A leveraged buyout (or LBO, or highly leveraged transaction (HLT), or "bootstrap" transaction) occurs when an investor, typically a financial sponsor, acquires a controlling interest in a company's equity and where a significant percentage of the purchase price is financed through leverage (borrowing). The assets of the acquired company are used as collateral for the borrowed capital, sometimes with assets of the acquiring company. Typically, leveraged buyout uses a combination of various debt instruments from bank and debt capital markets. The bonds or other paper issued for leveraged buyouts are commonly considered not to be investment grade because of the significant risks involved.^[1] If the company subsequently defaults on its debts, the LBO transaction will frequently be challenged by creditors or a bankruptcy trustee under a theory of fraudulent transfer.^[2]

Companies of all sizes and industries have been the target of leveraged buyout transactions, although because of the importance of debt and the ability of the acquired firm to make regular loan payments after the completion of a leveraged buyout, some features of potential target firms make for more attractive leverage buyout candidates, including:

• Low existing debt loads;
• A multi-year history of stable and recurring cash flows;
• Hard assets (property, plant and equipment, inventory, receivables) that may be used as collateral for lower cost secured debt;
• The potential for new management to make operational or other improvements to the firm to boost cash flows, such as workforce reductions or eliminations;
• Market conditions and perceptions that depress the valuation or stock price.

Characteristics[link]

Diagram of the basic structure of a generic leveraged buyout transaction

Leveraged buyouts involve institutional investors and financial sponsors (like a private equity firm) making large acquisitions without committing all the capital required for the acquisition. To do this, a financial sponsor will raise acquisition debt (by issuing bonds or securing a loan) which is ultimately secured upon the acquisition target and also looks to the cash flows of the acquisition target to make interest and principal payments. Acquisition debt in an LBO is therefore usually non-recourse to the financial sponsor and to the equity fund that the financial sponsor manages. Furthermore, unlike in a hedge fund, where debt raised to purchase certain securities is also collateralized by the fund's other securities, the acquisition debt in an LBO is recourse only to the company purchased in a particular LBO transaction. Therefore, an LBO transaction's financial structure is particularly attractive to a fund's limited partners, allowing them the benefits of leverage but greatly limiting the degree of recourse of that leverage.^[2]

This kind of acquisition brings leverage benefits to an LBO's financial sponsor in two ways: (1) the investor itself only needs to provide a fraction of the capital for the acquisition, and (2) assuming the economic internal rate of return on the investment (taking into account expected exit proceeds) exceeds the weighted average interest rate on the acquisition debt, returns to the financial sponsor will be significantly enhanced.^[2]

As transaction sizes grow, the equity component of the purchase price can be provided by multiple financial sponsors "co-investing" to come up with the needed equity for a purchase. Likewise, multiple lenders may band together in a "syndicate" to jointly provide the debt required to fund the transaction. Today, larger transactions are dominated by dedicated private equity firms and a limited number of large banks with "financial sponsors" groups.

As a percentage of the purchase price for a leverage buyout target, the amount of debt used to finance a transaction varies according to the financial condition and history of the acquisition target, market conditions, the willingness of lenders to extend credit (both to the LBO's financial sponsors and the company to be acquired) as well as the interest costs and the ability of the company to cover those costs. Typically the debt portion of a LBO ranges from 50%-85% of the purchase price, but in some cases debt may represent upwards of 95% of purchase price. Between 2000-2005 debt averaged between 59.4% and 67.9% of total purchase price for LBOs in the United States.^[3]

To finance LBO's, private-equity firms usually issue some combination of syndicated loans and high-yield bonds. Smaller transactions may also be financed with mezzanine debt from insurance companies or specialty lenders. Syndicated loans are typically arranged by investment banks and financed by commercial banks and loan fund managers, such as mutual funds, hedge funds, credit opportunity investors and structured finance vehicles. The commercial banks typically provide revolving credits that provide issuers with liquidity and cash flow while fund managers generally provided funded term loans that are used to finance the LBO. These loans tend to be senior secured, floating-rate instruments pegged to the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). They are typically pre-payable at the option of the issuer, though in some cases modest prepayment fees apply.^[4] High-yield bonds, meanwhile, are also underwritten by investment banks but are financed by a combination of retail and institutional credit investors, including high-yield mutual funds, hedge funds, credit opportunities and other institutional accounts. High-yield bonds tend to be fixed-rate instruments. Most are unsecured, though in some cases issuers will sell senior secured notes. The bonds usually have no-call periods of 3–5 years and then high prepayment fees thereafter. Issuers, however, will in many cases have a "claw-back option" that allows them to repay some percentage during the no-call period (usually 35%) with equity proceeds.

Another source of financing for LBO's is seller's notes, which are provided in some cases by the entity as a way to facilitate the transaction.

History[link]

Origins[link]

The first leveraged buyout may have been the purchase by McLean Industries, Inc. of Pan-Atlantic Steamship Company in January 1955 and Waterman Steamship Corporation in May 1955.^[5] Under the terms of that transaction, McLean borrowed $42 million and raised an additional $7 million through an issue of preferred stock. When the deal closed, $20 million of Waterman cash and assets were used to retire $20 million of the loan debt.^[6]

Similar to the approach employed in the McLean transaction, the use of publicly traded holding companies as investment vehicles to acquire portfolios of investments in corporate assets was a relatively new trend in the 1960s, popularized by the likes of Warren Buffett (Berkshire Hathaway) and Victor Posner (DWG Corporation), and later adopted by Nelson Peltz (Triarc), Saul Steinberg (Reliance Insurance) and Gerry Schwartz (Onex Corporation). These investment vehicles would utilize a number of the same tactics and target the same type of companies as more traditional leveraged buyouts and in many ways could be considered a forerunner of the later private equity firms. In fact it is Posner who is often credited with coining the term "leveraged buyout" or "LBO"^[7]

The leveraged buyout boom of the 1980s was conceived by a number of corporate financiers, most notably Jerome Kohlberg, Jr. and later his protégé Henry Kravis. Working for Bear Stearns at the time, Kohlberg and Kravis, along with Kravis' cousin George Roberts, began a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments. Many of the target companies lacked a viable or attractive exit for their founders, as they were too small to be taken public and the founders were reluctant to sell out to competitors. Thus a sale to a financial buyer might prove attractive. Their acquisition of Orkin Exterminating Company in 1964 is among the first significant leveraged buyout transactions.^{[8][unreliable source?]}. In the following years the three Bear Stearns bankers would complete a series of buyouts including Stern Metals (1965), Incom (a division of Rockwood International, 1971), Cobblers Industries (1971), and Boren Clay (1973) as well as Thompson Wire, Eagle Motors and Barrows through their investment in Stern Metals.^[9] By 1976, tensions had built up between Bear Stearns and Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts leading to their departure and the formation of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in that year.

