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For a decade, the name Jerry Buss has meant Los Angeles Lakers championships, the Fabulous Forum, real estate empires, celebrity parties in Beverly Hills manses, gaggles of gorgeous girlfriends and Las Vegas gambling expeditions.
Party-man Buss, while managing up to 1,200 properties, has reportedly even entertained friends after Laker games by setting his chest hair on fire and snubbing cigarettes out in the palm of his hand.
But today two new images of the six-foot, 200-lb., mustashioed Jerry Hattan Buss are making the rounds among Southland business sports circles.
The images have been inflamed by Buss' deal last year to prominently display the name of a savings bank on the Forum and at half-court on the Lakers basketball floor. And by Buss' recent sales of a sports team, valuable real estate, stamp and coin collections and other property. Further, according to public documents, through limited partnerships he controls, Buss last year borrowed $40 million, and made arrangement to borrow another $35 million, against the Forum. The Forum is leveraged.
Image No. 1 is that Buss, who owns 51 percent of the Lakers, now sits atop a huge cash hoard earmarked for a buyout of a professional football or baseball team.
Buss' "sales of various properties are for the purpose of developing a war chest for the expressed purpose of buying another major sports franchise," said Robert Steiner, Buss spokesman, in a prepared statement.
In March, Buss indicated an interest in the Dallas Cowboys football team, but they were sold before Buss could make a bid, said Steiner.
In the past, Buss has stated often he wants to buy another major league sports franchise, and has hinted he would like to buy the Anaheim Rams. "Within 24 months I will own a baseball or football franchise," Buss told reporters last year. "God willing."
Buss is financially strong, said Steiner, and others. "Buss is financially sound," declared Jimmy Walker, Buss's personal life insurance agent, at a recent party in the Sports Arena held by Buss' friendly rival, Clippers owner Donald T. Sterling. "He likes to buy and sell. To trade up. Now he has been selling, but he will buy."
But Image No. 2 is that Buss is financially ailing, so much so that he endures...