Merv Griffin Establishes Griffin & Company, LLC A Real Estate Investment Banking Firm

Merv Griffin Establishes Griffin & Company, LLC A Real Estate Investment Banking Firm

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif., March 15 /PRNewswire/ -- Merv Griffin has announced the formation of Griffin & Company, LLC, a real estate investment banking firm that will structure joint ventures and raise equity and debt capital for owners and developers. He has appointed Lawrence Cohen, President and CEO of The Griffin Group to also serve as Managing Director/CEO of G&C and has brought in Randall Zisler, formerly a partner in Jones Lang LaSalle, as Managing Director/CIO of the new enterprise.

The famed entertainer and entrepreneur will be the hands-on Chairman of Griffin & Company. He has been an astute player in the real estate arena throughout his career, but especially since the sale of Merv Griffin Enterprises (including Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy!) to The Coca-Cola Company in 1986 for $250 million, which landed Griffin on the Forbes 400 list as the richest name in Hollywood. His real estate holdings have included legendary properties such as The Beverly Hilton (sold in December 2003); Resorts International in Atlantic City and Paradise Island Bahamas (sold in 1996 to South African developer Sol Kerzner); and St. Clerans, the 45-acre estate in the west of Ireland that was home for 18 years to director John Huston and his daughter, actor/director Anjelica Huston. Over the past 20 years, he has purchased, managed and successfully sold 17 radio stations, 6 casino resorts and riverboats, and 17 hotels.

Co-Managing Directors of Griffin & Company, Lawrence Cohen and Randall Zisler, have extensive credentials in the real estate and financial communities. Cohen's background is in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and entity finance, as well as entertainment. He is President and CEO of The Griffin Group, with responsibility for all of Merv Griffin's various companies, including the newly created Griffin & Company, LLC. Prior to joining The Griffin Group, Cohen represented Griffin in the sale of the television hits Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy! to The Coca-Cola Company. Subsequently, he was recruited by Coca-Cola to be a senior executive of their Entertainment Group. He was actively involved in the leveraged buyout of Coca Cola's interests in Columbia Pictures and Tri-Star Pictures. In 1988 he joined the Griffin Group as Chief Financial Officer, helping to restructure Merv Griffin's acquisition of Resorts International and its assets in Atlantic City and the Bahamas. He played an integral role in building The Griffin Group's presence in gaming, radio stations, closed-circuit television and hotels, and was named President and CEO by Merv Griffin in 1997.

Zisler has had long alliances with prestigious institutions, both academic and on Wall Street. At Princeton University, he taught economics and real estate finance. (He holds a Ph.D., two of his three Masters and an A.B. from Princeton.) Most recently, he was affiliated with the international firm of Jones Lang LaSalle, where he established an investment banking group that specialized in raising programmatic joint venture capital and debt finance for clients like Higgins Development, The Griffin Group, and Portman Properties. Prior to that, he was a founder of Apogee Associates. Dedicated to raising capital for developers and owners, Apogee represented national REITS and developers, such as the Rockefeller Group, and investors such as Marvin Davis, GE Capital and TIAA. As a Jones Lang Wootton partner in the 1980's, Zisler founded that firm's pension advisory business; at Goldman Sachs he created Wall Street's first real estate research group. He is a member of the ULI.

Griffin & Company, according to Merv Griffin, will dedicate itself to matching the best value added opportunities with astute investors. "This is another way of doing what I've loved doing all my life: bringing together talented people who know how to give outstanding performances. I believe we'll be right on the money -- both literally and figuratively."

Source: Griffin & Company, LLC

CONTACT: Marcia Newberger, +1-310-385-2745, Marcia_newberger@griffgroup.com, for Griffin & Company, LLC

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