https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken

Michael Robert Milken (born July 4, 1946) is an American business magnate, financier and philanthropist. He is noted for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds ("junk bonds"),[2] for his conviction following a guilty plea on felony charges for violating U.S. securities laws, and for his charitable giving.

Milken was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud in 1989 in an insider trading investigation. As the result of a plea bargain, he pled guilty to securities and reporting violations but not to racketeering or insider trading. Milken was sentenced to ten years in prison, fined $600 million, and permanently barred from the securities industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. His sentence was later reduced to two years for cooperating with testimony against his former colleagues and for good behavior.[3]

His critics cited him as the epitome of Wall Street greed during the 1980s, and nicknamed him the "Junk Bond King". Supporters, like George Gilder in his book, Telecosm (2000), state that "Milken was a key source of the organizational changes that have impelled economic growth over the last twenty years. Most striking was the productivity surge in capital, as Milken...and others took the vast sums trapped in old-line businesses and put them back into the markets."[4]

Since his release from prison, Milken has funded medical research.[5] He is co-founder of the Milken Family Foundation, chairman of the Milken Institute, and founder of medical philanthropies funding research into melanoma, cancer and other life-threatening diseases. A prostate cancer survivor, Milken has devoted significant resources to research on the disease.[6] In a November 2004 cover article, Fortune magazine called him "The Man Who Changed Medicine" for changes in approach to funding and results that he initiated.[5]

Milken's compensation, while head of the high-yield bond department at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s, exceeded $1 billion in a four-year period, a new record for U.S. income at that time.[7] With an estimated net worth of around $2 billion as of 2010, he is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 488th richest person in the world.[8] Much of that wealth comes from his success as a bond trader; he only had four losing months in 17 years of trading from 1973 to 1989.[9]

Contents [hide] 1 Education 2 Career 2.1 High-yield bonds and leveraged buyouts 2.2 Later career 3 Scandal 3.1 Ivan Boesky and an intensifying investigation 3.2 Indictment and sentencing 4 2013 SEC investigation 5 Philanthropic activities 6 Personal life 7 See also 8 References 9 External links Education[edit] Milken was born into a middle-class Jewish[10][11][12][13][14] family in Encino, California.[15] He graduated from Birmingham High School where he was the head cheerleader and worked while in school at a diner.[16] His classmates included actresses Sally Field and Cindy Williams. In 1968, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.S. with highest honors where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.[17] He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Berkeley, Milken was influenced by credit studies authored by W. Braddock Hickman, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, who noted that a portfolio of non-investment grade bonds offered "risk-adjusted" returns greater than that of an investment grade portfolio.

Career[edit] Through his Wharton professors, Milken landed a summer job at Drexel Harriman Ripley, an old-line investment bank, in 1969. After completing his MBA, he joined Drexel (by then known as Drexel Firestone) as director of low-grade bond research. He was also given some capital and permitted to trade. According to legend, he was so devoted to his work that he wore a miner's headlamp while commuting on the bus so that he could read company prospectuses.

Drexel merged with Burnham and Company in 1973 to form Drexel Burnham. Despite the firm's name, Burnham was the nominal survivor; the Drexel name only came first at the insistence of the more powerful investment banks, whose blessing was necessary for the merged firm to inherit Drexel's position as a "major" firm. Milken was one of the few prominent holdovers from the Drexel side of the merger, and became the merged firm's head of convertibles. He persuaded his new boss, fellow Wharton alumnus Tubby Burnham, to let him start a high-yield bond trading department—an operation that soon earned a remarkable 100% return on investment.[9] By 1976, Milken's income at what was now Drexel Burnham Lambert was estimated at $5 million a year.

One weekend in 1978, Milken moved the high-yield bond operation to Century City in Los Angeles. The transition went so smoothly that many clients were unaware that the department had moved between Friday and Monday. Later, the operation moved to a building at 9560 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. On the fourth floor, he set up an X-shaped trading desk—designed to maximize his contact with traders and salesmen—from which he worked very long hours, invariably starting his day before 5 am Pacific (8 am Eastern, prior to the opening of the markets in New York). The department grew and, in 1986-87, moved up to the fifth floor, where there were eventually three of the famous X-shaped trading desks.

High-yield bonds and leveraged buyouts[edit] History of private equity and venture capital Early history (Origins of modern private equity) The 1980s (Leveraged buyout boom) The 1990s (Leveraged buyout and the venture capital bubble) The 2000s (Dot-com bubble to the credit crunch) v t e See also: Private equity in the 1980s By the mid-1980s, Milken's network of high-yield bond buyers (notably Fred Carr's Executive Life Insurance Company and Tom Spiegel's Columbia Savings & Loan) had reached a size which enabled him to raise large amounts of money very quickly. It was said, for example, that Milken raised $1 billion for MCI Communications, then an upstart provider of long-distance telephone services, in the space of one hour on the telephone. Cable TV companies, like John Malone's Tele-Communications Inc., were also favorite clients, as were Ted Turner's maverick Turner Broadcasting, cellphone pioneer Craig McCaw, and casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn. Before long, the CEOs and CFOs of many smaller and mid-sized companies previously limited to the slow and expensive private-placement market were making early-morning pilgrimages to Beverly Hills seeking to issue high-yield and/or convertible bonds through Drexel Burnham. Without question, many leading entrepreneurs of the 1980s owe their success at least partly to Milken's perception of this market opportunity. One of his favorite sayings was: "There is no shortage of capital; there is only a shortage of management talent."

