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Shaquille O’Neal forms real estate investment company September 19, 2006 • Basketball star Shaquille O’Neal started a real estate company to invest in projects including a $1 billion residential, hotel and retail complex in Miami, where he plays for the Heat. O’Neal, 34, has purchased properties valued at more than $50 million, primarily in California, Florida, New Jersey and Texas, during his 14-year career with the National Basketball Association. His new company, known as the O’Neal Group, will be based in Miami, Christopher Handy, the firm’s executive vice president, said today. O’Neal follows athletes such as tennis stars Andre Agassi and his wife Steffi Graf, who this month announced plans to invest in a ski resort in Idaho. Earvin “Magic”‘ Johnson, like O’Neal a Los Angeles Lakers veteran, has a company that finances developments in urban areas, and former boxing champion Oscar De La Hoya last year formed a real estate investment company. “It’s refreshing to see these athletes getting involved in real estate beyond the traditional bar and nightclub, where athletes have lost as much money as they’ve made,” said David M. Carter, executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. Real estate is “a pretty good play, especially if you’re a young man like Shaquille O’Neal and can let it run its course and don’t need the immediate upside tomorrow.” O’Neal, who has a five-year, $100 million contract with the Heat through the 2009-2010 season, has been involved in numerous off-court projects, recording five music albums, launching his own clothing line, acting in three movies, and working for police departments in Los Angeles and Miami after the NBA season ends. The O’Neal Group’s first project will be Metropolitan Miami, also known as The Met, which is being built by Miami- based MDM Development Group. The Met will have 1,100 residential units, including the 866-foot Met 3, the tallest residential tower south of New York, as well as an office tower, a hotel and the area’s first Whole Foods market. O’Neal plans to open a 24-Hour Fitness/Shaq Ultra Sport fitness center at The Met. Handy wouldn’t disclose financial terms of O’Neal’s involvement in The Met other than to say that it’s “not just a spokesman deal.” In addition to a financial stake in the project, the O’Neal Group will assist with the sales and marketing, the company said. The Met “will be a big part of the rebirth and revitalization of downtown Miami” and is part of O’Neal’s focus on projects that combine residential and retail, improving tenants’ quality of life, Handy said in an interview. “His charge to us is, `Real estate for me should not just be about making money.’” The Met likely will get its first residents in mid-2007, and the project likely will be completed by the end of 2009, said Luis Pulenta, principal of MDM Development. O’Neal’s “involvement is a huge addition to what we are doing and what is happening in downtown Miami,” Pulenta said in an interview. “We feel he’s going to be a huge element in promoting and making things happen even faster.” The 7-foot-1 O’Neal won his fourth NBA championship last season and is third in a Sports Illustrated ranking of the top-earning U.S. athletes for 2005, trailing only professional golfers Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson. O’Neal spent the past two seasons in Miami after leading the Los Angeles Lakers to three NBA championships in eight years with the team. He’s been voted an All-Star 13 times in his 14-year career and has averaged 26.3 points and 11.8 rebounds for the Heat, Lakers and Orlando Magic. Handy’s Las Vegas-based agency, Premier Integrated Sports Management, also represents Agassi and Graf as well as professional golfer Adam Scott. Source: www.Bloomberg.com
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