father was killed in
action and his estate has been seized by the British government.
In Liesel's case, the school in New York is a
university and the estate has been allegedly seized by her father himself,
who is alive. But otherwise, it's the same story.
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