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American billionaire businessman and investor
Ronald Owen Perelman is an American banker, businessman, investor, and philanthropist. MacAndrews & Forbes Incorporated, his company, has invested in companies with interests in groceries, cigars, licorice, makeup, cars, photography, television, camping supplies, security, gaming, jewelry, banks, and comic book publishing. Perelman holds significant shares in companies such as Deluxe Entertainment, Revlon, SIGA Technologies, RetailMeNot, Merisant, Scantron, Scientific Games Corporation, Valassis, vTv Therapeutics and Harland Clarke. He previously owned a majority of shares in AM General, but i
Perelman was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on January 1, 1943, the son of Ruth (née Caplan) and Raymond G. Perelman. He was raised in a Jewish family in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, and is the grandson of Litvak (Lithuanian Jewish) immigrants. With family members, he managed the American Paper Products Corporation. Raymond eventually left the company and bought Belmont Iron Works, a manufacturer of structural steel. Perelman graduated from The Haverford School in Haverford, Pennsylvania, in 1962. From his father, Perelman learned the fundamentals of business. By the time Ronald turned eleven years old he regularly sat in on board meetings of his father's company. A 2006 article published in the Forbes 400 discusses their rough relationship in detail. Perelman first attended the Villanova School of Business for one semester before transferring to the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where he majored in business, graduating in 1964. He earned his MBA from Wharton in 1966. In September 2017, Forbes magazine named Perelman as one of the "100 Greatest Living Business Minds".
Perelman has been married five times. He married Sterling Bank heiress Faith Golding in 1965 and they divorced in 1984. His marriage to gossip columnist Claudia Cohen lasted from 1985 to 1994. He married socialite Patricia Duff in 1995 and divorced in 1996. He was married to actress Ellen Barkin from 2000 to 2006. On October 13, 2010, Perelman married Dr. Anna Chapman, a Harvard University-educated psychiatrist.
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