Results tagged “scroogemcduck”

Yesterday, it was reported that Mayor Michael Bloomberg would buy back 20% of his company, Bloomberg L.P., from Merrill Lynch for $4.5 billion. That figure finally gave the media more of an idea of his wealth.

The Bancroft family, who owns a controlling interest in publicly traded Dow Jones & Co., Inc., is considering an unsolicited bid from Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. to purchase The Wall Street Journal. Trading in Dow Jones shares was halted temporarily after their price jumped 57%, or nearly $21 during the day. Murdoch is reportedly offering $60 a share for the company, which would make the total offer worth approximately $5 billion. The New York Times reported last week that he loses approximately $70 million annually running the NY Post, which seems to confirm our suspicion he secretly swims Scrooge McDuck-style in a huge vault of cash.

Even our beloved fictional characters aren't safe from Forbes Money-Obsessed Lists. Forbes just released their Richest Fictional 15, and while presumed "fictional" Santa tops the list with infinity dollars, two of our city's finest -- SUNY alum Daddy Warbucks ($27.3 billion) and Arthur Bach ($2 Billion) -- come in 2nd and 11th. Other noted billionaires include Scrooge McDuck, who's presently "hiding due to fear of bird flu," the reclusive Willy Wonka who "was hit hard by low-carb diet craze," and Mr. Burns who "credits longevity to Satan." Six of the characters, such as the last-ranked wizard Lucius Malfoy (who invests in both Halliburton and Wal-Mart -- why are we not surprised? Excellent profile of his muggle money stock portfolio), inherited their fortunes, whereas two made their billions in banking.

As expected, many people took the opportunity to call the Mayor yesterday, after he bragged how he took calls from constituents at home on his listed-in-the-phonebook number. The NY Times reports that the Mayor's communications director said Bloomberg's townhouse received "more calls than we can count" while the Post was able to fix the uncountable number as "more than 100 calls." A Post reporter tried calling a few times, but only got a busy signal or Bloomberg's voicemail. However the Times found a woman who thinks she got through to the mayor but he claimed he wasn't. Toby Cohen thinks the Mayor is dodging her housing complaint, as she's even tried to hand deliver a letter. She said, "A man answered the phone and insisted he was not the mayor. But I'm quite sure it was him because I recognized his voice." Yeah, who could mistake that sorta nasal whine...that lulling monotone that's better than Ambien. Anyway, Gothamist was surprised to hear that the Mayor would answer the phone himself, because we imagine he'd be too busy swimming in his Scrooge McDuck vault of money. If he really wanted to make himself available to his people, we'd have his cellphone number!

Aha: It seems that Cablevision bid for the MTA's West Side railyards is actually $40 million more than the Jets' $720 million bid. But the most interesting - and aggressive - thing about the Cablevision bid is that it's for $760 million in cash, whether or not the city allows them to rezone for the development they'd like. Now, that's the "Damn!" moment. And we knew corporations had Scrooge McDuck-type vaults of cash to swim in! Gothamist will guess that that next step in this game of "Mine is bigger than yours" will include unicorns and ligers.

Gothamist has to say congratulations to the Mayor. We'll be carefully following what happens next. The poll was at the beginning of June, before the Mayor's announced noise code changes. Quinnipiac, get on that! We'd also like pre-, during- and post-Convention thoughts on the Mayor's approval, too. Gothamist on Bloomberg's approval ratings for the past year plus.