Equity Residential, the company he founded decades ago, did not provide a cause of death but described Zell as an “iconic figure in real estate and throughout the corporate world.” Among his wide-ranging portfolio of investments were distressed assets in real estate and in media, including an ultimately disastrous bet on the Tribune Company. Zell had a personal net worth of $5.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The next year, the media group, which owned newspapers such as the Chicago Tribune and The Los Angeles Times, among other properties, collapsed into bankruptcy. More than 4,200 staff were laid off. Zell’s handpicked managers were said to have ushered in a toxic workplace culture marked by offensive office banter and sexual innuendo, according to a 2010 New York Times article based on interviews with more than 20 employees.