 Sam Zell has built a multi-billion dollar fortune investing in real estate, but also energy and emerging markets And he's the author of the new book am I being too subtle and I have the book right here Sam It's great to have you here. Welcome to the street. My pleasure All right, so you've done so much you have exposure to so many different businesses. What are you trying to accomplish with this book? well first of all people have been encouraging me to write a book forever and I think I probably started by not taking them seriously and Then maybe as a result of getting old I decided that it was time to put some of my thoughts in writing I didn't want to write an autobiography What I really wanted to write was what I wrote which is a series of principles and ideas You know described by using real life stories And I know your business is so much more than real estate, but since our president is in real estate Let's start there. What do you think of President Trump's tenure in office so far? I? Think that President Trump has an extraordinary opportunity I think we've had eight years of kind of an anti-business administration With very little representation From the business community I think that was a contributor to President Trump winning I think the position he's in is that he's following eight years of excessive regulation and Whereas the previous administration spent a trillion dollars on a theoretical Stimulus bill that produced no stimulus. I think president Trump has a similar stimulus opportunity But without the debt because he can achieve that goal by deregulation he started down that path and I think it's very encouraging for our country that he's doing that All right another reason for his win though Would you agree with this was the the nationalist kind of rhetoric that he had during the campaign now in the book? You say quote to me everything is connected. I believe that globalization provides more opportunity than threat Now I think many Trump supporters would disagree with you. What do you say to those people? I'm sure there are a lot of other things that they would disagree with me on you know the book is dedicated to immigrants Which I think is a critical part of you know why a country is exceptional and why it is achieved as much as it's achieved So all I'd say is that I'm not a doctor near anything The book represents my thinking and what has driven me and motivated me throughout my life All right and speaking of immigration We know president Trump is vowing to build a wall along the US Mexico border But I think what people would find interesting is that you actually finance the only bridge along the US Mexico border How did that happen? Well, I like to tell people that for years I lied to them and told them I had a bridge to sell them But I really didn't but now I have one and You know, I have I have friends and co-partners from Mexico This is something people have talked about for many years because the Teowan Airport is right on the border and We decided to see if it could be done and it got done and this year will have two million people Across a walking bridge from the US to Mexico and from Mexico back to the US Do you think the wall ever gets built? I'm not that smart All right now you've done deals all your life What is your advice to president Trump on tax reform because as you know companies are sitting on you know Well over a trillion dollars of cash overseas. They don't want to bring it back to the US under the current tax structure Well, I think that Just I think that the US being the only country in the world that taxes all of your income everywhere And that's one of the things that tax reform is supposed to fix Obviously it would also fix the repatriation question But clearly it makes no sense for a company like Apple to have two and a half billion Two and a half trillion dollars. I think of cash. Yeah, 250 billion. Yeah, 250 million dollars of cash sitting offshore not contributing to our economy because we have a punitive system for repatriating the money This notion that tax cuts would pay for themselves through economic growth over time What do you say to people who are skeptical of that idea? Well, you know, there's two approaches to the issue You know, there's the people who believe in dynamic scoring Which in effect means when you look at the assessment of a potential tax cut or a potential Regulatory change you have to include in your thought process What impact that will have on the economy just like every time we've cut capital gains tax revenue is increased So to cut capital gains tax and then pretend revenue won't increase doesn't make any sense So I think that you know dynamic scoring is only logical and you got to be careful You don't get too extreme. All right now when it comes to the markets, you know started many successful IPOs over your career What do you make of where we are in stocks right now? Obviously? It's been an incredible run since the November election. We're also seeing the volatility index the VIX at a 24 year low Do you think stocks have run up a bit too much here? I'm much more of an expert on the economy than I am on the stock market per se There have been many times when I thought the stock market was too high and I was proven wrong And there are other times when I thought it was, you know too low and I've been proven wrong So I'm not sure I'm an expert on the stock market. I think the economy Although probably last November October, I suggested we were in the eighth inning I think President Trump's election creates the the likelihood of extra innings All right, that's important So we'll be watching that but you are an expert on real estate and in the book You talk a lot about the sale of equity office for thirty nine billion dollars about ten years ago right before the market crashed What is your take on New York City real estate? Are we due for another crash? I? Don't know about the word crash But we certainly do for adjustment and I think that adjustment has already begun to occur in New York real estate In terms of the broader commercial real estate space obviously it's been a bloodbath in the retail sector right? Macy's JC penny closing hundreds of stores. Do you think that will have an impact on commercial real estate or will they be? They be able to find other tenants. I Doubt that they can find other viable tenants other tenants that will generate the kind of traffic that a Macy's or a Sears Had historically created There's a reason why they paid almost no rent because their goal their role was to generate traffic In the last ten years or so they've stopped generating traffic. So that makes their very cheap rents very expensive All right, I want to shift now and talk about the media industry because you took control of Tribune company back in 2007 and you were very open in the book about the struggles you faced But of course Tribune media was sold to Sinclair just was announced on Monday Obviously the company is much different than when you were involved with it knowing what you know about the business Why wasn't Tribune able to thrive on its own? Well, I think you got to start by Just looking at the revenues of the print side We underwrote the Tribune investment Assuming that the revenues would continue to decrease by about six percent a year in the first month We after we closed they fell thirty percent If you have an operating a leveraged business like print and it when your revenue falls thirty percent Nobody's smart enough or good enough to fix that Do you have any regrets though or things you would do different throughout your tenure at Tribune? Probably I've always thought that there were things I could do different whether it be a Tribune or anywhere else I think that if the same set of circumstances Existed today what I do the deal again. I think the risk reward suggests that I would Unfortunately probably with the same result But I think the basic decision we made in making that investment Was that yes, there was significant risk But that the potential reward if we got there was well worth it You've done so much you own so much. I can't imagine you're gonna be buying anything else anytime soon I mean, what's next for you? I Don't know I'm a professional opportunist So what I buy and what I participate in oftentimes is very much a result of what occurs external to my world Where are you gonna be selling anything anytime soon? We've been more a seller in the last Five years then we've been a buyer and why is that our perception of price value You know, that's that's the ultimate decision you make every day and every day You're not a seller. You're a buyer and every day. You're not a buyer. You're a seller I want to end on this for young people who are gonna pick up this book and read it especially as we enter College graduation season. What is your advice to them? in many respects the motivation for writing the book is the fact that I drew about 30 or 40 speeches a year and At least half of those are on college campuses or the young people and Inevitably at the end of my speech somebody raises their hand and said wow You've really done great But you had an opportunity to do that when there were all these great opportunities What should I do? And I'd laugh and I say number one Everybody asks that same question because everybody always looks at someone who's achieved and Done a lot and said I couldn't possibly do that or the opportunities aren't there This is a book that's full of opportunities where I took advantage of them. I Hope that the people who read this book and that's why I wrote this for Are able to look at their own world and say wow, that's opportunity I need to take advantage of it right. Maybe it's not real estate, but maybe it's tech or artificial intelligence Tech it's any number of things But what it says there over and over again is there's an opportunity Make a difference take advantage of it sense of urgency make it happen All right, well, it's important advice from Sam Zell and we appreciate you joining us. Thank you so much Thank you, and again the book is am I being too subtle? All right. Thanks everybody for watching I'm Scott cam and this is the street