Nicolas Berggruen has had a busy week.
The wealthy philanthropist, once known as the “homeless billionaire” — because until recently he did not own a home and stayed at the world’s finest hotels, traveling between them on his Gulfstream jet — threw a gala on Tuesday at the Beverly Wilshire hotel in Hollywood. It was to celebrate the fifth anniversary of his Berggruen Institute, a think-tank that seeks to transform global politics and society.
Attendees included California Governor Jerry Brown, supermodel Miranda Kerr, tech entrepreneur Sean Parker, musician Moby and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Technology, politics and fashion come together to celebrate The Berggruen Institute 5 Year Anniversary. #ideasmatter pic.twitter.com/VRQwWPz8hO
— Berggruen Institute (@berggruenInst) May 4, 2016
Earlier that week Berggruen met with Al Gore and Tony Blair at the Milken Institute’s Global Conference. Recently he has attended book launches for Arianna Huffington—with whom he runs ideas website The World Post—and Naomi Campbell.
Now that he’s no longer homeless, Berggruen, a dual American and German citizen whose fortune has been estimated at $2.5 billion, is focusing his attention on becoming a man of status and esteem. From his newfound perch on the West Coast, he’s championing a litany of worthy causes and projects: from greater European integration to global governance to reforming California’s economy and tax law. But Berggruen may be finding that for all his wealth and glittering friends, the clout he seeks remains elusive.
He’s spent more than $45 million on 400 acres in Santa Monica that will serve as headquarters for his institute, and bought a high-rise condo in West Hollywood in which to live.
He’s also acquired a family. The handsome Berggruen, 54, was until recently a playboy bachelor as resistant to marriage and children as he was to material possessions, which he claimed to give up 15 years ago. But he’s recently had a change of heart, fathering two-month old brother and sister Olympia and Alexander, born from one egg donor and two surrogates.
The Berggruen Institute is funded at $500 million and Berggruen plans to increase its endowment to over $1 billion. It includes the “Institute of Governance” and a nascent “Institute of Philosophy and Culture”. Then there’s Berggruen’s Museum Berggruen in Berlin featuring his late art dealer father’s collection that includes paintings by Picasso and Matisse.
So what’s paying the bills? Berggruen also runs Berggruen Holdings, an investment company that has net equity of over $2 billion, and a charitable trust that bankrolls the institute. His fortune in private equity came from building up a $250,000 inheritance from his father and investing in underperforming companies before selling them at vast profit. Berggruen also specializes in forming shell companies that go public and acquire an operating business (one of them, Justice Holdings Limited, owns 29% of Burger King).
Beggruen might have found a new house in Hollywood, but his spiritual home will always be the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Thought Leaders’ paradise. It was at Davos that Berggruen launched both “The World Post” and a book Intelligent Governance for the 21st Century: A Middle Way between West and East, co-authored with his Institute co-founder Nathan Gardels.
Berggruen told Bloomberg in 2012: “Davos is a bit like speed-dating. The quality of the people at Davos is very high and when you get someone to have a conversation, it can be great.” A recent profile of Berggruen in the New York Times was headlined: “The Billionaire Who’s Building a Davos of His Own”. (The New York Times is fond of running fawning features about him; another piece was headlined “A Billionaire Dreams of Steering Europe’s Future,” while columnist Tom Friedman puffed up Berggruen’s book in a 2013 op-ed.)
But is Berggruen really building a Davos of his own? Not so far. His colossal investment in his own ability to change the world has yet to repeat the success of his investments in private companies.
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Perhaps that’s because of the scattershot nature of his grand ambitions. Rather than specialize in a particular field, Berggruen is targeting meaningful change in the realms of politics, economics, culture and the arts.
His institute’s official literature says it aims to”develops fresh ideas that shape social and political thought and institutions” and to achieve “enduring impact on the progress and direction of societies around the world.” Berggruen said he wants his website The World Post to be a forum “where the whole world would meet.”
His life is a flurry of name-dropping, showing off his famous friends on social media. You can find him extolling how smart former CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, convicted last year of mishandling classified information, is on the issue of cybersecurity or praising Ryan Seacrest.
At dinner last night w Gen Petraeus he explained the urgency in elevating the importance of #cybersecurity & #cybercom w/in the Defense Dpt
— Nicolas Berggruen (@NBerggruen) March 31, 2016
Board members of his various initiatives include Henry Kissinger, Tony Blair, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, former French President Nicolas Sarkozy and economist Nouriel Roubini.
“Nicolas loves talking to former statesmen,” says a former employee of the Berggruen Institute speaking on anonymity. “They adore him because he treats them as though they’ve never left office.”
The institute’s programs include the Council for the Future of Europe (pushing for greater European integration), the 21st Century Council (focused on global governance and enhancing the G20 ), and the Think Long Committee for California (dedicated to reforming regional administration in the Golden State).