Milken was largely involved with kick-starting investments in Nevada, which for many years was the fastest-growing state in the U.S. Milken funded the gaming industry, newspapers and homebuilders; among the companies he financed were MGM Mirage, Mandalay Resort Group, Harrah's Entertainment and Park Place Entertainment.

This money-raising ability also facilitated the activities of leveraged buyout (LBO) firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and of so-called "greenmailers". Most of them were armed with a "highly confident letter" from Drexel, a tool crafted by Drexel's corporate finance wing in which it promised to raise the necessary debt in time to fulfill the buyer's obligations. Although it carried no legal status, by this time Milken had gained a reputation for being able to make markets for any bonds that he underwrote. For this reason, "highly confident letters" were considered as good as cash for these firms and greenmailers. They were able make tidy profits by merely threatening LBOs of large, blue-chip companies in which they had built up equity positions. Milken's task was perhaps made easier by the fact that the top-tier Wall Street investment banks were unwilling to take part in hostile takeovers, a practice long considered taboo on Wall Street. Most banks shied away from them rather than risk longstanding and lucrative relationships with many of the blue-chip companies who were potentially his targets, although companies such as Salomon Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and First Boston later entered the high-yield market. Drexel financed notable buyouts of companies previously thought invulnerable, including Beatrice Companies and the cosmetics firm Revlon.

Amongst his significant detractors have been Martin Fridson formerly of Merrill Lynch and author Ben Stein. Milken's high-yield "pioneer" status has proved dubious as studies show "original issue" high-yield issues were common during and after the Great Depression. Milken himself points out that high-yield bonds go back hundreds of years, having been issued by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th century and by America's first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Others such as Stanford Phelps, an early co-associate and rival at Drexel, have also contested his credit as pioneering the modern high-yield market. This is, however, quibbling, as Drexel was for all intents and purposes unchallenged as essentially the only underwriter and trader of high-yield bonds throughout almost the entire decade of the 1980s.

Despite his influence in the financial world (at least one source called him the most powerful American financier since J.P. Morgan),[18] Milken was an intensely private man who shunned publicity. Citing the power behind the most aggressive firm on Wall Street, Drexel bankers often used "Michael says ..." to justify their tactics.[9]

Later career[edit] Milken and his brother Lowell founded Knowledge Universe in 1996, as well as Knowledge Learning Corporation (KLC), the parent company of KinderCare Learning Centers, the largest for-profit child care provider in the country. He is currently chairman of the company.[19] Milken also established K12 Inc., a publicly traded education management organization (EMO) that provides online schooling, including to charter school students for whom services are paid by tax dollars,[20] which is the largest EMO in terms of enrollment.[21]

Scandal[edit] Dan Stone, a former Drexel executive, wrote in his book April Fools that Milken was under nearly constant scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1979 onward due to unethical and sometimes illegal behavior in the high-yield department.[18] His own role in such behavior has been much debated. Stone claims that Milken viewed the securities laws, rules and regulations with a degree of contempt, feeling they hindered the free flow of trade. However, Stone said that while Milken condoned questionable and illegal acts by his colleagues, Milken himself personally followed the rules.[18] He often called Drexel's president and CEO, Fred Joseph—known for his strict view of the securities laws—with ethical questions.[9] On the other hand, several of the sources James B. Stewart used for Den of Thieves told him that Milken often tried to get a higher markup on trades than was permitted at the time.

Harvey A. Silverglate, a prominent defense attorney who represented Milken during the appellate process, disputes that view in his book Three Felonies a Day: “Milken’s biggest problem was that some of his most ingenious but entirely lawful maneuvers were viewed, by those who initially did not understand them, as felonious, precisely because they were novel – and often extremely profitable.”[22]

Ivan Boesky and an intensifying investigation[edit] The SEC inquiries never got beyond the investigation phase until 1986, when arbitrageur Ivan Boesky pled guilty to securities fraud as part of a larger insider trading investigation. As part of his plea, Boesky purported to implicate Milken in several illegal transactions, including insider trading, stock manipulation, fraud and stock parking (buying stocks for the benefit of another). This led to an SEC probe of Drexel, as well as a separate criminal probe by Rudy Giuliani, then United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Although both investigations were almost entirely focused on Milken's department, Milken refused to talk with Drexel (which launched its own internal investigation) except through his lawyers.[9][18]