1980s[link]

In January 1982, former US Secretary of the Treasury William Simon and a group of investors acquired Gibson Greetings, a producer of greeting cards, for $80 million, of which only $1 million was rumored to have been contributed by the investors. By mid-1983, just sixteen months after the original deal, Gibson completed a $290 million IPO and Simon made approximately $66 million.^[10] The success of the Gibson Greetings investment attracted the attention of the wider media to the nascent boom in leveraged buyouts.^[11] Between 1979 and 1989, it was estimated that there were over 2,000 leveraged buyouts valued in excess of $250 million^[12]

During the 1980s, constituencies within acquired companies and the media ascribed the "corporate raid" label to many private equity investments, particularly those that featured a hostile takeover of the company, perceived asset stripping, major layoffs or other significant corporate restructuring activities. Among the most notable investors to be labeled corporate raiders in the 1980s included Carl Icahn, Victor Posner, Nelson Peltz, Robert M. Bass, T. Boone Pickens, Harold Clark Simmons, Kirk Kerkorian, Sir James Goldsmith, Saul Steinberg and Asher Edelman. Carl Icahn developed a reputation as a ruthless corporate raider after his hostile takeover of TWA in 1985.^[13][14] Many of the corporate raiders were onetime clients of Michael Milken, whose investment banking firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert helped raise blind pools of capital with which corporate raiders could make a legitimate attempt to take over a company and provided high-yield debt financing of the buyouts.^[15]

One of the final major buyouts of the 1980s proved to be its most ambitious and marked both a high water mark and a sign of the beginning of the end of the boom that had begun nearly a decade earlier. In 1989, KKR closed in on a $31.1 billion dollar takeover of RJR Nabisco. It was, at that time and for over 17 years, the largest leverage buyout in history. The event was chronicled in the book (and later the movie), Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco. KKR would eventually prevail in acquiring RJR Nabisco at $109 per share marking a dramatic increase from the original announcement that Shearson Lehman Hutton would take RJR Nabisco private at $75 per share. A fierce series of negotiations and horse-trading ensued which pitted KKR against Shearson Lehman Hutton and later Forstmann Little & Co. Many of the major banking players of the day, including Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Salomon Brothers, and Merrill Lynch were actively involved in advising and financing the parties. After Shearson Lehman's original bid, KKR quickly introduced a tender offer to obtain RJR Nabisco for $90 per share—a price that enabled it to proceed without the approval of RJR Nabisco's management. RJR's management team, working with Shearson Lehman and Salomon Brothers, submitted a bid of $112, a figure they felt certain would enable them to outflank any response by Kravis's team. KKR's final bid of $109, while a lower dollar figure, was ultimately accepted by the board of directors of RJR Nabisco.^[16] At $31.1 billion of transaction value, RJR Nabisco was by far the largest leveraged buyout in history. In 2006 and 2007, a number of leveraged buyout transactions were completed that for the first time surpassed the RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout in terms of nominal purchase price. However, adjusted for inflation, none of the leveraged buyouts of the 2006–2007 period would surpass RJR Nabisco.

By the end of the 1980s the excesses of the buyout market were beginning to show, with the bankruptcy of several large buyouts including Robert Campeau's 1988 buyout of Federated Department Stores, the 1986 buyout of the Revco drug stores, Walter Industries, FEB Trucking and Eaton Leonard. Additionally, the RJR Nabisco deal was showing signs of strain, leading to a recapitalization in 1990 that involved the contribution of $1.7 billion of new equity from KKR.^[17]

Drexel Burnham Lambert was the investment bank most responsible for the boom in private equity during the 1980s due to its leadership in the issuance of high-yield debt.

Drexel reached an agreement with the government in which it pleaded nolo contendere (no contest) to six felonies—three counts of stock parking and three counts of stock manipulation.^[18] It also agreed to pay a fine of $650 million—at the time, the largest fine ever levied under securities laws. Milken left the firm after his own indictment in March 1989.^[19] On February 13, 1990 after being advised by United States Secretary of the Treasury Nicholas F. Brady, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the New York Stock Exchange, and the Federal Reserve, Drexel Burnham Lambert officially filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.^[19]

Age of the mega-buyout[link]

The combination of decreasing interest rates, loosening lending standards and regulatory changes for publicly traded companies (specifically the Sarbanes–Oxley Act) would set the stage for the largest boom private equity had seen.^[2] Marked by the buyout of Dex Media in 2002, large multi-billion dollar U.S. buyouts could once again obtain significant high yield debt financing and larger transactions could be completed. By 2004 and 2005, major buyouts were once again becoming common, including the acquisitions of Toys "R" Us,^[20] The Hertz Corporation,^[21][22] Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer^[23] and SunGard^[24] in 2005.

As 2005 ended and 2006 began, new "largest buyout" records were set and surpassed several times with nine of the top ten buyouts at the end of 2007 having been announced in an 18-month window from the beginning of 2006 through the middle of 2007. In 2006, private equity firms bought 654 U.S. companies for $375 billion, representing 18 times the level of transactions closed in 2003.^[25] Additionally, U.S. based private equity firms raised $215.4 billion in investor commitments to 322 funds, surpassing the previous record set in 2000 by 22% and 33% higher than the 2005 fundraising total^[26] The following year, despite the onset of turmoil in the credit markets in the summer, saw yet another record year of fundraising with $302 billion of investor commitments to 415 funds^[27] Among the mega-buyouts completed during the 2006 to 2007 boom were: Equity Office Properties, HCA,^[28] Alliance Boots^[29] and TXU.^[30]

In July 2007, turmoil that had been affecting the mortgage markets spilled over into the leveraged finance and high-yield debt markets.^[31][32] The markets had been highly robust during the first six months of 2007, with highly issuer friendly developments including PIK and PIK Toggle (interest is "Payable In Kind") and covenant light debt widely available to finance large leveraged buyouts. July and August saw a notable slowdown in issuance levels in the high yield and leveraged loan markets with only few issuers accessing the market. Uncertain market conditions led to a significant widening of yield spreads, which coupled with the typical summer slowdown led to many companies and investment banks to put their plans to issue debt on hold until the autumn. However, the expected rebound in the market after Labor Day 2007 did not materialize and the lack of market confidence prevented deals from pricing. By the end of September, the full extent of the credit situation became obvious as major lenders including Citigroup and UBS AG announced major writedowns due to credit losses. The leveraged finance markets came to a near standstill.^[33] As 2007 ended and 2008 began, it was clear that lending standards had tightened and the era of "mega-buyouts" had come to an end. Nevertheless, private equity continues to be a large and active asset class and the private equity firms, with hundreds of billions of dollars of committed capital from investors are looking to deploy capital in new and different transactions.