But the Berggruen Institute operates far from smoothly itself, says the former employee. “Nicolas didn’t spend much time at the institute when I was working there,” he says. He added the institute still lists an incorrect telephone number on the website—the last four digits are 7083 rather than 7038, as it still states on the contact page.
The source added that in contrast with the aging statesmen Berggruen likes to surround himself with, the institute is staffed mostly by young females, many of them models and actresses.
For instance, the Berggruen Institute’s Communications Co-ordinator Nathalia Ramos is also an actress who recently played the lead in the indie horror film “Wildflower.” Another Institute assistant Marissa Fraering moonlights as a model.
Stopped by the @berggruenInst office – seeking male applicants! pic.twitter.com/rtrMwFMNw1
— Nicolas Berggruen (@NBerggruen) January 30, 2016
As for his institute’s official activities, they tend to embrace the interests of the wealthy ex-statesmen Berggruen so assiduously cultivates.
Discussing some of the most challenging issues- from the Mid East to #brexit– w @tonyblairoffice #governancematters pic.twitter.com/eHtuTJnCbT
— Nicolas Berggruen (@NBerggruen) May 2, 2016
Like Tony Blair, the Berggruen Institute of Governance favors bolstering the role of the European Union. And at a time when the EU has never been more unpopular, Berggruen advocates for greater European federalism. He wrote last November in a piece for The World Post: “The only way the EU will work is if it, like any other well-functioning federation, has a strong center. For that to happen, individual nations need to give up a measure of domestic sovereignty.”
But Niall Ferguson, bestselling historian and Professor of History at Harvard University, who is a member of the Council for the Future of Europe and has attended several Berggruen Institute summits- including one at Harvard in 2014- defended its role to Heat Street: “Since I became involved, the Council for the Future of Europe has held annual meetings, not all of which I’ve been able to attend. It’s a good group of people and was especially effective during the Eurozone crisis, when I think we did have an impact on policymakers.”
On the U.S. election, Berggruen espouses the European elite’s contempt for Donald Trump. A recent article he wrote for The World Post made it clear Berggruen won’t be inviting Trump to join his board: “Rather than bashing immigrants and raising fearful walls, we should renew the foundations upon which our aspirational culture has been built.”
A source at the Huffington Post says that the World Post is not allowed to publish negative references to any members of Berggruen’s boards, which has caused tension with some staff who are particularly keen to investigate Tony Blair’s controversial business dealings.
Berggruen reportedly bankrolls the site to the tune of $850,000 a year. It does well traffic-wise owing to the fact it is incorporated within HuffPo. Berggruen is not shy about featuring himself in The World Post; currently on its culture page, pride of place is the LA Times‘ favorable profile of the owner.
Berggruen has enjoyed mixed success with the Think Long Committee for California, the think tank he established in 2010 to reform the state’s economy and tax law. Two years ago, Gov. Jerry Brown signed into law the Ballot Initiative Transparency Act originally outlined in Think Long’s “Blueprint for California.” California voters also endorsed Proposition 2—nicknamed the Rainy Day Fund—which uses short-term revenue increases to pay off the state’s debt. It too was championed by Think Long.
But Think Long abandoned its proposal for a $10 billion tax increase following unrest and it angered the state’s powerful teaching unions with its educational reform proposals. Embarrassingly for Berggruen, California voters overwhelmingly rejected Proposition 31, which would have radically amended California budgetary process. Berggruen spent $1.31 million in his doomed bid to get Proposition 31 passed.
Berggruen didn’t use to like journalists. In the 1990s he reportedly objected so strongly to a profile of himself in a Dutch magazine that he bought every copy. This was reported in the Financial Times by Gillian Tett. Now U.S. Managing Director of the FT, Tett has subsequently herself become part of the Berggruen network. The West Coast launch of her book The Silo Effect last September was hosted by the Berggruen Institute.
And at the same time as wooing who he considers to be elite media, Berggruen has, as part of his conscious-driven “value investing” philosophy, given $850,000 to the news website Byline.com. The site has come under fire for publishing outlandish conspiracy theories.
Recently it was heavily criticized for revealing the story of UK Culture Minister John Whittingdale’s relationship with a prostitute and making the unsubstantiated claim that UK newspapers had ignored the story to curry favor with the politician who presides over their industry.
According to the website Inside Philanthropy, the Berggruen Institute has donated to the Clinton Global Initiative, “usually $10,000-25,000”.
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As for future ambitions, Berggruen wants to forge closer relations between U.S. and China. This year he has established the Berggruen Philosophy and Culture Prize, awarding $1 million to a deep influential thinker in science and arts.
Berggruen has also been recently saying he wants to create a “secular monastery” in Santa Monica derived from ancient eastern tradition. Yet given the ineffectual outcomes of so many of his attempts to influence the global political scene, Berggruen himself might consider taking a vow of silence in his ‘secular monastery’…
At least until Davos next January.
nice @felixsalmon: The thing that makes Berggruen so very Davos is not that he knows all these people, but that he only knows these people.
— Paul Davies (@PaulJDavies) January 29, 2014
