Our mother ship, the Los Angeles Times, broke the story first. The Huffington Post picked it up. "An eccentric, globetrotting multibillionaire who doesn't own a home in California — or anywhere, for that matter; he says he has little use for owning things — is about to breathe life into efforts to shake up Sacramento. Nicolas Berggruen will give at least $20 million to a group of Californians who long to restructure state government so it is more responsive to voters, more responsible with public funds and ready to reposition the state to meet the challenges of today's economy."
Given the utter nastiness of this year's mid-term elections, one wonders why the Huffington Post characterized Nicolas Berggruen as "eccentric."
Look at it this way. If you were a 49-year-old, highly-intelligent bachelor, with a degree in finance and international business from New York University, with no children or spouse, would you need to purchase real estate? If you earned your billions by founding your own private investment company, would you need to purchase lots of cars instead of founding your own private think tank?