Rationale[link]

The purposes of debt financing for leveraged buyouts are twofold:

1. The use of debt increases (leverages) the financial return to the private equity sponsor. Under the Modigliani-Miller theorem,^[34] the total return of an asset to its owners, all else being equal and within strict restrictive assumptions, is unaffected by the structure of its financing. As the debt in an LBO has a relatively fixed, albeit high, cost of capital, any returns in excess of this cost of capital flow through to the equity.^[2]
2. The tax shield of the acquisition debt, according to the Modigliani-Miller theorem with taxes, increases the value of the firm. This enables the private equity sponsor to pay a higher price than would otherwise be possible. Because income flowing through to equity is taxed, while interest payments to debt are not, the capitalized value of cash flowing to debt is greater than the same cash stream flowing to equity.^[2]

Germany currently introduces new tax laws, taxing parts of the cash flow before debt interest deduction. The motivation for the change is to discourage leveraged buyouts by reducing the tax shield effectiveness.^{[citation needed]}

Historically, many LBOs in the 1980s and 1990s focused on reducing wasteful expenditures by corporate managers whose interests were not aligned with shareholders.^{[citation needed]} After a major corporate restructuring, which may involve selling off portions of the company and severe staff reductions, the entity would likely be producing a higher income stream.^{[citation needed]} Because this type of management arbitrage and easy restructuring has largely been accomplished, LBOs today focus more on growth and complicated financial engineering to achieve their returns. Most leveraged buyout firms look to achieve an internal rate of return in excess of 20%.

Management buyouts[link]

A special case of a leveraged acquisition is a management buyout (MBO), which occurs when a company's managers buy or acquire a large part of the company. The goal of an MBO may be to strengthen the managers' interest in the success of the company. In most cases when the company is initially listed, the management will then make it private. MBOs have assumed an important role in corporate restructurings beside mergers and acquisitions. Key considerations in an MBO are fairness to shareholders, price, the future business plan, and legal and tax issues. One recent criticism of MBOs is that they create a conflict of interest—an incentive is created for managers to mismanage (or not manage as efficiently) a company, thereby depressing its stock price, and profiting handsomely by implementing effective management after the successful MBO, as Paul Newman's character attempted in the Coen brothers' film The Hudsucker Proxy.

The incentive to artificially reduce share price extends beyond management buyouts.

It may be fairly easy for a top executive to reduce the price of his/her company's stock - due to information asymmetry. The executive can accelerate accounting of expected expenses, delay accounting of expected revenue, engage in off balance sheet transactions to make the company's profitability appear temporarily poorer, or simply promote and report severely conservative (e.g. pessimistic) estimates of future earnings. Such seemingly adverse earnings news will be likely to (at least temporarily) reduce share price. (This is again due to information asymmetries since it is more common for top executives to do everything they can to window dress their company's earnings forecasts).

A reduced share price makes a company an easier takeover target. When the company gets bought out (or taken private) - at a dramatically lower price - the takeover artist gains a windfall from the former top executive's actions to surreptitiously reduce share price. This can represent tens of billions of dollars (questionably) transferred from previous shareholders to the takeover artist. The former top executive is then rewarded with a golden parachute for presiding over the firesale that can sometimes be in the hundreds of millions of dollars for one or two years of work. (This is nevertheless an excellent bargain for the takeover artist, who will tend to benefit from developing a reputation of being very generous to parting top executives).

Similar issues occur when a publicly held asset or non-profit organization undergoes privatization. Top executives often reap tremendous monetary benefits when a government owned or non-profit entity is sold to private hands. Just as in the example above, they can facilitate this process by making the entity appear to be in financial crisis - this reduces the sale price (to the profit of the purchaser), and makes non-profits and governments more likely to sell. Ironically, it can also contribute to a public perception that private entities are more efficiently run reinforcing the political will to sell off public assets.

Again, due to asymmetric information, policy makers and the general public see a government owned firm that was a financial 'disaster' - miraculously turned around by the private sector (and typically resold) within a few years.

Nevertheless, the incentive to artificially reduce the share price of a firm is higher for management buyouts, than for other forms of takeovers or LBOs.

Failures[link]

Some LBOs in the 1980s and 1990s resulted in corporate bankruptcy, such as Robert Campeau's 1988 buyout of Federated Department Stores and the 1986 buyout of the Revco drug stores. The failure of the Federated buyout was a result of excessive debt financing, comprising about 97% of the total consideration, which led to large interest payments that exceeded the company's operating cash flow. In response to the threat of LBOs, certain companies adopted a number of techniques, such as the poison pill, to protect them against hostile takeovers by effectively self-destructing the company if it were to be taken over.

The inability to repay debt in an LBO can be caused by initial overpricing of the target firm and/or its assets. Because LBO funds often attempt to increase the value of an acquired company by liquidating certain assets or selling underperforming business units, the bought-out firm may face insolvency as depleted operating revenues become insufficient to repay the debt. Over-optimistic forecasts of the revenues of the target company may also lead to financial distress after acquisition. Some courts have found that LBO debt constitutes a fraudulent transfer under U.S. insolvency law if it is determined to be the cause of the acquired firm's failure.^{[2] [35]}

The outcome of litigation attacking a leveraged buyout as a fraudulent transfer will generally turn on the financial condition of the target at the time of the transaction—that is, whether the risk of failure was substantial and known at the time of the LBO, or whether subsequent unforeseeable events led to the failure.^[2] The analysis historically depended on "dueling" expert witnesses and was notoriously subjective, expensive, and unpredictable.^[2] However, courts are increasingly turning toward more objective, market-based measures.^[2][36]

In addition, the Bankruptcy Code includes a so-called "safe harbor" provision, preventing bankruptcy trustees from recovering settlement payments to the bought-out shareholders.^[37] In 2009, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that such settlement payments could not be avoided, irrespective of whether they occurred in an LBO of a public or private company.^[38] To the extent that public shareholders are protected, insiders and secured lenders become the primary targets of fraudulent transfer actions.^[2]

Secondary buyouts[link]

A secondary buyout is a form of leveraged buyout where both the buyer and the seller are private equity firms or financial sponsors (i.e. a leveraged buyout of a company that was acquired through a leveraged buyout). A secondary buyout will often provide a clean break for the selling private equity firms and its limited partner investors. Historically, given that secondary buyouts were perceived as distressed sales by both seller and buyer, limited partner investors considered them unattractive and largely avoided them.

