Saul Phillip Steinberg is founder and chairman of New York-based Reliance Group Holdings Inc. Prior to serving as chairman, Steinberg also functioned as Reliance's chief executive officer, director, and chief operating officer. One of the nation's wealthiest people, Steinberg's career began in 1961 when, according to Fortune, he borrowed $25,000 from his father to found Leasco, a computer leasing company, and became an industry pioneer. He acquired Reliance Insurance Company in 1968 and then engaged in a hostile attempt to acquire Chemical Bank the following year. In doing so, according to Institutional Investor, he became the first modern-day corporate raider, and his subsequent investments, which included an attempt to acquire Walt Disney Productions in 1984, "brought fear to corporate managers." In 1993 Business Week criticized Steinberg, stating that his company "routinely granted generous salaries and perks on the Steinberg family, as well as helped fund their other businesses and granted generous personal loans." In 1987 Barron's said Steinberg "has spent his career exploiting the incongruity between what is legal and what is fair. Although he talks about enhancing shareholder value, he built his own net worth through money taken up front in the form of large salaries, bonuses, perquisites, and side business deals made with companies under his control."
Steinberg has made large donations to leading charitable organizations and has served on the board of trustees for several organizations, including the New York Public Library and the University of Pennsylvania. He also has served on the boards of Symbol Technologies Inc. and Zenith National Insurance Corporation. Steinberg, 61, graduated from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in 1959. Divorced twice, he married his third wife, Gayfryd McNabb, on January 22, 1984. Steinberg has six children: Laura, Jonothan, Nicholas, Julian, Rayne, and Holden.
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