Simon Forms Venture With Australia Firm : To Focus on Real Estate and Financial Services
Former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, moving forward quickly on previously announced plans, said Thursday that he has formed a Los Angeles-based investment company in partnership with Ariadne Australia, a corporate takeover company in Brisbane.
The new company, International Financial Services, will have initial capital of $200 million and will specialize in acquiring real estate and financial services companies in the United States, according to officials at both companies.
The joint venture is the latest move by a group of Simon-led investors who in recent weeks have revealed plans to buy World Trade Bank in Beverly Hills and Honolulu Federal Savings & Loan in Hawaii. They have also formed a Los Angeles-based real estate investment and development company, C. A. Partners.
Simon, who was secretary of the Treasury in the mid-1970s, said in a recent interview that he wants to build a “mosaic of financial institutions” based on the West Coast that will capitalize on the burgeoning growth in financial services and in Far East trade. Simon has become one of America’s richest men in recent years through his activities as a corporate buyout strategist.
‘Figure to Be Counted’
Ariadne is a fast-growing firm headed by 44-year-old financier Bruce R. Judge, a takeover and turnaround specialist who is well known in Australian financial circles, according to Gerald Watkins, Australian deputy consul general in Los Angeles.
Judge “is a relative newcomer to the field, but he is certainly a figure to be counted,” Watkins said.
Ariadne has assets of about $1 billion and annual revenue of $2 billion (both figures in U.S. dollars). Through a subsidiary, it owns large blocks of stock in several American companies, including 49% of Energy & Environmental Research in Newport Beach and 42% of KDI, a diversified manufacturing and distribution company in Cincinnati.
International Financial Services will manage Ariadne’s U.S. investments and will be the umbrella company for both C. A. Partners and for H. F. Holdings, the company that Simon formed to manage his savings and loan investments. International Financial Services has hired Alfred W. Roberts, vice chairman of Arthur Young & Co., the large accounting firm, as its chief financial officer.