The increase in secondary buyout activity in 2000s was driven in large part by an increase in capital available for the leveraged buyouts. Often, selling private equity firms pursue a secondary buyout for a number of reasons:

• Sales to strategic buyers and IPOs may not be possible for niche or undersized businesses.
• Secondary buyouts may generate liquidity more quickly than other routes (i.e., IPOs).
• Some kinds of businesses—e.g., those with relatively slow growth but which generate high cash flows—may be most appealing to private equity firms than they are to public stock investors or other corporations.

Often, secondary buyouts have been successful if the investment has reached an age where it is necessary or desirable to sell rather than hold the investment further or where the investment had already generated significant value for the selling firm.^[39]

Secondary buyouts differ from secondaries or secondary market purchases which typically involve the acquisition of portfolios of private equity assets including limited partnership stakes and direct investments in corporate securities.

LBO Analysis[link]

This unreferenced section requires citations to ensure verifiability.

An LBO analysis is designed to estimate the current value of a company to a financial buyer, based on the company's forecasted financial performance. LBO analysis typically builds upon a medium-term forecast (typical investment horizon for financial sponsors is 3–7 years) to project future operating results.

The analysis works similarly, in many respects, to a discounted cash flow. The analysis will project the debt repaid by the company during the forecast period and make assumptions about the multiple of earnings at which the business will be sold after a period of time. By targeting returns consistent with historical targets for private equity firms, the LBO analysis will provide an estimate of what purchase price a buyer would be willing to pay to achieve those returns.

Popular references[link]

This section requires expansion.

LBOs form the basis of several cultural works. In addition to the aforementioned Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco and the film adaptation, based on actual events, a fictional LBO is the basis of the 1963 Japanese film High and Low.

See also[link]

Look up leveraged buyout in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Bootstrap funding
• Divisional buyout
• Envy ratio
• History of private equity and venture capital
• List of private equity firms

Notes[link]

External links[link]

• Investopedia definition - Leveraged Buyout
• Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth - Note on Leveraged Buyouts

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Henry R. Kravis
Henry R. Kravis at the World Economic Forum in 2009
Born	(1944-01-06)January 6, 1944 Tulsa, Oklahoma, U.S.
Residence	New York City, New York, U.S.[1] Palm Beach, Florida, U.S.
Nationality	United States
Alma mater	Claremont McKenna College (B.A.) Columbia Business School (M.B.A.)
Occupation	Founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
Net worth	$3.7 billion (Sept. 2011)[2]
Children	2[3]

Henry R. Kravis (born January 6, 1944) is an American businessman and private equity investor. He is the co-founder of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., a private equity firm with over $62 billion in assets as of 2011. He has an estimated net worth of $3.7 billion as of September 2011, ranked by Forbes as the 88th richest man in America.^[4] He mainly lives in New York City and has a residence in Palm Beach, Florida.

Early life[link]

Kravis was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the son of Bessie (Roberts) and Raymond Kravis, a successful Tulsa oil engineer who had been a business partner of Joseph P. Kennedy. Kravis began his education at the Eaglebrook School, ('60) followed by high school at the Loomis Chaffee School. He then majored in economics at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California and graduated in 1967 before going on to Columbia Business School, where he received an MBA degree in 1969.^[5]

Kravis at Bear Stearns[link]

After working at various jobs in New York City's financial sector, he and his first cousin, George R. Roberts, joined the staff of Bear Stearns. Kravis and Roberts share the same grandfather, an immigrant from Russia.^{[citation needed]} There, they worked under the corporate finance manager, Jerome Kohlberg, Jr.. They both became partners at Bear Stearns at a very young age, 30 and 31.

Working for Bear Stearns in the late 1960s and early 1970s, Kravis, alongside Kohlberg and Roberts began a series of what they described as "bootstrap" investments. Kohlberg's acquisition of Orkin Exterminating Company in 1964 is among the first significant leveraged buyout transactions.^[6] In the following years Kohlberg and later Kravis and Roberts would complete a series of buyouts including Stern Metals (1965), Incom (a division of Rockwood International, 1971), Cobblers Industries (1971), and Boren Clay (1973) as well as Thompson Wire, Eagle Motors and Barrows through their investment in Stern Metals. Although they had a number of highly successful investments, the $27 million investment in Cobblers ended in bankruptcy.^[7] Kravis and his associates created a series of limited partnerships to acquire these various corporations, ones they judged were performing well below their sales and profit potential or where there were untapped financial assets that could be monetized. In most cases, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co put up ten percent of the acquisition price from its own funds and borrowed the rest from investors by issuing high-yield bonds.^[8]

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts[link]

By 1976, tensions had built up between Bear Stearns and the trio of Kohlberg, Kravis and Roberts leading to their departure and the formation of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts in that year. Most notably, Bear Stearns executive Cy Lewis had rejected repeated proposals to form a dedicated investment fund within Bear Stearns and Lewis took exception to the amount of time spent on outside activities.^[9]

Early investors in KKR included the Hillman Family and the Griffith family (who are also large shareholders in MGM and Time-Warner)^[10] By 1978, with the revision of the ERISA regulations, the nascent KKR was successful in raising its first institutional fund with approximately $30 million of investor commitments.^[11]

In 1987, Jerome Kohlberg, Jr. resigned from KKR, and Henry Kravis and George Roberts continued to lead the firm. Under Kravis and Roberts the firm was responsible for the 1988 leveraged buyout of RJR Nabisco. At a cost of $31.4 billion,^[12] it was then the highest price ever paid for a commercial enterprise. The publicity surrounding the event led to the story being dramatized in the book and film, Barbarians at the Gate. In early 1995, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co divested its remaining holdings in RJR Nabisco.

The list of companies in which Henry Kravis's KKR has invested over the years includes health care provider Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), TXU,^[13] Playtex, Beatrice Foods,^[14] Safeway,^[15] Duracell, Toys "R" Us,^[16] Borden, First Data^[17] and Regal Entertainment Group.^[18][19]

Personal life[link]

Kravis has been married three times. His first marriage was to Helene Diane Shulman (deceased in 1997). They had three children before their marriage ended in divorce in the early eighties. Their 19-year-old son, Harrison, was killed in an automobile accident in 1991 and he has two remaining children, Robert R. Kravis and Kimberly Kravis Schulhof, both of whom are now in their mid-thirties.

