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Anthony J.F. O’Reilly, the charismatic, ambitious, Irish-born former chairman of Heinz Co. who also owned newspapers, luxury brands and mansions in France and the Bahamas but lost nearly everything in his eighties, died in Dublin on May 18. He was 88.
The Irish Times and other Irish newspapers quoted a family spokesman as saying: Reported He died in hospital. No cause of death was given.
Mr O’Leary, nicknamed Tony, showed an embarrassing talent from an early age. He became a top rugby player in his teens – “the red-haired poster boy for Irish rugby”. “Guardian”His talent for business was equally precocious.
He founded the brand at the age of 26 while working as marketing director for the Irish Dairy Board Kelly King to sell Irish butter to British grocery shoppers; it remains one of the country’s best-known global exports.
In 1969, Mr. O’Reilly was hired by Heinz to run its UK operations, then moved to the company’s headquarters in Pittsburgh and rose to CEO, becoming the first non-Heinz family member to serve as chairman. Under his leadership, Heinz’s market value increased 12-fold. Business Week called him “one of the world’s most charismatic businessmen.”
“He had endless stories, and he told them all very well,” Richard M. Cyert, a Heinz director, told Business Week in 1997. “Sitting down to lunch with him was like going to the theater.”
Mr. O’Reilly played tennis at the White House with President George H.W. Bush, who was said to have considered him for commerce secretary. He helped found the Ireland Fund, which promoted peace projects in Northern Ireland and disrupted IRA fundraising among Irish Americans. In 2001, Queen Elizabeth II knighted him for his services to Northern Ireland.
O’Reilly had a highly unusual schedule at Heinz that allowed him to build his own business empire, too. After get off work on Friday, he would fly to Dublin on the company’s Gulfstream jet, attend meetings and sometimes watch a football game. Then he would fly back to Pittsburgh and be in the office by 8 a.m. on Monday.
Perhaps more successful than any other entrepreneur, he rode the Irish economic boom of the 1990s and 2000s, dubbed the “Celtic Tiger,” to become the country’s richest man and reportedly its first billionaire.
In 1973, O’Leary bought the Irish Independent, Ireland’s largest newspaper, and formed his own newspaper group, Independent News and Media Group, which later owned more than 100 newspapers, including London’s Independent and newspapers in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, giving O’Leary access to and influence over political leaders.
In 1990, he acquired the Anglo-Irish crystal and porcelain company Waterford Wedgwood, with the ambition of turning it into a global luxury goods group like Gucci and LVMH.
Mr. O’Reilly’s lifestyle and celebrity friends match his prestigious businesses. His Irish base is Castlemartin, a 750-acre estate that has counted President Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela among its guests.
He also has a Georgian mansion in Dublin, a beachfront home at Lyford Cay in the Bahamas and a chateau in Deauville, France. His art collection includes a $24.2 million Monet as well as works by Picasso and Matisse.
Although Mr. O’Reilly had built his fortune on a generous salary at Heinz, the company’s bland branding did not reflect his ideal tastes. He once said of Heinz’s ubiquitous ketchup: According to the Irish Times“We churn it out in chunks every day in 100 plants around the world.” On the other hand, owning newspapers offers “more benefits than you’d get from roasting beans,” he said.
But that didn’t stop him from spending Heinz’s money to gild the company’s image, flying hundreds of guests to Ireland for an annual gala ball and thoroughbred horse race, the Heinz 57 Stakes.
In 1996, Forbes ranked him the fourth-highest-paid CEO in the U.S., even though the company’s performance had been disappointing for years. “Tony O’Reilly’s ego and salary outstrip his accomplishments,” the magazine wrote.
he Step down The following year, he became CEO of Heinz, but he remained chairman. Until 2000In his early 60s, he turned his full attention to his career, which, in addition to newspapers and luxury goods, included oil exploration and a company that converted castles into hotels.
Like many business empires, O’Leary’s was built on debt, and when the global financial crisis hit like a Category 5 hurricane in 2008, his businesses were devastated. Control of his media assets fell to his longtime rival, Irish tycoon Denis O’Brien.
In 2009, Waterford Wedgewood, a company in which Mr O’Reilly had invested a significant amount of his own money, collapsed and went into receivership.
Pursued by creditors, he sold off many of his artworks and his beloved Castlemartin, which was bought by US telecom billionaire John Malone in 2015 for €7.4 million (about $10.2 million).
O’Leary’s lawyers said he owed eight banks 195 million euros, or about $268.9 million. In 2015, the 79-year-old O’Leary declared bankruptcy in the Bahamas.
Anthony John Francis O’Reilly was born in Dublin on 7 May 1936, the only child of John and Irene O’Connor. His father was a civil servant.
According to Matt Cooper’s 2015 biography of O’Reilly, The Maximalist, Tony learned his parents were not married when he was 15. His father left a wife for Tony’s mother, with whom he had four children. The two officially married in the mid-1970s.
Tony O’Reilly’s rugby career began in 1955, when he was 19 years old, on an international tour with the Lions, a team made up of the best players from Britain and Ireland. He was the youngest player in the Lions team and still holds the record for most points (equivalent to touchdowns in football) in a Test match (a match against another country).
On a rugby tour of Australia, Mr. O’Leary met Susan Cameron, whom he married in 1962. They had six children, including triplets, and divorced in 1990. His second wife, Chris Goulandris, was a Greek shipping heiress whom he married in 1991. Died last year.
Mr. O’Reilly is survived by his sons, Anthony Cameron, Gavin and St. John Anthony; daughters, Susan Wildman, Justine O’Reilly and Caroline Dempsey; and 23 grandchildren.
In 2018, O’Reilly addressed friends and former teammates who had gathered to pay tribute to him at the Old Belvedere Rugby Club in Dublin.
“There are winners and there are losers.” He said“If you don’t know how to lose, you don’t know how to live.”
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