For two years, Drexel insisted that nothing illegal occurred, even when the SEC formally sued Drexel in 1988. Later that year, Giuliani began seriously considering an indictment of Drexel under the powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which he had previously used against organized crime. Drexel management immediately began plea bargain talks, concluding that no financial institution could survive a RICO indictment. However, talks collapsed on December 19 when Giuliani made several demands that Drexel found too harsh, including one that Milken leave the firm if indicted.[18]

Only a day later, however, Drexel lawyers discovered suspicious activity in one of the limited partnerships Milken set up to allow members of his department to make their own investments. That entity, MacPherson Partners, had acquired several warrants for the stock of Storer Broadcasting in 1985. At the time, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was in the midst of a leveraged buyout of Storer, and Drexel was lead underwriter for the bonds being issued. One of Drexel's other clients bought several Storer warrants and sold them back to the high-yield bond department. The department in turn sold them to MacPherson. This partnership included Milken, other Drexel executives, and a few Drexel customers. However, it also included several managers of money market funds who had worked with Milken in the past. It appeared that the money managers bought the warrants for themselves and didn't offer the same opportunity to the funds they managed.[18] Some of Milken's children also got warrants, according to Stewart, raising the appearance of Milken self-dealing.[23]

However, the warrants to money managers were especially problematic. At the very least, Milken's actions were a serious breach of Drexel's internal regulations, and the money managers had breached their fiduciary duty to their clients. At worst, the warrants could have been construed as bribes to the money managers to influence decisions they made for their funds.[23] Indeed, several money managers were eventually convicted on bribery charges.[24] The discovery of MacPherson Partners—whose very existence had not been known to the public at the time—seriously eroded Milken's credibility with the board. On December 21, 1988, Drexel entered an Alford plea to six counts of stock parking and stock manipulation. Although this was technically a guilty plea, Drexel merely admitted that it was "not in a position to dispute the allegations" made by the government. As part of the deal, Drexel agreed that Milken had to leave the firm if indicted.[9][18]

Indictment and sentencing[edit] In March 1989, a federal grand jury indicted Milken on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. The indictment accused Milken of a litany of misconduct, including insider trading, stock parking (concealing the real owner of a stock), tax evasion and numerous instances of repayment of illicit profits. The most intriguing charge was that Boesky paid Drexel $5.3 million in 1986 for Milken's share of profits from illegal trading. This payment was represented as a consulting fee to Drexel. Shortly afterward, Milken resigned from Drexel and formed his own firm, International Capital Access Group.[9][18]

This was one of the first times RICO was used against an individual with no ties to organized crime. Milken originally planned to fight the charges against him, even though he risked spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted. He hired one of Ronald Reagan's former campaign aides, Linda Goodson Robinson (the wife of American Express president James Robinson) to launch a public relations campaign prior to the trial. Milken and other Drexel figures hired Edward Bennett Williams as their attorney. Williams was well known for representing Watergate figures as well as major Mafia figures including Frank Costello. After Williams died of cancer, Milken's handlers hired various other attorneys and his case became more difficult.

On April 24, 1990, Milken pleaded guilty to six counts of securities and tax violations.[8] Three of them involved dealings with Ivan Boesky to conceal the real owner of a stock.[22]

Aiding and abetting another person's failure to file an accurate 13d statement with the SEC, since the schedule was not amended to reflect an understanding that any loss would be made up. Sending confirmation slips through the mail that failed to disclose that a commission was included in the price. Aiding and abetting another in filing inaccurate broker-dealer reports with the SEC. Two other counts were related to tax evasion in transactions Milken carried out for a client of the firm, David Solomon, a fund manager.[22]

Selling stock without disclosure of an understanding that the purchaser would not lose money. Agreeing to sell securities to a customer and to buy those securities back at a real loss to the customer, but with an understanding that he would try to find a future profitable transaction to make up for any losses. The last count was for conspiracy to commit these five violations.

The estimated injury for all counts combined was, by the judge's account, $318,000 and by the U.S. Probation Office's account $685,000.[25]

As part of his plea, Milken agreed to pay $200 million in fines. At the same time, he agreed to a settlement with the SEC in which he paid $400 million to investors who had been hurt by his actions. He also accepted a lifetime ban from any involvement in the securities industry. In a related civil lawsuit against Drexel he agreed to pay $500 million to Drexel's investors.[26][27] In total this means that he paid $1.1 billion for all lawsuits related to his actions while working at Drexel.

