The George Gillett Business Empire

A former Nashville, Tennessee, resident continues to build his business empire and has been in the news regarding one of his business ventures- pro soccer in England.
George Gillett and his family of six lived in Nashville in the 1980s when he owned the local WSMV TV station. Throughout his career, he has been known as an innovative and creative businessman. Since some trouble in the early 90s, Gillett has been hugely successful in a variety of industries and is now in the exclusive 'billionaire' club (and moreover, he is basically self-made). His varied and vast recent and current business ventures are enough to make any normal person's head spin.
His sports franchise ventures alone are very impressive, to say the least.
First, Gillett has been the majority owner (80%) of the Montreal Canadiens since 2001. The club is the 3rd most valuable NHL franchise at $334 million, according to Forbes (2007 list).
Second, since early 2007 he has been 50% owner of the Liverpool Football Club (FC) in the UK. According to Forbes, Liverpool FC is the fourth most valuable soccer team in the world (value: $1.0 billion, Forbes 2008 list).
On top of that, he owns the NASCAR team Richard Petty Motorsports, the fourth most valuable NASCAR team at $128 million (Forbes, 2007).
According to Forbes, the value of these investments alone is approximately $962 million.

The string of news stories over the last year, primarily in the British press, are related to controversy surrounding the ownership of the Liverpool FC.
The group that was close to buying the team in 2006-7, Dubia International Capital (DIC), has continued to try to buy the team from Gillett and co-owner Tom Hicks (of Texas).
As with any controversial issue, there are numerous reports about 'who is trying to sell/buy/make a deal to whom'. The passionate Liverpool fan base apparently feels that DIC's vast wealth and capital will be better for the future success of the club. The franchise plans to build a stadium in the next few years.
Gillett and his son Foster (who is prominent in Gillett's companies) have even received death threats from Liverpool fans regarding this controversy. The threats apparently are related to the fans' desire that Gillett not sell any of his stake in the team to Hicks.

Gillett has also made attempts to buy other franchises. In 2000, he, Pat Bowlen (owner of the Denver Broncos) and Broncos' hero John Elway attempted to buy the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche (NHL) and the Pepsi Center. The bid did not work out.
In the last few years, Gillett has also made efforts to acquire a Major League Soccer (MLS) team in North America. He had attempted to bring a MLS team to Montreal.
Regarding his ownership of the NHL team, the Canadiens are one of the most successful hockey teams in history. They have won more NHL Stanley Cups than any other team (26). The club is also the oldest pro hockey franchise in the NHL. This year marks their 100th anniversary.
It basically goes without saying that Gillett is a big sports fan. In one form or another, he has been involved in most major sports during his career.
He is currently a member of the Leadership Council of the Unites States Olympic Committee. He is the past Chairman of the Board of the Denver Grand Prix Association.
On a related note, Gillett (as noted below) is a major player in ski resort ownership in the U.S. and has been a promoter of professional skiing.
When he was owner of Vail Associates, which owned and operated the Vail and Beaver Creek Ski Resorts from 1985-1991, he was instrumental in bringing the 1989 World Alpine Ski Championships to Vail, the first time it had been held in the U.S. since 1950. Gillett is a member of the Colorado Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.
Has he been involved in other pro sports? Yes.
In the 1970s, Gillett was business manager and minority partner of the NFL's Miami Dolphins. Right after that, he was CEO and owner of the Harlem Globetrotters and created the Globetrotters TV show and other brands for the franchise.
So, are there any pro sports he has NOT been heavily involved in? Let's see, he's in soccer, hockey, car racing, snow-skiing, the Olympics. He has been heavily involved in pro football and basketball (and tried to buy an NBA team). Okay, he apparently has not been in baseball.....well, he actuall made a good choice on that one.

Gillett has obviously rebounded from his struggles in the early 1990s. During that time, Gillett Holdings, primarily involved in TV broadcasting and the meat-processing industry, experienced a downturn as a result of several complicated issues. One of the main ones was junk bond financing. In April, 1992, his companies entered bankruptcy protection. Gillett himself filed for personal bankruptcy. He made it through fairly well but lost, among other things, his collection of 30 sports cars and his 235,000-acre ranch in Oregon.
The longtime businessman is now a bona-fide mogul, and his companies thrive in numerous industries. In addition to sports franchises, his empire has companies and holdings in: entertainment, meat processing, food production, organic foods, ski resorts, auto dealerships and more.
The Gillett Entertainment Group (GEG) in SE Canada and NE USA is one of the top entertainment promoters in the world. The GEG produces approximately 600 live shows a year. According to industry source Pollstar, in 2007, GEG ranked 4th in ticket sales in North America and 7th in the world.
In Montreal, Gillett owns the Bell Centre, where the Candiens play. He acquired the Centre along with the Canadiens.
His company Booth Creek Management Co. (BCMC), based in Vail, CO, oversees many of his businesses.
One of the main ones is meat processing and production, an industry he has been in since the 1970s.
Here are just a few samples from his more recent business endeavors. In the 1990s, he built Corporate Brand Foods which was bought in 1997 by Iowa Beef Processors for $550 million.
From 2001 to 2007, he and leverage buyout firm HM Capital (Tom Hicks group in Texas) owned ConAgra's beef operations, Swift and Co., before selling it to Brazilian firm JBS S.A., considered the largest meat processing company in the world ($30 billion in revenue in 2008, 40,000 employees).
Today, BCMC's current holdings include companies in beef, poultry, turkey, lamb and pork production. The companies include: Petaluma Poultry, Snowball Foods, Kings Delight, B3R Country Meats, Gerard's Napa Valley Sausage, Coleman Natural Foods and Wheat Montana Farms & Bakery,

Coleman Natural Foods is a leading producer and supplier of natural and organic protein products; Wheat Montana Farms & Bakery is a producer of wheat and other grains for use in bread products and an operator of a line of natural delicatessans.

Gillett has been very successful in the ski resort business. He and two business partners own Booth Creek Resort Properties, the fourth largest ski resort owner in North America. Booth Creek owns and operates the six resorts. They are: Northstar at Tahoe and Sierra at Tahoe, both in California; Waterville Valley, Cranmore Mt. Resort and Loon Mt in New Hampshire; and The Summit at Snoqualmie near Seattle, WA.
Gillett first started his ventures in ski resorts in 1985 when he acquired Vail Associates, the owner and operator of ski resorts in Vail and Beaver Creek, CO. The two resorts eventually became two of the top snow-skiing vacation destinations in the nation. In 1992, when Gillett Holdings filed for bankruptcy, the company came under control of Apollo Ski Company LP of New York.
Gillett's owns five auto dealerships in five different states: Colorado, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and Tennessee (in Nashville- Action Nissan on Thompson Lane.) The dealerships are part of Summit Automotive Group.