He later married New York designer Carolyne Roehm (born Carolyne Jane Smith) in 1985, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1993.^[20] The home decorated for the couple by Robert Denning and Vincent Fourcade was parodied in the 1990 movie The Bonfire of the Vanities.^[21]

Kravis is currently married to a prominent Canadian economist, Marie-Josée Drouin, and former columnist and TV personality in Canada. She also sits on the boards of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the Robin Hood Foundation, and is the president of the Museum of Modern Art board of directors.^[22]

Kravis currently owns homes in New York, NY; Southampton, New York; Palm Beach, Florida; Paris, France; Meeker, CO; and Sharon, CT.^[23]

Henry has one older brother, George R. Kravis, who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma. George Kravis owned radio station KRAV for a number of years before selling the station.

Politics[link]

A supporter of Republican politics, he was a supporter and fundraiser for President George W. Bush and John McCain. He was also a major contributor to the 1992 re-election campaign of President George H. W. Bush. In 1997, Henry Kravis joined with Lewis Eisenberg to establish the Republican Leadership Council.

Kravis has been subjected to criticism from various liberal campaigns, most notably "War on Greed," which attempts to document his lifestyle in an effort to force legislative changes in relation to the taxation of private equity, specifically the carried interest earned by private equity firms.^[24]

Philanthropy and Public positions[link]

The Henry R. Kravis Prize in Leadership identifies extraordinary leaders in the nonprofit sector, celebrates their accomplishments and shares their best practices with others.^[25] The Prize is presented and administered by Claremont McKenna College (CMC) and Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis. Marie-Josée Kravis, an economist, is a senior fellow of the Hudson Institute. Henry R. Kravis is an alumnus and trustee of Claremont McKenna College. The Prize is affiliated with the Kravis Leadership Institute, a research institute at Claremont McKenna College.^[26]

Established in 2006, the Kravis Prize chooses an annual recipient who has demonstrated bold and visionary leadership within the nonprofit sector. A formal award ceremony celebrates the recipient's accomplishments, and $250,000 is directed to a nonprofit organization designated by the recipient. Collectively, the first five Prize recipients have impacted more than 500 million people in more than 60 countries on five continents.

The 2011 Kravis Prize was awarded to Vicky Colbert and the Escuela Nueva Foundation. Past recipients include Pratham in 2010, Sakena Yacoobi in 2009, F.A.W.E. in 2008, Sir Fazle Hasan Abed in 2007, and Roy Prosterman in 2007

Additionally, Kravis funds the Henry Kravis Leadership Institute that sponsors the Leadership Studies programs at Claremont McKenna College,^[27] and the "Henry Kravis Internships for Teachers of Color" program. He has also financed the construction of extensive facilities at Middlesex School (Kravis House), the Eaglebrook School (Kravis Dorm), Deerfield Academy (Kravis Arena), and The Loomis Chaffee School (Kravis Hall).

He is a benefactor and a past chairman of New York's public television station and sits on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. A Trustee of the Mount Sinai Medical Center, Henry and wife Marie-Josée Kravis donated $15 million to establish the "Center for Cardiovascular Health" as well as funding a Professorship. They have also endowed the chair in Human Oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.

He previously co-chaired with Jerry Speyer the influential Partnership for New York City, founded by David Rockefeller in 1979, and now sits on its board of directors.^[28] He created the New York City Investment Fund, a non-profit organization to create jobs and new business in New York City.

He is a Trustee of the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and is a member of the leading business group, the Business Council. He co-chairs the Columbia Business School Board of Overseers where he recently pledged a gift of $100 million to support the school's new campus project ^[29] and is a vice-chairman of Rockefeller University.

Quotations[link]

• "We've got a portfolio of companies that range all the way from hotels to television stations and cable TV companies, oil and gas, consumer products, and industrial products. If there's anything that I want to know more about, I have the opportunity. It's right in our portfolio. I can spend time at the factory or with the management and learn as much as I want. You can't get bored doing that."
• "A real entrepreneur is somebody who has no safety net underneath him or her."
• "If you don't have integrity, you have nothing. You can't buy it. You can have all the money in the world, but if you are not a moral and ethical person, you really have nothing."

Wealth[link]

With an estimated current^[update] net worth of around $3.9 billion, he is ranked by Forbes as the 281st richest person in the world.^[30] He donated The Kravis dorm to the Loomis Chaffee School, his alma mater, to house freshman boys.

See also[link]

• Kohlberg Kravis Roberts
• History of private equity and venture capital
• Private equity
• Leveraged buyout
• RJR Nabisco

References[link]

1. Henry Kravis profile Forbes 2006 ranking.

External links[link]

• Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (company website)
• KKR Private Equity Pioneers (from KKR website)
• For TXU, One of the Street’s Fabled Barbarians Is Back in the Hunt February, 2007 New York Times article profiling Kravis.
• Management: Consultants Put Aside Rivalries for New York November, 2001 NYT article on Kravis and the New York City Partnership.
• Forbes.com: Forbes World's Richest People (2005)
• Forbes 400 richest americans (2005)
• ATLAS, RIVA D. "What's An Aging 'Barbarian' To Do?." New York Times, August 26, 2001

New York Magazine article documenting Kravis and Roehm party at Metropolitan Museum of Art

• http://books.google.com/books?id=jegCAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA20&ots=AFUfxZm045&dq=is%20metropolitan%20museum%20of%20art%20%22patrons%20lounge%22%20worth%20it%3F&pg=PA20#v=onepage&q=&f=false

v t e Private equity and venture capital investors Investment strategy Buyout · Venture · Growth · Mezzanine · Secondaries History History of private equity and venture capital · Early history of private equity · Private equity in the 1980s · Private equity in the 1990s · Private equity in the 2000s Investor types Private equity investors · Venture capitalists · Corporate raiders

John Castle (born 14 January 1940) is an English actor. Castle has acted in theatre, film and television. He is well known for his role as Postumus in the 1976 BBC television adaptation of I, Claudius and for playing Geoffrey in the 1968 film, The Lion in Winter. He also played Dr. Carrasco as well as the prisoner called the Duke in the film Man of La Mancha and the villain in RoboCop 3.

Early life[link]

Castle was born in Croydon, Surrey. He was educated at Brighton College and Trinity College, Dublin, and trained for the stage at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Work[link]

Castle's first appearance was as Westmoreland onstage in Henry V on 5 June 1964, at the Open Air, Regent's Park. His first Broadway theatre appearance was in February 1970, as Jos in the short-lived musical Georgy.

In 1967 he made his screen debut as the plotting Prince Geoffrey in the big-screen adaptation of The Lion in Winter. The role garnered him much praise and set him on his way as an in-demand supporting actor in London and Hollywood. The film also launched the film careers of Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton and Nigel Terry.