Critics of the government charge that the government indicted Milken's brother Lowell in order to put pressure on Milken to settle, a tactic condemned as unethical by some legal scholars. "I am troubled by - and other scholars are troubled by - the notion of putting relatives on the bargaining table," said Vivian Berger, a professor at Columbia University Law School, in a 1990 interview with the New York Times.[28] As part of the deal, the case against Lowell was dropped. Federal investigators also questioned some of Milken's relatives about their investments.[9]

At Milken's sentencing, Judge Kimba Wood told him:

You were willing to commit only crimes that were unlikely to be detected.... When a man of your power in the financial world... repeatedly conspires to violate, and violates, securities and tax business in order to achieve more power and wealth for himself... a significant prison term is required.[23]

Milken's sentence was later reduced to two years from ten; he served 22 months.[29][30]

2013 SEC investigation[edit] In February 2013, the SEC announced that they were investigating whether or not Milken violated his lifetime ban from the securities industry. The investigation was based around Milken allegedly providing investment advice through Guggenheim Partners.[31] Since 2011, the SEC have been investigating Guggenheim’s relationship with client Milken.[32]

Philanthropic activities[edit]

This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011) In 1982, Milken and his brother Lowell founded the Milken Family Foundation to support medical research and education. Through the Milken Educator Awards (founded in 1985), the MFF has awarded a total of more than $60 million to more than 2,500 teachers. Among the other initiatives of the Milken Family Foundation are the:

Milken Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan economic think tank whose scholars publish research papers and conduct conferences on global and regional economies, human capital, demographics and capital markets. Each spring, the Institute hosts a Global Conference in Los Angeles; Milken Scholars, a program that provides outstanding high school graduates with a commitment of four years of college financial assistance, counseling, volunteer opportunities and preparation for graduate studies; TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement, a comprehensive research-based strategy to attract, develop, motivate and retain high-quality teachers for America's schools; Mike's Math Club, a curriculum enrichment program that aims to shows students in inner-city elementary schools that math is not only useful, but entertaining; Festival for Youth, a school-based community service program that engages students in yearlong service projects to help build vibrant communities; and the Milken Family Foundation Epilepsy Research Awards Program, which funds research to understand and conquer epilepsy. Upon his release from prison in 1993, Milken founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation for prostate cancer research, which by 2010 was "the largest philanthropic source of funds for research into prostate cancer."[33] Milken himself was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in the same month he was released.[34] His cancer is currently in remission. The Prostate Cancer Foundation works closely with Major League Baseball through its Home Run Challenge program to promote awareness of prostate cancer and raise money for medical research. Each season in the weeks leading up to Father's Day, Milken visits many ballparks and appears on TV and radio broadcasts during the games.

In 2003, Milken launched a Washington, D.C.-based think tank called FasterCures, which seeks greater efficiency in researching all serious diseases. A key initiative of FasterCures is BioBank Central, which is advancing life sciences research in areas as diverse as autism, psoriasis and breast cancer.[34]

The Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) was launched in 2007 to support innovative translational studies that advance the diagnosis, staging and treatment of melanoma, a skin cancer.

Fortune magazine called Milken "The Man Who Changed Medicine" in a 2004 cover story on his philanthropy.[5]

In September 2012, Milken and the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, jointly hosted 1,000 senior medical scientists, patients, activists, philanthropists, regulators, and members of Congress at a three-day conference[35] to demonstrate the return on investment in medical research.

On March 11, 2014, President Steven Knapp of the The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. announced the university would rename its public health school after Milken as a result of a total of $80 million in gifts, $50 million from the Milken Institute and the Milken Family Foundation and $30 million gift from Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. These gifts are designated to research and scholarship on public health issues.[36]

Personal life[edit] Milken is married to the former Lori Anne Hackel, whom he has known since grade school.[37] They have three children.[38]

מייקל רוברט מילקן

' (באנגלית: Michael Milken; נולד ב-4 ביולי 1946) הוא איש עסקים ופילנתרופ יהודי-אמריקאי. שווי נכסיו מוערך ב-3.7 מיליארד דולר (נכון ל-2019), והוא מדורג על ידי מגזין פורבס במקום ה-606 ברשימת האנשים העשירים בעולם.

במהלך שנות ה-70 וה-80, יצר מילקן כמעט לבדו את שוק אגרות החוב בעלות תשואה גבוהה, המכונות גם "אג"ח זבל". בתקופה זו כינו אותו מתנגדיו "מלך אג"ח הזבל".

ב-1989 הואשם מילקן בהפרת חוקי מס של ארצות הברית, סחיטה ומרמה בניירות ערך, כתוצאה של חקירה בנושא מידע פנים. ב-1990 הודה מילקן בעסקת טיעון בשש עבירות על חוקי ניירות ערך ודיווחים כוזבים, ונידון לעשר שנות מאסר; תקופת המאסר קוצרה בהמשך, ומילקן שוחרר לאחר 22 חודשי מאסר.

מילקן עוסק לאורך השנים בתרומות ופעילות פילנתרופית רחבה. הוא נמנה עם מייסדי קרן הצדקה "Milken Family" שהוקמה ב-1982 כדי לתמוך בחינוך ומחקר רפואי; הוא מכהן כיו"ר "מכון מילקן", המקיים מדי שנה כינוס עולמי בו משתתפים יותר מ-3,000 מנהיגים ומקבלי החלטות מכ-60 מדינות ברחבי העולם. המכון פעיל גם בישראל, כמרכז מחקר כלכלי בתוך מכון ירושלים למחקרי מדיניות.[1] הוא מייסד מרכז המחקר לסרטן העור, FasterCures, והקרן לחקר סרטן הפרוסטטה. המגזין "פורצ'ן", בכתבה מ-2004, כינה אותו "האיש ששינה את הרפואה", בשל תרומתו הרבה למחקר הרפואי.

