Bill Ackman

William Albert Ackman (born 11 May 1966, New York) is the major investor, founder and CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square Capital Management LP.^[1] At one point in December 2007 his funds owned a 10% stake in Target Corporation, valued at $4.2 billion^[2] through the purchase of stock and derivatives.^[3] He now owns a 7.8% stake.^[4]. October 2010 announced a 16% position in JC Penney.

Dinu Patriciu

A rising force in global private equity and financial services, Dinu Patriciu is Chairman and CEO of The Rompetrol Group, NV (TRG), a multinational petroleum company headquartered in theNetherlands, operating in 13 countries, and with the majority of its assets and income located in Romania, France and South Eastern Europe. Patriciu led an investor buyout of Rompetrol SA in 1998, served on the Supervisory Board of the company since its establishment, and took over as the full time CEO in 2001. Formerly, Patriciu acted as Chairman of the Investment Committee of the Romania and Moldova Direct Fund, LP, an American-managed private equity investment fund established in 1998 whose investors include theInternational Finance Corporation and the German Government-owned DEG. ^[2]

Patriciu led Rompetrol from a state-owned Romanian oil services company into one of the top 25 oil operators in the European Union, principally through a program of strategic acquisitions and organic growth. This program started with the purchase of the Vega refinery (1999), continued with Petros SA (2000) and the purchase of a majority stake in Petromidia SA (2001), owner of the most modern refinery and petrochemical complex in Romania. Subsequently, TRG embarked on an international expansion program in the Balkan region, inMoldova, Georgia and Ukraine, as well as acquiring Dyneff Group SA of France, ^[3] the largest independent distributor of oil products in France, at the end of 2005. This latest acquisition, along with the development of its Swiss-based trading arm, Vector Energy, transformed TRG into a bridge between Eastern European natural resources and Western European energy demand.

Patriciu owns the Romanian daily Adevărul.^[4] As of August 2008, he was also in the process of buying the Ukrainian tabloid Blik fromRingier.^[5]

Dinu Patriciu is also the founder and chairman of the Dinu Patriciu Foundation, a non-governmental organisation which aims at offering financial support to talented young people who are not in the position to further sustain their studies.

Ron Burkle

Ronald Wayne Burkle (born November 12, 1952) is an American business magnate. A major political fundraiser, he is listed on the Forbes 400, with an estimated net worth of $3.5 billion in 2008.^[1]

Burkle's investments and transactions include:

• Sold Dominick's chain to Safeway in 1998 for over $200 million in profits;
• Owns 20.7% stake in Americold Realty Trust;
• Leveraged buyouts of Jurgensen's, Fred Meyer, Food 4 Less, and Ralphs supermarket chains, and sold to Kroger for $13.5 billion;
• Signed Fleming as sole food supplier to Kmart;
• Majority stake in Pathmark grocery stores;
• Cyrk, the former Beanie Baby promotion agency;
• Merged Alliance Entertainment with Source Interlink;
• Invested $100 million in Sean Combs's (P. Diddy) Sean John clothing line;
• Purchased Enthusiast Media publications and assets of Primedia for $1.2 billion;
• Burkle's investment firm, Yucaipa Cos., owns 18.7% of the common stock of Barnes & Noble^[15]; In early 2010 he sought to raise his stake to 37% without triggering the shareholders rights plan;^[16][17][18] Chairman Len Riggio, with 27.8% ownership of the bookseller's common stock, is Barnes & Noble's largest shareholder;^[19]
• Donated $750 million to the Renner Burkle Fund;
• Owns 6% stake in American Apparel, Inc.^[20]