Greenwich investment mogul Edward Lampert and his $9 billion private investment fund that owns most of Sears department stores have moved operations to Florida, CtPost.com reports.
“ESL Investments notified its partners in April that it was relocating to Miami, Florida, effective June 1, 2012,” Steven Lipin, a New York City spokesman for the hedge fund, wrote in an email Tuesday night to Greenwich Time, CtPost.com reports.
Lipin declined to comment further, including to say what precipitated the firm’s exodus from Connecticut or how many people ESL Investments employed at its 200 Greenwich Ave. headquarters.
In 2003, Lampert was kidnapped at gunpoint from the parking garage of his Greenwich office and taken to a Days Inn in Hamden, The AP reports.
He was released unharmed two days later after promising to pay his captors $40,000. They were arrested after trying to use Lampert’s credit card to order a pizza.
Lampert owns a $25 million compound on Long Island Sound in Greenwich, but reportedly bought a $40 million mansion recently on Biscayne Bay near Miami.