קישורים חיצוניים ויקישיתוף מדיה וקבצים בנושא מייקל מילקן בוויקישיתוף Green globe.svg אתר האינטרנט הרשמי

של מייקל מילקן מייקל מילקן, The Boom Generation - Seventh Decade , מאמר שפרסם בוול סטריט ג'ורנל, 19 בספטמבר 2006 כתבה על ביקורו של מילקן בישראל , באתר גלובס, 4 בדצמבר 2007 https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%9C_%D7%9E...

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Milken

Michael Robert Milken (born July 4, 1946) is an American business magnate, financier and philanthropist. He is noted for his role in the development of the market for high-yield bonds ("junk bonds"),[2] for his conviction following a guilty plea on felony charges for violating U.S. securities laws, and for his charitable giving.

Milken was indicted for racketeering and securities fraud in 1989 in an insider trading investigation. As the result of a plea bargain, he pled guilty to securities and reporting violations but not to racketeering or insider trading. Milken was sentenced to ten years in prison, fined $600 million, and permanently barred from the securities industry by the Securities and Exchange Commission. His sentence was later reduced to two years for cooperating with testimony against his former colleagues and for good behavior.[3]

His critics cited him as the epitome of Wall Street greed during the 1980s, and nicknamed him the "Junk Bond King". Supporters, like George Gilder in his book, Telecosm (2000), state that "Milken was a key source of the organizational changes that have impelled economic growth over the last twenty years. Most striking was the productivity surge in capital, as Milken...and others took the vast sums trapped in old-line businesses and put them back into the markets."[4]

Since his release from prison, Milken has funded medical research.[5] He is co-founder of the Milken Family Foundation, chairman of the Milken Institute, and founder of medical philanthropies funding research into melanoma, cancer and other life-threatening diseases. A prostate cancer survivor, Milken has devoted significant resources to research on the disease.[6] In a November 2004 cover article, Fortune magazine called him "The Man Who Changed Medicine" for changes in approach to funding and results that he initiated.[5]

Milken's compensation, while head of the high-yield bond department at Drexel Burnham Lambert in the late 1980s, exceeded $1 billion in a four-year period, a new record for U.S. income at that time.[7] With an estimated net worth of around $2 billion as of 2010, he is ranked by Forbes magazine as the 488th richest person in the world.[8] Much of that wealth comes from his success as a bond trader; he only had four losing months in 17 years of trading from 1973 to 1989.[9]

Contents [hide] 1 Education 2 Career 2.1 High-yield bonds and leveraged buyouts 2.2 Later career 3 Scandal 3.1 Ivan Boesky and an intensifying investigation 3.2 Indictment and sentencing 4 2013 SEC investigation 5 Philanthropic activities 6 Personal life 7 See also 8 References 9 External links Education[edit] Milken was born into a middle-class Jewish[10][11][12][13][14] family in Encino, California.[15] He graduated from Birmingham High School where he was the head cheerleader and worked while in school at a diner.[16] His classmates included actresses Sally Field and Cindy Williams. In 1968, he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a B.S. with highest honors where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and was a member of the Sigma Alpha Mu fraternity.[17] He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. While at Berkeley, Milken was influenced by credit studies authored by W. Braddock Hickman, a former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, who noted that a portfolio of non-investment grade bonds offered "risk-adjusted" returns greater than that of an investment grade portfolio.

Career[edit] Through his Wharton professors, Milken landed a summer job at Drexel Harriman Ripley, an old-line investment bank, in 1969. After completing his MBA, he joined Drexel (by then known as Drexel Firestone) as director of low-grade bond research. He was also given some capital and permitted to trade. According to legend, he was so devoted to his work that he wore a miner's headlamp while commuting on the bus so that he could read company prospectuses.

Drexel merged with Burnham and Company in 1973 to form Drexel Burnham. Despite the firm's name, Burnham was the nominal survivor; the Drexel name only came first at the insistence of the more powerful investment banks, whose blessing was necessary for the merged firm to inherit Drexel's position as a "major" firm. Milken was one of the few prominent holdovers from the Drexel side of the merger, and became the merged firm's head of convertibles. He persuaded his new boss, fellow Wharton alumnus Tubby Burnham, to let him start a high-yield bond trading department—an operation that soon earned a remarkable 100% return on investment.[9] By 1976, Milken's income at what was now Drexel Burnham Lambert was estimated at $5 million a year.

