"Security is tight at Eddie Lampert's office. That's no surprise: Last year he was kidnapped at gunpoint while leaving work and held for ransom for two days before talking his way free. In fact, there is no sign on the low-rise building in Greenwich, Conn., that his $9 billion private investment fund, ESL Investments Inc., is even there at all. There's also no sign on ESL's door upstairs -- and certainly no indication that the man sitting there might be the next Warren E. Buffett".
The rest of the piece is located here.
Read about Eddie Lampert in this Fortune Profile from 2006.
"Lampert's stock picking is a "form of immersion," he says. Before he put a penny into AutoZone, he visited dozens of the auto-parts retailer's outlets and had one of ESL's analysts spend six months calling on hundreds of stores, posing as a demanding customer. "It's probably overkill," Lampert says, but he can't resist."
