Indeed Ted Arison never did particularly well when it came to dabbling outside the cruise and hospitality industry. In the late Seventies he started an auto-loan underwriting firm that went out of business after just a few years. In 1979 he spent $12 million to form Hamilton Corp., a real estate firm, which a decade later (after correcting for inflation) was worth less than his initial investment. Arison sold out much of his interest in Hamilton in the early Nineties. He returned to the maritime cargo business in the Eighties, but lost $43 million before selling out in 1987.
Perhaps the biggest mess of his noncruise businesses was Ensign Bank, which he created by merging two smaller savings and loan institutions in 1983. In 1989 Ensign wrote off a three-million-dollar loan to CenTrust Bank chairman David Paul, who later was indicted and jailed for banking and securities fraud; then, on Arison's say-so, Ensign loaned $750,000 to Port of Miami director Carmen Lunetta for a real estate development. Finally Ensign lost more than $19 million in the first quarter of 1990, and by year's end, the federal government had seized it.
Steve Satterwhite
Micky Arison kept a close eye on Alex Penelas during the arena referendum campaign
AP/Wide World Photo
Fire on the Ecstasy provides an apt metaphor for the firm's public-relations difficulties during recent years
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"There was a vision, but no plan [in Ted's business]," William Parkhurst, a former high-ranking Arison employee, told Florida Trendin 1989. "[His] style is intuitive management. Acquisitions were pursued opportunistically and on an ad hoc basis. There was no systematic approach."
Although cruise industry critics and activists had begun to chastise the company and its competitors for unfair labor practices, Ted managed to forge a reputation as Miami's Corporate Citizen Number One. Maurice Ferre, former Miami mayor and Dade County commissioner, alludes to Ted Arison's founding of the New World Symphony as a prime example of his civic activism. "Ted was a man who had been up and down in life, a self-made, extroverted type of person," Ferre comments. "I thought he was a wonderful guy. He was outgoing, but not loud, an insightful type of person. I think he was a man who was very good at judging people."
In 1990 Ted Arison retired from Carnival, renounced his American citizenship, and returned to Israel. He became active in Israeli charities and finance through a foundation he had started a decade before. In June 1994 the Arison Foundation gave four million dollars to the Tel Aviv School of the Arts. In 1997 Arison purchased control of the country's largest bank.
In 1996 Arison told a Broward County court that simply surviving until 2000 was his last goal. One reason: He wanted to keep Uncle Sam away from his estimated five billion dollars in personal wealth. Estate taxes in the United States run as high as 55 percent; Israel has no such levies. But to escape IRS clutches, a person must survive ten years outside the country. "All I know is my lawyer, he had told me ... 'You better live for ten years,'" he said in a deposition that was part of a civil lawsuit. "That's it. So I'm trying." He fell a few months short, succumbing to a heart attack in October 1999. Shortly after his death, the Arison Foundation donated ten million dollars to the King Hussein Cancer Research Center at a Tel Aviv hospital.
The first Miami Heat basketball game in the new AmericanAirlines Arena had a triumphal air. The most obvious signs of the occasion's significance, except for the jugglers and stilt-walkers outside, were the tuxedos worn by the sportscasters on WAMI-TV's (Channel 69) SportsTown.
During the pregame show, announcers Tim Ring, Brad Steinke, and Mark Jones led viewers on a tour of the nearly finished arena, from the cheap seats to the plush skyboxes. As the sportscasters' gushing kicked into high gear, the man most responsible for building the arena sat down for an interview.
Micky Arison seemed a bit uncomfortable holding his microphone, but he nonetheless looked dapper. His healthy tan was complemented by a close-cropped goatee, a knife-edge gray suit, and his gradually silvering hair. The multibillionaire exchanged pleasantries with Jones about the wonders of the arena. The building represents a "great partnership" between the Heat and Miami-Dade County, Arison said. Its skyboxes and maritime beauty would provide the Heat with "revenue streams to give us a huge boost," he added.
Then Jones lowered his voice a notch. "On a personal note, your late father Ted was very much responsible for basketball coming to South Florida. Is this part of his legacy as well? Do you share this with him in spirit?"
"Absolutely," Micky responded. "Obviously I wish he could have been here. He was planning on being here, but, um ..." He paused briefly, pursing his lips, then continued. "And uh, you know, what can I say. It's a shame he couldn't enjoy this with the rest of the family. Everyone else is here, enjoying it for him. And I'm sure he's with us in spirit."
Micky Arison was born in Tel Aviv, grew up in New York, and came with his family to Miami in 1966 as a teenager. He attended Miami-Dade Junior College (now Miami-Dade Community College), then the University of Miami. From there he went into the family business, working a series of two-year stints as a sales agent, a reservations manager, and a vice president. In 1979 Ted made 30-year-old Micky president and CEO of Carnival Corp. Ted finally passed the torch to Micky in 1990, resigning as chairman of the board.