One weekend in 1978, Milken moved the high-yield bond operation to Century City in Los Angeles. The transition went so smoothly that many clients were unaware that the department had moved between Friday and Monday. Later, the operation moved to a building at 9560 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. On the fourth floor, he set up an X-shaped trading desk—designed to maximize his contact with traders and salesmen—from which he worked very long hours, invariably starting his day before 5 am Pacific (8 am Eastern, prior to the opening of the markets in New York). The department grew and, in 1986-87, moved up to the fifth floor, where there were eventually three of the famous X-shaped trading desks.

High-yield bonds and leveraged buyouts[edit] History of private equity and venture capital Early history (Origins of modern private equity) The 1980s (Leveraged buyout boom) The 1990s (Leveraged buyout and the venture capital bubble) The 2000s (Dot-com bubble to the credit crunch) v t e See also: Private equity in the 1980s By the mid-1980s, Milken's network of high-yield bond buyers (notably Fred Carr's Executive Life Insurance Company and Tom Spiegel's Columbia Savings & Loan) had reached a size which enabled him to raise large amounts of money very quickly. It was said, for example, that Milken raised $1 billion for MCI Communications, then an upstart provider of long-distance telephone services, in the space of one hour on the telephone. Cable TV companies, like John Malone's Tele-Communications Inc., were also favorite clients, as were Ted Turner's maverick Turner Broadcasting, cellphone pioneer Craig McCaw, and casino entrepreneur Steve Wynn. Before long, the CEOs and CFOs of many smaller and mid-sized companies previously limited to the slow and expensive private-placement market were making early-morning pilgrimages to Beverly Hills seeking to issue high-yield and/or convertible bonds through Drexel Burnham. Without question, many leading entrepreneurs of the 1980s owe their success at least partly to Milken's perception of this market opportunity. One of his favorite sayings was: "There is no shortage of capital; there is only a shortage of management talent."

Milken was largely involved with kick-starting investments in Nevada, which for many years was the fastest-growing state in the U.S. Milken funded the gaming industry, newspapers and homebuilders; among the companies he financed were MGM Mirage, Mandalay Resort Group, Harrah's Entertainment and Park Place Entertainment.

This money-raising ability also facilitated the activities of leveraged buyout (LBO) firms such as Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and of so-called "greenmailers". Most of them were armed with a "highly confident letter" from Drexel, a tool crafted by Drexel's corporate finance wing in which it promised to raise the necessary debt in time to fulfill the buyer's obligations. Although it carried no legal status, by this time Milken had gained a reputation for being able to make markets for any bonds that he underwrote. For this reason, "highly confident letters" were considered as good as cash for these firms and greenmailers. They were able make tidy profits by merely threatening LBOs of large, blue-chip companies in which they had built up equity positions. Milken's task was perhaps made easier by the fact that the top-tier Wall Street investment banks were unwilling to take part in hostile takeovers, a practice long considered taboo on Wall Street. Most banks shied away from them rather than risk longstanding and lucrative relationships with many of the blue-chip companies who were potentially his targets, although companies such as Salomon Brothers, Morgan Stanley, and First Boston later entered the high-yield market. Drexel financed notable buyouts of companies previously thought invulnerable, including Beatrice Companies and the cosmetics firm Revlon.

Amongst his significant detractors have been Martin Fridson formerly of Merrill Lynch and author Ben Stein. Milken's high-yield "pioneer" status has proved dubious as studies show "original issue" high-yield issues were common during and after the Great Depression. Milken himself points out that high-yield bonds go back hundreds of years, having been issued by the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 17th century and by America's first Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton. Others such as Stanford Phelps, an early co-associate and rival at Drexel, have also contested his credit as pioneering the modern high-yield market. This is, however, quibbling, as Drexel was for all intents and purposes unchallenged as essentially the only underwriter and trader of high-yield bonds throughout almost the entire decade of the 1980s.

Despite his influence in the financial world (at least one source called him the most powerful American financier since J.P. Morgan),[18] Milken was an intensely private man who shunned publicity. Citing the power behind the most aggressive firm on Wall Street, Drexel bankers often used "Michael says ..." to justify their tactics.[9]

Later career[edit] Milken and his brother Lowell founded Knowledge Universe in 1996, as well as Knowledge Learning Corporation (KLC), the parent company of KinderCare Learning Centers, the largest for-profit child care provider in the country. He is currently chairman of the company.[19] Milken also established K12 Inc., a publicly traded education management organization (EMO) that provides online schooling, including to charter school students for whom services are paid by tax dollars,[20] which is the largest EMO in terms of enrollment.[21]

Scandal[edit] Dan Stone, a former Drexel executive, wrote in his book April Fools that Milken was under nearly constant scrutiny from the Securities and Exchange Commission from 1979 onward due to unethical and sometimes illegal behavior in the high-yield department.[18] His own role in such behavior has been much debated. Stone claims that Milken viewed the securities laws, rules and regulations with a degree of contempt, feeling they hindered the free flow of trade. However, Stone said that while Milken condoned questionable and illegal acts by his colleagues, Milken himself personally followed the rules.[18] He often called Drexel's president and CEO, Fred Joseph—known for his strict view of the securities laws—with ethical questions.[9] On the other hand, several of the sources James B. Stewart used for Den of Thieves told him that Milken often tried to get a higher markup on trades than was permitted at the time.

