Philip Anschutz Biography

Philip Frederick Anschutz ( ; born December 28, 1939) is an American entrepreneur. Anschutz bought out his father's drilling company, Circle A Drilling, in 1961 and earned large returns in Wyoming. He has invested in stocks, real estate and railroads. He then began investing in entertainment companies, co-founding Major League Soccer as well as multiple teams, including the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo, San Jose Earthquakes, and the New York / New Jersey Metro Stars. Anschutz owns stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers, Los Angeles Kings, and venues including the Staples Center, O2 Arena, and the Home Depot Center. Anschutz also invests in family films such as The Chronicles of Narnia. Forbes ranks him the 38th richest person in the U.S. with an estimated net worth of $10 billion as of 2013.

Life and career

Anschutz was born in Russell, Kansas, the son of Marian (née Pfister) and Frederick Benjamin Anschutz. His father was an oil tycoon and land investor who invested in ranches in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, and eventually went into the oil-drilling business. Carl Anschutz, Anschutz's grandfather, an ethnic German who emigrated from Russia, started the Farmers State Bank in Russell, Kansas. Anschutz grew up in Hays, Kansas, with part of the family located in Wisconsin (the location of his father's oil-exploration business, Circle A Drilling, where he lived near Bob Dole). In later years, Anschutz contributed to Dole's political campaigns. He graduated from Wichita High School East in 1957, and graduated with a bachelor's degree in business from the University of Kansas in 1961. His first cousin was the fellow Russell native and long-time KCTV news anchor Wendall Anschutz.

A member of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, he is a conservative Christian. He and his wife Nancy, whom he met when he was 16, have three children. Anschutz was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 2002.

Anschutz is a somewhat reclusive man who prefers to stay out of the limelight. He has granted only two formal interviews in over 30 years.

Land ownership

In 1970, Anschutz bought the 250,000-acre (1,000 km²) Baughman Farms, one of the country's largest farming corporations, in Liberal, Kansas for $10 million. The following year, he acquired 9 million acres (36,000 km²) along the Utah-Wyoming border. This produced his first fortune in the oil business. In the early 1980s, the Anschutz Ranch, with its 1 billion barrel (160,000,000 m³) oil pocket, became the largest oil field discovery in the United States since Prudhoe Bay in Alaska in 1968. He sold a half-interest in it to Mobil Oil for $500 million in 1982.

For several years, Anschutz was Colorado's sole billionaire. With his acquisition of land in other Western states, he is thought to own more farm and cattle land than any other single private citizen in the United States.

Anschutz then moved into railroads and telecommunications before venturing into the entertainment industry. In 1999, Fortune magazine compared him to the nineteenth-century tycoon J.P. Morgan, as both men "struck it rich in a fundamentally different way: they operated across an astounding array of industries, mastering and reshaping entire economic landscapes."

Rail and petroleum businesses

In 1984 he entered the railroad business by purchasing the Rio Grande Railroad's holding company, Rio Grande Industries. Four years later, in 1988, the Rio Grande railroad purchased the Southern Pacific Railroad under his direction. With the merger of the Southern Pacific and Union Pacific Corporation in September 1996, Anschutz became Vice-Chairman of Union Pacific. Prior to the merger, he was a Director of Southern Pacific from June 1988 to September 1996, and Non-Executive Chairman of Southern Pacific from 1993 to September 1996. He was also a Director of Forest Oil Corporation, beginning in 1995. In November 1993 he became Director and Chairman of the Board of Qwest, stepping down as a nonexecutive co-chairman in 2002, but remaining on the board. He has also been a Director for Pacific Energy Partners and served on the boards of the American Petroleum Institute, in Washington, D.C. and the National Petroleum Council in Washington, D.C.

In May 2001, the Bush administration upheld Anschutz's right to drill an exploratory oil well at Weatherman Draw, in south-central Montana where Native American tribes wanted to preserve sacred rock drawings. Environmental groups, preservationists, and ten Native American tribes had appealed the decision without success. In April 2002, the Anschutz Exploration Corporation gave up its plans to drill for oil in the area. They donated its leases for oil and gas rights to the National Trust for Historic Preservation, which has pledged to let the leases expire, and the Bureau of Land Management said it had no plans to permit further leases there, and would consider formal withdrawal of the 4,268 acre (17 km²) site from mineral leasing in its 2004 management plan. In recognition for its preservation efforts, The National Trust for Historic Preservation presented its President's Award to the Anschutz Exploration Corp.

