Keeping up With the Sarofim Family: Divorce, Drugs, and Lawsuits (Part II)

I covered Fayez Sarofim as an billionaire investor in this prior post. Fayez first married Luisa in 1962 (only 4 years after he started his company). However Louisa and Fayez were divorced on June 25, 1990. The cost of the divorce was $250 million the largest in Texas at the time. With this wife Fayez had a son named Christopher (who now works at the firm and had his own troubles).  Daughter Allison was born in 1968. She recently was sued by someone who was bit by her dog.

By 1979 Fayez who was then 50 met a 26 year old woman named Linda Hicks. Together they had a son named Andrew who was born in 1984 (here is a picture of him with an attractive blond). Their second son Phillip was born in 1986. Linda then had another son who was not Fayez’s (this gets confusing as the even the people who get cheated are getting cheated on themselves). Finally on September 30, 1990 Fayez and Linda Hicks were married.

Linda Hicks graduated from the University of Alabama Linda herself left her husband and moved with her young son (Sean who ended up going to TCU) to Houston and worked as an entry level clerk at Sarofim’s office for between $25,000 and $50,000. Sarofirm actually got to know Linda because he needed a babysitter and offered to pay anyone at the firm $25 per hour (which back in the early 1980’s was very good money). Fayez who was already married at the time began to meet Linda for some loving at a Houston hotel. Sarofim even asked Linda to come into his meetings to “size people up”. Fayez then bought a house for her in River Oaks. Fayez was generous and offered Linda $390,000 per year (tax-free) to be his mistress.  With a new house in River Oaks Linda seemed to like nice things and used Fayez’s money to buy a Jaguar, have frequent visits to Neiman Marcus, and almost purchased every dress on sale at a trunk show. Friends would say she would drop $100,000 per day at Neiman’s.

Despite all this money Linda didn’t seem happy. By 1995 she was an alcoholic and also a pill addict looking for Valium pills. She was taking 15 milligrams of Valium every 2 hours according to this story.  The house staff (nannies, maids, and security guards) took care of the kids while Linda would go on her drinking binges and then come home and yell at the kids for no reason. Fayez would come home and remain in his suit from work and at 6:30 P.M. to watch Wheel of Fortune with the kids. Also in 1995 while in Italy Linda had one too many drinks and told Fayez to get on his Falcon 900 private jet and go back to Houston (he took her up on that offer). Another divorce was looming. Linda wanted the same $250 million that Fayez’s first wife Louisa got. However it wasn’t cheap. Linda used lawyers Bob Piro and Earle Lilly which charged a non-refundable retainer of $50,000, in addition to $450 per hour (to work on custody for kids), and then the icing on the cake was a 20% of anything above and beyond the pre-nuptial agreement they had.  This story gets ever crazier as Earle Lilly was trying to have a relationship with Linda. Linda would buy him gifts like a $4,300 Hermes briefcase. She also made Lily the trustee of her estate (which in estate planning is a big no-no). Lilly could basically use her estate to pay himself whatever he felt was reasonable. 

By November of 1996 Fayez agreed to give Linda $12 million and she could keep the River Oaks house (of course she would have to pay the property taxes on it), along with $960,000 tax free forever. However the Piro and Lilly got $6.5 million total in fees. After the case was over Lilly suggested Linda buy him a $130,000 Mercedes for his great work. By this time Linda was crashing with her alcoholism. On February 19, 1997 she was taken to a hospital for drinking too much. It was in the hospital where Linda was admitted into rehab and met Mason Lowe (high school drop-out). Mason also had a criminal record stealing equipment from Compaq computer while working as a security guard in addition to public intoxication. Linda apparently saw something in Mason though as they bought a $4 million property in Hawaii and $2 million condo in Toronto. Apparently just like Fayez took care of Linda, Linda took care of Mason buying him a Bentley, took him to art galleries, and bought him nice suits form Neiman’s. Linda’s personal problems however got worse. In 1998 Linda had been drinking for 3 days and Mason had to call an ambulance. Fayez and Linda were still friendly and Fayez even invited both of them over for dinner. Lawyers Piro and Lilly found 153 phone messages (2 hours worth) that were threatening from Linda.