Harvey A. Silverglate, a prominent defense attorney who represented Milken during the appellate process, disputes that view in his book Three Felonies a Day: “Milken’s biggest problem was that some of his most ingenious but entirely lawful maneuvers were viewed, by those who initially did not understand them, as felonious, precisely because they were novel – and often extremely profitable.”[22]

Ivan Boesky and an intensifying investigation[edit] The SEC inquiries never got beyond the investigation phase until 1986, when arbitrageur Ivan Boesky pled guilty to securities fraud as part of a larger insider trading investigation. As part of his plea, Boesky purported to implicate Milken in several illegal transactions, including insider trading, stock manipulation, fraud and stock parking (buying stocks for the benefit of another). This led to an SEC probe of Drexel, as well as a separate criminal probe by Rudy Giuliani, then United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Although both investigations were almost entirely focused on Milken's department, Milken refused to talk with Drexel (which launched its own internal investigation) except through his lawyers.[9][18]

For two years, Drexel insisted that nothing illegal occurred, even when the SEC formally sued Drexel in 1988. Later that year, Giuliani began seriously considering an indictment of Drexel under the powerful Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, which he had previously used against organized crime. Drexel management immediately began plea bargain talks, concluding that no financial institution could survive a RICO indictment. However, talks collapsed on December 19 when Giuliani made several demands that Drexel found too harsh, including one that Milken leave the firm if indicted.[18]

Only a day later, however, Drexel lawyers discovered suspicious activity in one of the limited partnerships Milken set up to allow members of his department to make their own investments. That entity, MacPherson Partners, had acquired several warrants for the stock of Storer Broadcasting in 1985. At the time, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts was in the midst of a leveraged buyout of Storer, and Drexel was lead underwriter for the bonds being issued. One of Drexel's other clients bought several Storer warrants and sold them back to the high-yield bond department. The department in turn sold them to MacPherson. This partnership included Milken, other Drexel executives, and a few Drexel customers. However, it also included several managers of money market funds who had worked with Milken in the past. It appeared that the money managers bought the warrants for themselves and didn't offer the same opportunity to the funds they managed.[18] Some of Milken's children also got warrants, according to Stewart, raising the appearance of Milken self-dealing.[23]

However, the warrants to money managers were especially problematic. At the very least, Milken's actions were a serious breach of Drexel's internal regulations, and the money managers had breached their fiduciary duty to their clients. At worst, the warrants could have been construed as bribes to the money managers to influence decisions they made for their funds.[23] Indeed, several money managers were eventually convicted on bribery charges.[24] The discovery of MacPherson Partners—whose very existence had not been known to the public at the time—seriously eroded Milken's credibility with the board. On December 21, 1988, Drexel entered an Alford plea to six counts of stock parking and stock manipulation. Although this was technically a guilty plea, Drexel merely admitted that it was "not in a position to dispute the allegations" made by the government. As part of the deal, Drexel agreed that Milken had to leave the firm if indicted.[9][18]

Indictment and sentencing[edit] In March 1989, a federal grand jury indicted Milken on 98 counts of racketeering and fraud. The indictment accused Milken of a litany of misconduct, including insider trading, stock parking (concealing the real owner of a stock), tax evasion and numerous instances of repayment of illicit profits. The most intriguing charge was that Boesky paid Drexel $5.3 million in 1986 for Milken's share of profits from illegal trading. This payment was represented as a consulting fee to Drexel. Shortly afterward, Milken resigned from Drexel and formed his own firm, International Capital Access Group.[9][18]

This was one of the first times RICO was used against an individual with no ties to organized crime. Milken originally planned to fight the charges against him, even though he risked spending the rest of his life in prison if convicted. He hired one of Ronald Reagan's former campaign aides, Linda Goodson Robinson (the wife of American Express president James Robinson) to launch a public relations campaign prior to the trial. Milken and other Drexel figures hired Edward Bennett Williams as their attorney. Williams was well known for representing Watergate figures as well as major Mafia figures including Frank Costello. After Williams died of cancer, Milken's handlers hired various other attorneys and his case became more difficult.

On April 24, 1990, Milken pleaded guilty to six counts of securities and tax violations.[8] Three of them involved dealings with Ivan Boesky to conceal the real owner of a stock.[22]

Aiding and abetting another person's failure to file an accurate 13d statement with the SEC, since the schedule was not amended to reflect an understanding that any loss would be made up. Sending confirmation slips through the mail that failed to disclose that a commission was included in the price. Aiding and abetting another in filing inaccurate broker-dealer reports with the SEC. Two other counts were related to tax evasion in transactions Milken carried out for a client of the firm, David Solomon, a fund manager.[22]

Selling stock without disclosure of an understanding that the purchaser would not lose money. Agreeing to sell securities to a customer and to buy those securities back at a real loss to the customer, but with an understanding that he would try to find a future profitable transaction to make up for any losses. The last count was for conspiracy to commit these five violations.