In May 2003, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer reached a settlement with Anschutz after the AG filed a civil complaint accusing Anschutz of accepting IPO shares from Salomon Smith Barney in exchange for his firm, Qwest's, investment banking business. He continued to vehemently deny any wrongdoing but agreed pay a total of $4.4 million to settle the case. Anschutz paid $100,000 to each of 32 New York nonprofit groups that he selected, as well as $200,000 to each of six law schools. In return, Spitzer dropped his civil suit. The payment was roughly equal to his profit from the practice of IPO "spinning", thus he actually suffered no penalty. The controversial suit by Spitzer was panned in a Wall Street Journal editorial headlined, "The Anschutz Ransom". The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice extensively investigated Qwest officials, and determined that there was no justification for taking action against any board member. The Denver Post summarized the implications for Anschutz thus: "Not only is Qwest founder and board member Philip Anschutz not a defendant in the long-awaited civil case against the regime of former Qwest chief executive Joe Nacchio, he doesn't even merit a mention in the 50-page complaint."

In February 2006, the Denver Rocky Mountain News reported that Anschutz would not stand for re-election to the boards of Qwest and Union Pacific, and would resign from the board of Regal Entertainment Group, so that he could focus on his other investments.

On June 24, 2008, it was announced that Anschutz would buy Xanterra Parks and Resorts, which had purchased the Grand Canyon Railway in 2007. In 2011, it was announced that Anschutz purchased the Oklahoma Publishing Company, and as part of their assets the Broadmoor and the Manitou and Pike's Peak Railway in Colorado Springs.

Effective August 1, 2010, Xanterra Parks & Resorts, owned by Denver-based Anschutz Company, has purchased and assumed management of Kingsmill Resort. Xanterra purchased the resort from Busch Properties, Inc. (BPI).

Located in Williamsburg, VA, Kingsmill Resort includes 422 rooms; six restaurants; a 17,000-square-foot conference center; full-service spa and fitness center; marina; and 15-court tennis center. The resort is also widely known for its three award-winning championship golf courses and its executive nine-hole course.

Located outside of Grand Canyon National Park, The Grand Hotel and the Grand Canyon includes 121 rooms; one restaurant; one bar; fitness center; one gift shop. The Grand Hotel was acquired in December 2012 and offers a luxurious rustic experience for travelers visiting the Grand Canyon.

Entertainment -- Anschutz Entertainment Group

The Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG) is a sporting and music entertainment presenter and a subsidiary of The Anschutz Corporation. It is the owner of entertainment venues, and under AEG Live the world's second largest presenter of live music and entertainment events after Live Nation.

The AEG is the subject of a lawsuit regarding the death of Michael Jackson, filed by the singer's mother, Katherine Jackson.

On September 18, 2012, Anschutz announced he was putting AEG up for sale. None of the bids came close to Anschutz' asking price, however, and on March 14 he took AEG off the market.

Sports

The SportsBusiness Journal named Anschutz the 5th most influential person in sports business in 2012 in its annual survey of the "50 Most Influential People in Sports Business." Anschutz owns stakes in the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Kings and venues including the Staples Center and O2 Arena. AEG is the world's largest owner of sports teams, sports events, and sports venues.

Anschutz founded Major League Soccer as well as multiple teams, including the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chicago Fire, Houston Dynamo, San Jose Earthquakes, D.C. United, and the New York / New Jersey Metro Stars. He owns a stake in the StubHub Center, the stadium for MLS teams LA Galaxy and Chivas. For some time, while MLS was struggling, Anschutz owned six MLS franchises and experienced significant financial losses. For this reason, Anschutz has been called the man who saved MLS. Anschutz has since sold his stake in the Chicago, New York, and D.C. MLS teams.

Philanthropy

As one of the world's wealthy billionaires, Philip Anschutz has been making a name for himself in the philanthropic community. He was listed as #123 on the Forbes list of billionaires in March 2010, with a net worth of $6 billion.

The Anschutz Foundation, founded in 1964, supports a broad variety of community service, cultural and arts groups, as well as health facilities and initiatives - all of which make up the vast majority of the Foundation's annual giving. It also provides grants to several public policy think tanks - which account for approximately 1.5% - 2.0% of the Foundation's grants.

Philip Anschutz and his wife Nancy have contributed over $100,000,000 to the new medical, dental, nursing, and pharmacy campus of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Aurora, Colorado, which is now named the Anschutz Medical Campus in their honor. The land came from the recently-closed Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, but millions and millions were needed for the construction of new medical laboratory buildings and a new University Hospital on the land.

Anschutz has funded a number of conservative and Christian organizations including the following:

• The Foundation for a Better Life, organization founded in 2000 to promote "positive behavioral values;" it is neither anti-gay nor right-wing and has no political agenda; the Foundation communicates its message through television, outdoor advertising, theater, radio, and the Internet;
• Institute for American Values, which campaigns against same-sex marriage. The Institute has received three grants to date for a total of $17,500 over the lifetime of the Foundation;
• Colorado for Family Values, the organization behind Colorado's anti-same-sex-marriage constitutional amendment, Amendment 2, approved by the voters in 1992 and later overturned by the US Supreme Court;
• Enough Is Enough, whose President and CEO is Donna Rice Hughes, the major figure in the sex scandal that ended the 1987 campaign of Gary Hart, in the Democratic presidential primary. The organization claims that it is "Lighting the way to protect children and families from the dangers of illegal Internet pornography and sexual predators";

In recognition of their philanthropic efforts, Phil and Nancy Anschutz were named the winners of the 2009 William E. Simon Prize for Philanthropic Leadership.

