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Cohasset native turned private-equity billionaire is buying that $37.5-million condo at the top of Millennium Tower

The Boston Business Journal reports on John Grayken's latest acquisition (subscription required to read full article). Graykin, who grew up on the mean streets of Cohasset (and now owns an entire island off its coast), but who renounced his US citizenship to become Irish, is head of Lone Star Funds.

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Comments

Disappointing, that he has renounced his citizenship means this will be sitting empty most of the year.

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Better a local guy than some investor from HK.

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...Ireland. ;)

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We joked that when my son played baseball at the field in the part of Cohasset that this guy is from that it was Downmarket Cohasset.

The man made a lot of money using his brain. There was no inherited wealth here nor shady deals at the end of communism in Russia to take over an oil field, nor workers jumping to their death from rooftops after making your iPhone.

Please don't be angry at him. When he built the two houses (and bridge) at the entrance to Cohasset harbor he used all local tradesmen from around the South Shore at the time the housing market was in the toilet and jobs were scarce.

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The Forbes article seems to suggest that his wealth has been built on nothing but shady deals. In fact they go so far as to accuse him of building a new Countrywide Mortgage.

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Using his brain...and aggressive and questionable business practices

You won’t find any libraries or schools or hospitals with his name on them. He hasn’t signed Warren Buffett’s Giving Pledge. And he’s anything but a patriot: In an effort to avoid taxes, he renounced his U.S. citizenship in 1999. You’ll find him on our list as a citizen of Ireland.

Since the Great Recession Grayken has made a specialty of buying up distressed and delinquent home mortgages from government agencies and banks worldwide. He’s also picked up a major payday lender, a Spanish home builder and an Irish hotel chain. Regulators hassle him, and the homeowners whose mortgages he owns or services despise his tactics. In fact, he has become accustomed to taking shots from detractors and has been the subject of protests from New York to Berlin to Seoul. Last year New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman reportedly opened an investigation into Grayken’s heavy-handed mortgage-servicing tactics, including aggressive foreclosures, which have unleashed widespread outcries from homeowners, housing advocates and trade unions.

Sounds like a real saint

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....and you won't get foreclosed upon.

Don't pay what you said you would pay...get foreclosed upon.

Does this concept hurt your feelings?

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Well, unless you are rich. Then the rules are different. Wealthy businesspeople use all kinds of shady LLCs and lawyers to delay or get out of paying things for years. Trump is an excellent example, but only one. If you are rich, you can just declare one of your investments bankrupt and not pay workers and investors (like Schilling), but still have plenty of money for yourself.

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When the 1% don't pay their bills they get bailed out by the rest of us or just abuse bankruptcy laws like Trump does. When the rest of us don't pay our bills we end up homeless. Don't act like the rules are the same for everyone.

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He renounced his US citizenship. For whatever reason (taxes?), he formally wants nothing to do with you.

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That will be the property taxes on the unit assuming a $30M valuation by the City of Boston based on this year's tax rate.

How much you got? He's is paying for a minimum of 3 teachers, including benefits just from him not being around much.

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I guess he won't be able to take advantage of the Residential Exemption ...

http://www.cityofboston.gov/assessing/exemptions/resexempt.asp

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You could feed all the poor in Boston for 10years with $37million

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If you downgraded to something cheaper, how many poor people could you feed?

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So, you want to feed someone for 10 years for only $19.47 per year?

Where do you shop? The 1783 store down by Mr. Hancock's Wharf?

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Talk about an patriotic tax dodger.

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What like the Boston Tea Party?

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Put aside the fact that this guy is a billionaire. Then ask yourself this question.

If you could legally pay less taxes, would you chose that option?

If your answer is yes, then you are no different than this guy.

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would I renounce my citizenship to that end? No. And if I were staggeringly, almost imaginably more wealthy than 99.9% of US citizens, I like to imagine that I wouldn't quibble over a few million bucks. But surely that's why he's rich and I'm not.

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Why he renounced his citizenship. We don't. Or rather I don't. Do you?

The guy is now a citizen of Ireland. I know personally that income tax is much higher in Ireland than the US. His company is HQd in Texas. He has two houses in England, one in Switzerland and more here in the US.

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or should someone who renounces their US citizenship not go ahead and leave? I mean what is that? Tax purposes? I don't like it.

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"Though Grayken’s firm is headquartered in Dallas, he lives in London because he can’t spend much more than 120 days a year in the U.S. without having to pay the U.S. taxman."

So, it will mostly be sitting empty.

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So, it will mostly be sitting empty

So, what's your point? It isn't clear. Is your point the fact that he'll be paying a boatload in taxes to the city of Boston for something he barely uses?

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I think the persons point is so often when the person isn't white (from China or elsewhere in Asia) people (especially conservatives) scream and yell about foreigners buying up condos in Boston/NYC etc, and how we need to change the laws to prevent that. But when its a white guy from with Irish citizenship, well its just somehow different. Either way the person isnt living there full time, or even close to most of the time, most of the time either person will be living on another continent. So people need to decide whether they will get angry when any foreigner does this, or none.

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