The estimated injury for all counts combined was, by the judge's account, $318,000 and by the U.S. Probation Office's account $685,000.[25]

As part of his plea, Milken agreed to pay $200 million in fines. At the same time, he agreed to a settlement with the SEC in which he paid $400 million to investors who had been hurt by his actions. He also accepted a lifetime ban from any involvement in the securities industry. In a related civil lawsuit against Drexel he agreed to pay $500 million to Drexel's investors.[26][27] In total this means that he paid $1.1 billion for all lawsuits related to his actions while working at Drexel.

Critics of the government charge that the government indicted Milken's brother Lowell in order to put pressure on Milken to settle, a tactic condemned as unethical by some legal scholars. "I am troubled by - and other scholars are troubled by - the notion of putting relatives on the bargaining table," said Vivian Berger, a professor at Columbia University Law School, in a 1990 interview with the New York Times.[28] As part of the deal, the case against Lowell was dropped. Federal investigators also questioned some of Milken's relatives about their investments.[9]

At Milken's sentencing, Judge Kimba Wood told him:

You were willing to commit only crimes that were unlikely to be detected.... When a man of your power in the financial world... repeatedly conspires to violate, and violates, securities and tax business in order to achieve more power and wealth for himself... a significant prison term is required.[23]

Milken's sentence was later reduced to two years from ten; he served 22 months.[29][30]

2013 SEC investigation[edit] In February 2013, the SEC announced that they were investigating whether or not Milken violated his lifetime ban from the securities industry. The investigation was based around Milken allegedly providing investment advice through Guggenheim Partners.[31] Since 2011, the SEC have been investigating Guggenheim’s relationship with client Milken.[32]

Philanthropic activities[edit]

This section of a biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (January 2011) In 1982, Milken and his brother Lowell founded the Milken Family Foundation to support medical research and education. Through the Milken Educator Awards (founded in 1985), the MFF has awarded a total of more than $60 million to more than 2,500 teachers. Among the other initiatives of the Milken Family Foundation are the:

Milken Institute, a non-profit, non-partisan economic think tank whose scholars publish research papers and conduct conferences on global and regional economies, human capital, demographics and capital markets. Each spring, the Institute hosts a Global Conference in Los Angeles; Milken Scholars, a program that provides outstanding high school graduates with a commitment of four years of college financial assistance, counseling, volunteer opportunities and preparation for graduate studies; TAP: The System for Teacher and Student Advancement, a comprehensive research-based strategy to attract, develop, motivate and retain high-quality teachers for America's schools; Mike's Math Club, a curriculum enrichment program that aims to shows students in inner-city elementary schools that math is not only useful, but entertaining; Festival for Youth, a school-based community service program that engages students in yearlong service projects to help build vibrant communities; and the Milken Family Foundation Epilepsy Research Awards Program, which funds research to understand and conquer epilepsy. Upon his release from prison in 1993, Milken founded the Prostate Cancer Foundation for prostate cancer research, which by 2010 was "the largest philanthropic source of funds for research into prostate cancer."[33] Milken himself was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in the same month he was released.[34] His cancer is currently in remission. The Prostate Cancer Foundation works closely with Major League Baseball through its Home Run Challenge program to promote awareness of prostate cancer and raise money for medical research. Each season in the weeks leading up to Father's Day, Milken visits many ballparks and appears on TV and radio broadcasts during the games.

In 2003, Milken launched a Washington, D.C.-based think tank called FasterCures, which seeks greater efficiency in researching all serious diseases. A key initiative of FasterCures is BioBank Central, which is advancing life sciences research in areas as diverse as autism, psoriasis and breast cancer.[34]

The Melanoma Research Alliance (MRA) was launched in 2007 to support innovative translational studies that advance the diagnosis, staging and treatment of melanoma, a skin cancer.

Fortune magazine called Milken "The Man Who Changed Medicine" in a 2004 cover story on his philanthropy.[5]

In September 2012, Milken and the director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Francis Collins, jointly hosted 1,000 senior medical scientists, patients, activists, philanthropists, regulators, and members of Congress at a three-day conference[35] to demonstrate the return on investment in medical research.

On March 11, 2014, President Steven Knapp of the The George Washington University in Washington, D.C. announced the university would rename its public health school after Milken as a result of a total of $80 million in gifts, $50 million from the Milken Institute and the Milken Family Foundation and $30 million gift from Viacom chairman Sumner Redstone. These gifts are designated to research and scholarship on public health issues.[36]

Personal life[edit] Milken is married to the former Lori Anne Hackel, whom he has known since grade school.[37] They have three children.[38]