1. John A Catsimatidis was born on September 7,1948 and is an American billionaire businessman and radio talk show host.
40 Facts About John Catsimatidis
1. 2.
John Catsimatidis is the owner, president, chairman, and CEO of grocery chains Gristedes and D'Agostino Supermarkets in Manhattan, as well as the Red Apple Group, a real estate and aviation company with about $2 billion in holdings in New York, Florida and Pennsylvania.
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John Catsimatidis is the chairman and CEO of the Red Apple Group subsidiary United Refining Company.
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John Catsimatidis initiated purchase talks for the WABC radio station in 2019 which, after regulatory delays, was concluded in March 2020.
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John Catsimatidis was born on the Greek island of Nisyros on September 7,1948.
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John Catsimatidis came to the United States with his parents when he was six months old.
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John Catsimatidis' father had been a lighthouse operator in Greece but worked as a busboy in New York.
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John Catsimatidis received a congressional nomination to West Point, but chose to study electrical engineering at New York University instead.
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John Catsimatidis completed four years of college, but dropped out eight credits short of graduating.
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In 1971, John Catsimatidis opened his first business in Manhattan's Upper West Side; it was the first Red Apple grocery store.
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John Catsimatidis has said that by the time he was 24, he had "built up ten stores and the business was doing $25 million a year", and that he was earning $1 million per year.
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John Catsimatidis is the chairman and CEO of United Refining Co.
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In 2008, John Catsimatidis became engaged in efforts to take over SemGroup LP, a bankrupt oil, gas, and asphalt trading, storage and transportation company, headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
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John Catsimatidis gained control over a majority of the company's management committee, but his efforts were met by opposition from the company's existing management, who argued for selling off at least some of the company's assets, while John Catsimatidis wanted to keep the company together.
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In February 2009, John Catsimatidis was sued by a group of SemGroup executives, who sought the removal of John Catsimatidis and his allies from the committee.
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John Catsimatidis was, until the early 2020s, a minority investor in the political newspaper and website The Hill as referenced on the website's articles which had mentioned him.
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In local New York City races, John Catsimatidis has given to Bill de Blasio, Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, Cyrus Vance Jr.
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John Catsimatidis put on a fundraiser in 2006 with Michael Bloomberg for Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut to support his third party run as an independent after Lieberman lost the Democratic primary nomination for reelection to the Senate.
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John Catsimatidis donated a significant sum to the Clinton Presidential Center, thought to be between $100,000 and $500,000.
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John Catsimatidis has said that he is friends with Bill Clinton and that the former president "often" has flown in one of John Catsimatidis' two airplanes.
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In 2015, press reports indicated that John Catsimatidis donated the use of a chartered jet valued at $70,000 to the Republican primary campaign of Scott Walker.
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In 2008, John Catsimatidis was viewed as a potential mayoral candidate.
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In 2009, John Catsimatidis spent nearly $300,000, much of it on polls and consultants, to explore a candidacy.
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John Catsimatidis said he only agreed to drop out after Bloomberg informed him of his plans to seek a third term.
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John Catsimatidis suggested that he would support New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly, but when Kelly repeatedly denied any intention to run, Catsimatidis expressed his own interest.
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In December 2012, John Catsimatidis established an exploratory committee to consider running for mayor.
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John Catsimatidis hired a campaign consulting firm, Millennial Strategies LLC, that mostly works on Democratic campaigns.
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John Catsimatidis could have chosen to contest the general election on two other ballot lines, either that of the Liberal Party of New York and of a third-party line he created in summer 2013, but two days after his primary, he announced that he would withdraw from the race.
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Together with his spouse, John Catsimatidis contributed $515,000 to Donald Trump's 2020 presidential campaign, and he is a vocal Trump supporter.
30.
Between February and July 2020, John Catsimatidis contributed $50,000 of the party's $52,000 of income.
31.
John Catsimatidis said he considered running in the 2021 New York City mayoral election.
32.
John Catsimatidis originally suggested he'd run as a Democrat, but retracted that and suggested he would either run again as a Republican or as a member of the Liberal Party.
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John Catsimatidis told the Washington Examiner in April 2023 that he was ruling out supporting Florida governor Ron DeSantis in the 2024 Republican Party presidential primaries, due to the latter not returning his phone calls.
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John Catsimatidis spoke about law and order, and proposed to clean up the streets in 60 days.
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John Catsimatidis said he would pressure the president of Columbia University to stop pro-Palestinian protesters, and supported nuclear energy.
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On October 2,1988, John Catsimatidis married Margaret "Margo" Vondersaar at the Greek Orthodox Archdiocesan Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in New York; the two had met when she became his secretary in 1972.
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John Catsimatidis was for five years president of the Manhattan Council of the Boy Scouts of America.
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John Catsimatidis has been on the board of directors of the Police Athletic League of New York City, and the Drum Major Institute.
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John Catsimatidis was the vice-chairman of the Ellis Island Awards Foundation of the National Ethnic Coalition Organization, and received an Ellis Island Medal of Honor from that organization.
40.
In light of the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, John Catsimatidis created the WABC Radio Foundation to provide humanitarian relief for Ukrainians in need.