In May of 2000 while climbing Mount Kilimanjaro Linda who was having trouble breathing because she smoked for so many years passed away as she try to make it up the mountain.  Linda and Mason were asked before the trip if they wanted a satellite phone however they declined. One issue Linda had was that she had two wills. The last will usually invalidate previous wills. One will named Lilly has the executor and the other will had Mason as the trustee and executor which is somewhat scary given that Mason has a criminal record for stealing things. We shouldn’t feel too bad for Mason he currently lives in an $840,000 4,700 square foot condo in Houston according to property records.

These days it seems as if the kids of the Sarofim family are also causing trouble. In 1999 Christopher (son of Fayez) married Valerie Sarofim however in the late 1990’s filed for divorce and had court hearings to fight over their daughter Gillian Sarofim. The Sarofim nanny in an affidavit said that Valerie Sarofim would just vanish and party ignoring her kids. The nanny also claims that there was drug use by Valerie. However, Christopher Sarofim admitted in court papers that he and his wife Valerie both used cocaine and marijuana in 1996. Christopher also seems to like the ladies as he seemed to be interested in Courtney Lanier (adopted daughter of ex-Houston mayor Bob Lanier).  Here is a picture of both of them (Courtney is in the middle and Christopher is on the right).

Despite all of this Fayez Sarofim has been very generous with his wealth. He has donated to many different charities including giving $25 million to University of Texas-Houston for a research building. In 2008, he gave $15 million to Southwestern University according to this article. Also he has contributed to the Houston Ballet, Museum of Fine Arts, provide financial support to Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, Texas Children’s Hospital, Houston Grand Opera, the Houston Symphony, and given over $1 million to Hobby Center of Performing Arts.  Wherever there is a named building there is usually a capitalist behind it. Truly the Sarofim family is interesting from Fayez Sarofim as an investor, to the history of scandal, and to whatever the future holds. The Sarofim family does make the Kardashians look rather boring though.

Big Pharma’s New Business Model: FDA Does Harm

In today’s Wall-Street Journal Dr. Scott Gottlieb points out the obvious problems of the FDA. Gottlieb argues correctly that advances in medicine have been hindered by too much regulation. The average cost for a drug company to create just one pill is roughly $1 billion. The FDA now requires more patients, more tests, and I believe regulates to the point where they create drugs that are too safe. The number of patients required for clinical trials have increased from 1,600 in the late 1970’s to roughly 4,200 in the 1990’s. This of course creates additional costs for the drug companies. Today the cost of enrolling just one patient in phase III (final stage) trials is $26,000. In 1987, the cost to develop a drug was $437 million (in 2010 dollars). By 2000, this number increased to a little over $1 billion (in 2010 dollars). The question is what is driving up the cost?

Note this is just for one patient. The number of tests that must be done on patients (blood work, x-rays, etc) has from just 1999-2005 has increased 59%. During this same period the amount of time required to complete clinical trials has increased 69%. The percentage of drugs getting approved has also decreased. 63% of drugs advance from Phase I to Phase II testing. However, only 33% of Phase II drugs get into Phase III. At Phase III the chances of a drug becoming approved are 80%. The percentage of drugs that get passed has been decreasing over time.

The FDA is focused on making sure that drug companies are producing safe drugs. The FDA can restrict what drugs people choose to take. This to me doesn’t make a lot of sense considering we choose what to eat, drink, and do with our bodies. The most common argument about why we need the FDA is because people simply don’t know enough about drugs. True, individuals themselves may not however this is why people seek out information. People can get vast information about diseases, illnesses, and drugs online. Individuals can evaluate their own risk-reward models. No system will be perfect. However, the question is what leads more people better off. Right now many people are suffering from pain and illnesses because the FDA won’t let XYZ drug company test their drug. One great idea is if patients want to take a drug not approved by the FDA to sign a waiver from the drug company saying that they can not later come back and sue. The FDA has little or no incentive when it comes to approving a drug. Have you ever heard of patients suing the FDA for not approving drugs that could have potentially saved lives?