A.N. Pritzker, Chicago businessman, philanthropist, dealmaker, and creator of a family dynasty, died early Saturday at age 90.
Mr. Pritzker, the iconoclastic patriarch of the 27-member Pritzker family, converted the purchase of a single Atlanta hotel into the worldwide Hyatt chain, and with his sons built one of the nation`s largest family business dynasties.
The family also was one of Chicago`s wealthiest. In 1984, Forbes magazine estimated the net worth of Mr. Pritzker and his two sons, Jay and Robert, at $1.5 billion.
In building his business interests, Mr. Pritzker often ignored the advice of specialists and lawyers. He also shunned any suggestion of going public with family companies, saying that shareholders were shortsighted and that any obligation to disclose business details would compromise the secrecy needed to consummate good deals.
”We don`t believe in public business,” he once said. ”Any public corporation that seeks vast expansion has a conflict with shareholders who follow the daily market and are not thinking of future gains and tax benefits.”
In addition to the approximately 140-hotel Hyatt Corp., the Pritzker family presides over Braniff International Airways, McCall`s magazine and the Marmon Group, a conglomerate of about 50 privately held companies and subsidiaries including the Getz Corp., one of the nation`s largest exporters. The family owns factories that produce everything from gloves and railroad tank cars to aluminum forgings for missiles.
Mr. Pritzker placed great stock in personal integrity in striking a deal. ”His word is his bond,” said James Alsdorf several years ago.
It was with Alsdorf that Mr. Pritzker made one of his earliest deals–the purchase of the Cory Corp., which manufactures coffee pots, in the 1940s for $25,000 in cash and a $75,000 promissory note.
Although Mr. Pritzker in his later years no longer held an active role in most of the family`s businesses, he remained active in other matters, working 60-hour weeks well into his 80s at his office in the Loop. Associates say he maintained his often self-deprecating sense of humor and characteristic direct speech into his last days.
He made news in 1975, when he became the oldest man ever to be catapulted off the deck of a naval aircraft carrier. A Navy petty officer in World War I, Mr. Pritzker compared the experience to ”a prolonged kick in the ass.”
Through his philanthropy and the family`s Pritzker Foundation, a lasting mark has been left on Chicago`s medical, scientific and cultural institutions. The University of Chicago, where he earned his bachelor`s degree, received a $16 million gift and renamed its medical school for Mr. Pritzker. The Illinois Institute of Technology received about $5 million to establish an environmental research and engineering program. The Art Institute of Chicago, the Chicago Symphony and the Museum of Science and Industry are among other recipients of contributions.
Mr. Pritzker, who died of a massive stroke at Michael Reese Hospital, where he had been admitted Jan. 3 for abdominal surgery, was fond of noting that the hospital had treated a 10-year-old Russian immigrant, Nicholas Pritzker, for a cold on the day it opened in 1881. The hospital gave the child, who grew up to become Mr. Pritzker`s father, an overcoat that cost $9. ”It was the best investment they ever made,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview last fall. The hospital later became a recipient of his family`s gifts.
Mr. Pritzker`s own favorite philanthropy was Wicker Park Elementary School, his 1913 alma mater on Chicago`s West Side. He set up a $40,000-a-year trust fund in 1980 that supports an extracurricular Achievement Skills Center. He enjoyed making frequent visits to the school and giving encouragement to the students. The school was renamed for him in December, shortly before his 90th birthday.
A.N. Pritzker, born Abram Nicholas in Chicago, always preferred to be known by his initials.
He was a Harvard-trained lawyer who had a disdain for lawyers and the law, and early in life abandoned it for business. In recent years, Mr. Pritzker said he considered himself a poor legal practitioner. He told his biographer, Herman Kogan, that the only case he could recall winning was in defending his chauffeur in Traffic Court for making a wrong turn he had ordered.
In his later years, he was honored by the City Club of Chicago, the Israeli government, the Chicago Board of Education and others for his achievements and philanthropies.
”I remember him for his extraordinary strength of purpose and energy, and for his cheerfulness and good sense,” said Hanna Gray, president of the University of Chicago.
But Mr. Pritzker always said his greatest achievement was ”a strong, honorable family,” said his son Robert, who heads the Marmon Group.
Mr. Pritzker`s first wife, Fanny L., died in 1970.
Throughout his life, his two key loyalties were to his family, whose photographs adorned the walls of his office, and to the First National Bank of Chicago, which backed his first business deals in the 1930s.
Survivors include his second wife, Lorraine; sons Robert and Jay; 12 grandchildren; and 8 great grandchildren. Another son, Donald, died in 1972.
Services will be at noon Monday at Temple Emanuel, 5959 N. Sheridan Rd. Burial will be private.