Castle garnered strong reviews for his screen performances in Antony and Cleopatra and Man of La Mancha. He also starred as the corrupt antagonist in Robocop 3.

He appeared as Carruthers, the more honourable of a trio of schemers in "The Solitary Cyclist", an episode of Granada's Sherlock Holmes television series starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. His association with Sherlock Holmes continued with his role as Nigel St. Clair in the film version of The Crucifer of Blood.

In 1990 Castle starred as Superintendent George Thorne in the BBC's full cast radio adaptations of John Penn^{[disambiguation needed ]}'s novels.

Personal life[link]

Castle is married to the writer Maggie Wadey. In a biographical essay for Who's Who in the Theatre in 1981, he listed his favourite parts as Luther, Hamlet and O'Riordan.

Selected filmography[link]

Film[link]

• Blowup (1966)
• The Lion in Winter (1968) as Geoffrey
• Man of La Mancha as Dr. Carrasco/The Duke
• Antony and Cleopatra (1972)
• The Rollicking Adventures of Eliza Fraser (1976)
• Eagle's Wing (1979)
• Night Shift (1979)
• Dealers (1989)
• RoboCop 3 (1993) as Paul McDaggett
• Gods and Generals (2003)

Television[link]

• The Prisoner (1967) in "The General" episode
• Softly, Softly (1973)
• I, Claudius (1976) as Postumus
• The New Avengers (1976)
• 1990 (1977)
• The Three Hostages (1977) as Dominick Medina
• Lillie (1978)
• The Professionals
• Strangers
• Reilly, Ace of Spies
• The Crucifer of Blood as Neville St. Clair
• Tales of the Unexpected
• Agatha Christie's Poirot
• Miss Marple
• Lost Empires (with Laurence Olivier and Colin Firth)
• Inspector Morse
• Lovejoy
• Nova (2001, Public Broadcasting Service) as David Irving
• Casualty
• The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
• Spooks
• The Princes in The Tower (2005, Channel 4 production) as Dr. John Argentine
• Midsomer Murders Series 10 Episode 3 King's Crystal as Charles King

References[link]

• Who's Who in the Theatre, 17th ed, 1981

External links[link]

• John Castle at the Internet Movie Database

This article about a United Kingdom film and television actor or actress is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Bill Maher
Maher at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September 2010
Birth name	William Maher, Jr.
Born	(1956-01-20) January 20, 1956 (age 56) New York, New York, U.S.
Medium	Stand-up, television, film, books
Nationality	American
Years active	1979–present
Genres	Satire, Political satire, News satire, Observational comedy
Subject(s)	American politics, current events, American culture, pop culture, freedom of speech, environmentalism, religion, human sexuality, recreational drug use, libertarianism, American liberalism, American conservatism
Influences	Steve Allen, George Carlin, Johnny Carson, David Frost, Robert Klein, Don Rickles, Gore Vidal, Lenny Bruce
Notable works and roles	Elliot on Charlie Hoover Host of Politically Incorrect Host of Real Time with Bill Maher Religulous
Website	BillMaher.com

William "Bill" Maher, Jr. ( /ˈmɑːr/; born January 20, 1956) is an American stand-up comedian, television host, political commentator, author, and actor. Before his current role as the host of HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher, Maher hosted a similar late-night talk show called Politically Incorrect originally on Comedy Central and later on ABC.

Maher is known for his political satire and sociopolitical commentary, which targets a wide swath of topics including religion, politics, bureaucracies of many kinds, political correctness, the mass media, greed among people and persons in positions of high political and social power, and the lack of intellectual curiosity in the electorate.^[1] He supports the legalization of marijuana and same-sex marriage, and serves on the board of PETA.^[2] He is also a critic of religion and is an advisory board member of Project Reason, a foundation to promote scientific knowledge and secular values within society.^[3] In 2005, Maher ranked at number 38 on Comedy Central's 100 greatest stand-up comedians of all time.^[4] Bill Maher received a Hollywood Walk of Fame star on September 14, 2010.^[5]

Early life and education[link]

Maher was born in New York City, the son of Julie (née Berman), a nurse, and William Maher, Sr., a network news editor and radio announcer.^[6] He was raised in his Irish American father's Catholic religion, remaining unaware that his mother was Jewish until his early teenage years.^{[7][8][9][10]} Due to Maher's father's disagreement with the Catholic Church's position on birth control, he stopped taking Maher and his sister to Catholic church services when Maher was thirteen.^[11]

Maher was raised in River Vale, New Jersey, and graduated from Pascack Hills High School in Montvale in 1974. He received a B.A. in English and history from Cornell University in 1978.^[12]

Early career[link]

Maher began his career as a stand-up comedian and actor. He was host of the New York City comedy club Catch a Rising Star in 1979. Thanks to Steve Allen, he began appearing on Johnny Carson's and David Letterman's shows in 1982. He made limited television appearances including a recurring role in Sara (1985), appeared in Max Headroom (1987), two separate appearances on Murder, She Wrote (1989, 1990), a recurring role in Charlie Hoover (1991) and other productions. He has also appeared in several films, usually in a comic role. His feature film debut was in D.C. Cab (1983), and he also appeared in Ratboy (1986) Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death (1988) and Pizza Man (1991), among others.

Television career[link]

[edit] Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher

Maher assumed the host role Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher, a late-night political talk show that ran on Comedy Central from 1993 to 1997 and on ABC from 1997 to 2002. The show regularly began with a topical monologue by Maher preceding the introduction of four guests, usually a diverse group of individuals from show business, popular culture, political pundits, political consultants, authors, and occasionally news figures. The group would discuss topical issues selected by Maher, who also participated in the discussions.^[13] Jerry Seinfeld, a regular guest on the show, stated that Politically Incorrect reminded him of talk shows from the 1950s and 60s "when guests interacted with each other as much as with the host."^[14]

Politically Incorrect won an array of awards, including an Emmy Award for Outstanding Technical Direction, two CableACE awards for Best Talk Show Series, and a Genesis Award for Best Television Talk Show. Maher earned numerous award nominations for his producing, writing and hosting of Politically Incorrect, including ten Emmy nominations, two TV Guide nominations, and two Writers Guild nominations. ABC decided against renewing Maher's contract for Politically Incorrect in 2002, after he made a controversial on-air remark shortly after the September 11 attacks.^[15] He agreed with his guest, conservative pundit Dinesh D'Souza, that the 9/11 terrorists did not act in a cowardly manner (in rebuttal to President Bush's statement calling 9/11 hijackers cowards). Maher said, "We have been the cowards. Lobbing cruise missiles from two thousand miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building. Say what you want about it. Not cowardly. You're right." Maher later clarified that his comment was not anti-military in any way whatsoever, referencing his well-documented longstanding support for the American military.^[16][17][18]

In the context of the attacks, some corporate advertisers found the comment too insensitive and controversial. Several companies, including FedEx and Sears Roebuck, pulled their advertisements from the show, costing the show more than it returned.