Other business ventures

• Forest Oil
• Pacific Energy Group
• Regal Entertainment Group, the largest movie theater chain in the world, with approximately 6,000 screens. Anschutz owns more than half of the company, which is a collection of former bankrupt chains.
• Union Pacific Railroad (Anschutz is the company's largest shareholder, with a 6% stake.)
• Clarity Media Group, a Denver-based Publishing Group which includes:
  • The San Francisco Examiner (purchased 2004, sold November 2011)
  • The Washington Examiner, which was spun off from a number of D.C. area suburban dailies.
  • The Baltimore Examiner, which launched in April 2006 and was shut down in early 2009. (Anschutz has trademarked the name "Examiner" in more than sixty cities.)
  • Examiner.com, a hyper-local web portal where citizen journalists write on local topics, from news to blog-like stories.
  • The Weekly Standard (purchased in 2009)
  • The Gazette, the second-largest newspaper in Colorado with a daily circulation of 74,172. (purchased November 30, 2012)
• The Oil & Gas Asset Clearinghouse, which is an auction company designed for the Oil & Gas Business
• NRC Broadcasting, which owns a string of radio stations in Colorado.
• The Anschutz Investment Company purchased LightEdge Solutions in February 2008. LightEdge is a business-to-business hosted services provider focused on Wide-Area-Networking, Voice-over-IP, Hosted Microsoft applications (Exchange, OCS, SharePoint), hosted servers/storage collocation cage and rackspace and Business Continuity Services.
• On June 17, 2009, The Washington Examiner confirmed that the Examiner's parent company Clarity Media Group has purchased the Weekly Standard.
• It was announced September 15, 2011 that Anschutz would be acquiring all assets of Oklahoma Publishing Company (OPUBCO) from the Gaylord and Dickinson families. Upon closing, Anschutz would operate OPUBCO separate from all his other publishing and media assets as its own independent company. Closing is expected in October 2011.
• In March 2012, it was reported that Anschutz was the American that was interested in buying the Glasgow Rangers.
• Power Company of Wyoming LLC, formed in 2007 (re-incorpororated in 2010) for the purpose of building the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind power complex in Carbon County, Wyoming, comprising up to 1,000 wind turbines with up to 3,000 megawatts of capacity. It will be sited on 229,077 acres, about half federal, about half privately owned by an affiliate, and a smattering of state lands. According to the federal Bureau of Land Management, which on July 2, 2012, announced completion of the project's final Environmental Impact Statement, "Chokecherry and Sierra Madre are two distinct sites approximately five miles apart which are both being analyzed together. When combined, they comprise the largest commercial wind generation facility proposed in the U.S. and one of the largest in the world." Construction is expected to start in 2013, and cost an estimated $4 billion-$6 billion."

Political and Christian activism

Often identified as "Christian billionaire Phil Anschutz", he is a Republican donor who supported George W. Bush's administration. He has been an active patron of a number of religious and conservative causes:

• Helped fund Colorado's 1992 Amendment 2, a ballot initiative designed to overturn local and state laws that prohibit discrimination against individuals on the basis of sexual orientation but was invalidated by Romer v. Evans after it passed.
• Contributed $70,000 in 2003 to the Discovery Institute, to specifically support the work of telecom guru George Gilder but not matters related to intelligent design. That fact was validated by Discovery President Bruce Chapman in a letter-to-the-editor to the Rocky Mounatain News, "Anschutz never gave that program a nickel,"

The Discovery Institute is a think tank based in Seattle, Washington that also promotes intelligent design and criticizes evolution.

• Supported the Parents Television Council, a group that protests against television indecency.
• Financed and distributed films with Christian themes, such as Amazing Grace and The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, for mass audiences through his two film production companies and ownership of much of the Regal, Edwards and United Artists theater chains.
• Financed The Foundation for a Better Life.
• In 2009 Anschutz purchased the conservative American opinion magazine The Weekly Standard from Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation.
• Philip Anschutz and fellow board members of the American Petroleum Institute in Washington are credited by Bush's energy secretary for the Oval Office decision in 2001 to stand with the 95-0 vote in the U.S. Senate four years earlier against bringing ratification of the Kyoto Protocol to the floor for consideration. The primary reason cited was the crippling economic effects of the treaty.
• Financed the 2010 pro-charter school film, Waiting for Superman.
• Financed the 2012 pro-parent trigger film, Won't Back Down.