Know Your Buyer: Ron Burkle

KNOW YOUR BUYER II: One of the chief buyers emerging for either Warner Music Group or EMI is Ron Burkle, the 58-year-old business magnate with an estimated worth of $3.5 billion. The Pomona, CA, native got his start in the supermarket business as a bag boy at his father’s grocery store. He later dropped out of college and founded Yucaipa Companies, a private equity firm with a controlling interest in several companies, including Alliance Entertainment, Golden State Foods, Dominick’s, Fred Meyer, Ralphs, Barnes & Noble, Sean John, Primedia, American Apparel and Food4Less. He is currently a member of the board of Occidental Petroleum, KB Home and Yahoo! Burkle is a well-known Democratic supporter and fundraiser who has raised more than $1m for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign and employed. The part owner of the Pittsburgh Penguins was most famously involved in a payola scandal when he accuxsed N.Y. Post Page Six columnist Jared Paul Stern of demanding he invest $220k in his clothing line in exchange for not writing salacious gossip items about him. Burkle secretly videotaped a pair of meetings between himself and Stern, which led to the writer being fired. (3/21p)