The show was cancelled on June 16, 2002, and the Sinclair Broadcast Group had dropped the show from its ABC-affiliated stations months prior. On June 22, 2002, just six days after the cancellation of Politically Incorrect, Maher received the Los Angeles Press Club president's award (for "championing free speech"). Maher was on the board of judges one year for the PEN/Newman's Own First Amendment Award.

Maher's remarks after 9/11 were not the first time he had sparked controversy on Politically Incorrect. In the same year, Maher was widely criticized for comparing dogs to retarded children. He apologized for his comments.^[19]

[edit] Real Time with Bill Maher

In 2003, Maher became the host, co-producer and co-writer of Real Time with Bill Maher, a weekly hour-long political comedy talk show on the cable television network HBO. During an interview, Maher told Terry Gross (on NPR's Fresh Air) that he much prefers having serious and well-informed guests on his program, as opposed to the random celebrities that fleshed out his roundtable discussions on Politically Incorrect.^[20]

As with his previous show, Politically Incorrect, Maher begins Real Time with a comic opening monologue based upon current events and other topical issues. He proceeds to a one-on-one interview with a guest, either in-studio or via satellite. Following the interview, Maher sits with three panelists, usually consisting of pundits, authors, activists and journalists, for a discussion of the week's events. In the segment "New Rules" at the end of each show, Maher delivers a humorous editorial on popular culture and American politics.

In late May 2005, Alabama Congressman Spencer Bachus sent a letter to Time Warner's board of directors requesting Real Time be cancelled after remarks Maher made after noting the military had missed its recruiting goals by 42 percent. Bachus said he felt the comments were demeaning to the military and treasonous. Maher stated his highest regard and support for the troops and asked why the congressman criticized him instead of doing something about the recruitment problem.^[21]

Real Time has earned widespread praise. It has been nominated for more than ten Primetime Emmy Awards and six Writer's Guild awards. In 2007, Maher and his co-producers were awarded the Television Producer of the Year Award in Variety Television by the Producers Guild of America.^[22] Maher holds the record for the most Emmy nominations without a win, having been nominated on 22 occasions and not winning once. Eleven of the nominations were for Politically Incorrect, while nine were for Real Time. The other two were nominations for two of his HBO comedy specials: Bill Maher: I'm Swiss and Bill Maher: The Decider.^[23]

HBO announced in July 2011 the show was renewed for a tenth season.^[24]

Christine O'Donnell[link]

On September 17, 2010, Maher aired a clip of Delaware Republican Senatorial candidate Christine O'Donnell from the October 29, 1999 episode of his old show Politically Incorrect on his current show Real Time with Bill Maher,^[25][26] where she discussed that she had "dabbled in witchcraft." This was one of the most notable of numerous controversial statements by O'Donnell that made her the most covered candidate in the 2010 mid-term election cycle.^[27][28]

Political commentator[link]

Maher is a frequent commentator on various cable news networks, namely CNN, MSNBC, and HLN. Maher has regularly appeared on CNN's The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer^[29] and has also been a frequent guest on MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews,^[30] The Rachel Maddow Show^[31] and Countdown with Keith Olbermann.^[32] Maher has also appeared as a guest on HLN's The Joy Behar Show.^[33]

Maher hosted the January 13, 2006 edition of Larry King Live, on which he was a frequent guest. Maher appeared as a special guest on the June 29, 2010 edition of the show, on which CNN anchor Larry King announced his retirement.^[34] Maher co-emceed the final show of Larry King Live on December 16, 2010 with Ryan Seacrest.^[35]

Since May 2005, he has been a contributing blogger at The Huffington Post.

Views and beliefs[link]

Politics[link]

Maher and Ingrid Newkirk, founder of PETA. Maher is on the board of directors of the animal rights group.

Maher eschews political labels, referring to himself as "practical".^[36] In the past, he has described himself as a libertarian and has also referred to himself "as a progressive, as a sane person".^[37][38]

Maher favors a partial privatization of Social Security, ending corporate welfare and federal funding of non-profits, and legalization of gambling, prostitution, and marijuana. Maher is a member of the advisory boards for both the NORML and Marijuana Policy Project, organizations which support regulated legalization of marijuana.^[39][40] He describes himself as an environmentalist, and he has spoken in favor of the Kyoto treaty on global warming on his show Real Time. He often criticizes industry figures involved in environmental pollution.^[41]

Maher is a board member of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.

Before the 2004 U.S. presidential election, Maher became candid in his stated opposition to the re-election of George W. Bush and in his support for John Kerry.^[42]

Known for protesting against the demonization of the word "liberal", during the campaign Maher criticized Kerry for being ashamed of the word. On his show, the comedian has noted the paradox of people claiming they distrusted "elite" politicians while at the same time wanting elite doctors to treat them and elite lawyers to represent them in court.^[43] Maher supports the death penalty. Since the 9/11 attacks, he has endorsed the use of racial profiling at airports.^[44]

He was originally against the Iraq War, and has summarized his opinion by saying that the United States and the world have had to pay too high a price for the war. He is skeptical of Iraq surviving without civil war.^[45]

In the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Maher announced his support for Barack Obama.^[46] Although Maher welcomed Obama's electoral victory, he has subjected him to criticism once in office for not acting boldly on health care reform and other progressive issues.^[47]

On February 23, 2012, after his 'Crazy Stupid Politics' special streamed on Yahoo! Screen, Maher announced that he was contributing $1 million to Priorities USA, the Obama SuperPAC.^[48][49]

Religion[link]

Maher is highly critical of religion, and views it as not worth the bother. He has referred to himself as an apatheist - a pragmatic atheist - on Scarborough Country on April 24, 2007, and again in July 2011.^[50][51] He has reiterated this stance in subsequent interviews, rejecting both the certitude of the existence, as well as the certitude of nonexistence of deities, concluding, "I'm saying that doubt is the only appropriate response for human beings."^[52] He is an advisory board member of author Sam Harris's Project Reason, a foundation that promotes scientific knowledge and secular values within society.

Maher and director Larry Charles teamed up to make the feature film Religulous (2008), described by trade publication Variety as a documentary "that spoofs religious extremism across the world." It was released on October 3, 2008.^[53][54]

While Maher is critical towards Christianity, he is an outspoken critic of religion as a whole, including Islam. On October 29, 2010, during a Real Time segment, Maher commented on a news story saying that the name Mohammed had become the most popular baby name in the United Kingdom. He asked, "Am I a racist to feel alarmed by that? Because I am. And it’s not because of the race, it’s because of the religion. I don’t have to apologize, do I, for not wanting the Western world to be taken over by Islam in 300 years? Sharia law is being institutionalized in England? Well, then I am right, I should be alarmed."^[55] He later defended his comments on CNN, saying, "And when I say Westerner, I mean someone who believes in the values that Western people believe in that a lot of the Muslim world does not. Like separation of church and state. Like equality of the sexes. Like respect for minorities, free elections, free speech, freedom to gather. These things are not just different from cultures that don’t have them. ... It’s better. ... I would like to keep those values here." ^[56]

Maher received the Richard Dawkins Award for 2009 from Atheist Alliance International "for his efforts to further the values science and reason in the world."^[57]

Maher was ranked first by MormonVoices, a group associated with Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research, on its Top Ten Anti-Mormon Statements of 2011 list for saying "By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion".^[58]

Health care[link]

Maher has stated that the AMA is a powerful lobbying group and one of the primary reasons why the United States had failed to enact health care reform.^{[59][dead link][60]}

On August 24, 2009, Maher was a guest on The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. On the topic of getting health care reform legislation passed, Maher stated that Obama should forget about trying to get 60 votes for it, "he only needs 51." "Forget getting the sixty votes or sixty percent — sixty percent of people don't believe in evolution in this country — he just needs to drag them to it, like I said, they're stupid; get health care done, with or without them."^[61]

Maher has expressed the view that most illness is generally the result of poor diet and lack of exercise, and that medicine is often not the best way of addressing illness. In an episode of his show about the 2008 presidential candidates' health plans, Maher stated that poor nutrition is a primary cause of illness, and that "the answer isn't another pill."^[62] He also has said:" If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you do, then you're already on drugs!"^[63]

He has expressed his distaste for the pharmaceutical and health care industries in general, on the grounds that they make their money out of curing people who are made sick by consuming unhealthy food that corporations urge upon the public. He maintains that mass consumption of high-fructose corn syrup is a contributor to the rise in frequency of obesity in the United States.^[64]

In a discussion with Michael Moore about the film Sicko, Maher said, "The human body is pretty amazing; it doesn't get sick, usually, for no reason. I mean, there's some genetic stuff that can get to you, but, basically, people are sick in this country because they're poisoned. The environment is a poisoning factor, but also, we gotta say, they poison themselves. They eat shit. People eat shit, and that's, to my way of thinking, about 90 percent of why people are sick, is because they eat shit. Would you agree?"^[65]

On October 9, 2009, on his HBO show, Maher debated the effectiveness of flu vaccinations with Bill Frist and stated, "Why would you let them be the ones to stick a disease into your arm? I would never get a swine flu vaccine or any vaccine. I don’t trust the government, especially with my health." Maher also expressed skepticism about the seriousness of the swine flu and whether completely healthy people could die from it. His comments have generated criticism, and his remarks have been called unscientific and even harmful.^[66]

Maher responded to the criticism, noting, "What I've read about what they think I'm saying is not what I've said. I'm not a germ theory denier. I believe vaccinations can work. Polio is a good example. Do I think in certain situations that inoculating Third World children against malaria or diphtheria, or whatever, is right? Of course. In a situation like that, the benefits outweigh costs. But to me living in Los Angeles? To get a flu shot? No."^[67]

He supports the current abortion laws and giving the terminally ill the right to assisted suicide.

Criticism of 9/11 conspiracy theories[link]

Maher has been a critic of 9/11 conspiracy theories. On October 19, 2007, Maher confronted several 9/11 truthers and had them ejected from his show audience after they interrupted the live show numerous times by calling out from the audience. The incident drew significant media attention and praise from Fox News talk show host and frequent critic John Gibson.^[68]

Personal life[link]

Maher has never married. In 2003, he began dating former Playboy Cyber Girl Coco Johnsen. In November 2004, at the end of their 17-month relationship, she sued him for USD $9 million for "pain and suffering" for alleged "insulting, humiliating and degrading racial comments." Her suit^[69] stated that Maher promised to marry her and father her children, support her financially, and purchase a Beverly Hills home. Her suit also alleged that she quit her job as a flight attendant and occasional model to be with him. Maher's lawyers in their response filed on November 23, 2004, in Los Angeles Superior Court said Maher is a "confirmed bachelor, and a very public one at that" who "never promised to marry [Johnsen] or to have children with her."^[70]

Maher's filing stated that, after the relationship had ended, Johnsen "launched a campaign to embarrass, humiliate, and extort ridiculous sums of money from Bill Maher." Johnsen accused another former boyfriend of rape and kidnapping in 1997, and the charges were later dismissed for lack of evidence.^[71] Her lawsuit against Maher was dismissed on May 2, 2005.

Maher next to his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in September 2010

Maher enjoys his bachelor status and states that he does not want to get married. On his website, he is quoted as saying, "I'm the last of my guy friends to have never gotten married, and their wives — they don't want them playing with me. I'm like the escaped slave — I bring news of freedom."^[72]

In 2005, he began dating Karrine Steffans, best-selling author and former hip hop model.^[73][74][75] When commentators suggested there was a pattern to his dating because both his girlfriend and former girlfriend were black, Maher said, "People say I'm into black women. Robert De Niro is into black women. I'm just into women who are real, and they happen to be black."^[74]

From 2009 to 2011, Maher dated the neuroscientist and science educator Cara Santa Maria.^[76]

Credits[link]

Bibliography[link]

• True Story : A Novel, 1994 (ISBN 0-7432-4251-3)
• Does Anybody Have a Problem With That? Politically Incorrect's Greatest Hits, 1996 (ISBN 0-679-45627-9)
• Does Anybody Have a Problem with That? The Best of Politically Incorrect, 1997 (ISBN 0-345-41281-8)
• When You Ride Alone You Ride With Bin Laden: What the Government Should Be Telling Us to Help Fight the War on Terrorism, 2003 (ISBN 1-893224-90-2)
• Keep the Statue of Liberty Closed: The New Rules, 2004 (ISBN 1-932407-47-2)
• New Rules: Polite Musings from a Timid Observer, 2005 (ISBN 1-59486-295-8)
• The New New Rules: A Funny Look at How Everybody but Me Has Their Head Up Their Ass, 2011 (ISBN 0-39915-841-3)

Filmography[link]

References[link]