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Andrew Murstein
Murstein in 2007
Born
Andrew Mead Murstein[1]

(1964-06-29) June 29, 1964 (age 60)
Roslyn, New York
Alma materTufts University, New York University, M.B.A.
Occupation(s)President and board member, Medallion Financial Corp.
ChildrenKimberly Murstein and Matt Murstein[2]

Andrew Mead Murstein (born June 29, 1964) is an American businessman. He is the founder, president, board member and, with his family, the largest shareholder of Medallion Financial Corp., an investment company publicly traded on the Nasdaq stock exchange under the symbol MFIN.[3][4] MFIN and its predecessor companies have invested over $10 billion in various companies throughout the U.S.

In 1994, he was named among Crain's New York Business' "40 Under 40", and has been featured in numerous business publications.[5][6] In 2013, he was appointed to the Board of the Javits Center.

Early life and education

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Murstein was born in Roslyn, New York to Alvin and Aileen Murstein. Murstein received a B.A. in economics, cum laude, from Tufts University and an M.B.A. in finance from New York University.[7][8]

Start of the medallion business

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His grandfather of German-Jewish descent, Leon Murstein, came to the United States from Argentina,[6][9] became a New York cabdriver and purchased one of the first New York taxi medallions, issued in 1937, for $10.[10][11][12] The family went on to purchase several hundred medallions for prices as little as $10 each—medallions peaked at over $1,300,000 each but then dropped each year until by 2021 they were selling no more than $85,000 each.[13][14][15][16]

In the 1970’s, Mustrein's father Alvin Murstein founded Medallion Funding Corp. to build a taxi medallion lending business. Medallion Funding earned returns on investment over 20 percent per year.[17]

Early career

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After completing his studies at Tufts University and New York University, Murstein spent several years on Wall Street, including time at Salomon Brothers, where he learned the importance of equity in funding a business.

He joined the family business, Medallion Funding full-time in 1990 and eventually took the company public.[18]

In 1996, Murstein successfully launched Medallion Financial Corp., established to be the parent company of Medallion Funding, as a public company trading on the Nasdaq under the symbol MFIN.[10][19] The company has financed the purchase of thousands more in Newark, Cambridge, Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston and New York City, is an established industry leader.[6][20] But taxi loans are only a part of the story. The company also established or bought successful businesses that lend to a variety of small businesses such as dry cleaners, convenience stores, manufacturers, distributors, and later public companies.[10][11][13]

In 1994, Murstein invested $1 million to create a subsidiary which sold advertising on the tops of taxis. The subsidiary, eventually named Medallion Taxi Media, was enhanced in 1996 with the acquisition of See Level Advertising. Murstein sold Medallion Taxi Media to Clear Channel yielding $35 million in 2004.[18][19][20][21] About this time Medallion Financial Corp. set up its own bank, Medallion Bank, to fund many of the company's endeavors.[22] On February 27, 2009, Medallion accepted an $11.8 million investment from the U.S. Treasury, a security which was repaid on July 21, 2011.[23]

Decline in medallion values

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The price of NY City medallions peaked in 2013, as the emergence of ride-hailing companies caused the first significant and sustained decline in medallion values. In order to navigate this challenge, Murstein reduced medallion lending, expanded consumer lending and restructured existing medallion loans. To better communicate the more diversified lending strategy, a stock symbol change was made from "TAXI" to "MFIN" on May 10, 2016 [24] A decision was also made to eliminate the dividend and convert to a C corp from a Business Development Company due to tax and capital considerations.[25] After a steep decline, shares of MFIN began to rebound in the second half of 2017.[26]

By December 12, 2017, 9% senior notes issued by Medallion Financial traded for over 100% of par value, which is a significant recovery from distressed levels reached earlier in 2017, and an indication of improved investor confidence. After a dip at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Medallion Financial's stock price (NASDAQ: MFIN) increased by 5x in the following year.[when?] [27]

On May 19, 2019, New York Times published an investigative report on how medallion lending practices effected a generation of taxi drivers, citing Murstein, among others, as moving the industry toward riskier lending practices.[28]

Other investments

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In 2008, Murstein along with former baseball player Hank Aaron, former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, both Medallion Financial board members, and former football star and Congressman Jack Kemp, formed a special-purpose acquisition company (SPAC) which raised $230 million to buy a professional sports team. The SPAC reportedly bid for the Chicago Cubs and other sports properties but ended up not making a purchase because none of the properties the company evaluated had the right mix of profit potential and risk avoidance.[29][30] Later that same year, Murstein organized and filed publicly a SPAC focused on the security industry and assembled a board of directors that included former FBI Director Louis Freeh and former Pennsylvania Governor and Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge.

In 2012, Medallion Sports Group, along with partners Richard Mack and NFL player Jim Brown, Murstein acquired the Long Island Lizards of Major League Lacrosse, and renamed the team the New York Lizards. The team played at Hofstra University on Long Island and won the MLL championship for the third time in 2015.[30]

NASCAR team ownership

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On November 8, 2010, Medallion Financial Corp., as part of an investment group which included Richard Petty, acquired the racing assets of NASCAR's Richard Petty Motorsports.[31] In 2017, Murstein and Petty announced that they had hired Darrell "Bubba" Wallace Jr., to drive the No. 43 car, becoming the first African-American driver to drive regularly in NASCAR's premier Cup Series in over 40 years.[32][33] After the 2021 NASCAR Cup Series season, Murstein sold his stake in Richard Petty Motorsports (the majority ownership) to Maury Gallagher, the Chairman and CEO of Allegiant Air and owner of NASCAR team GMS Racing.[34] As a result, RPM was renamed Petty GMS Motorsports.[35]

References

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  1. ^ "Andrew Murstein Weds Miss Rudnick". The New York Times. November 4, 1990. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  2. ^ "Nicki Minaj turns NY boys into men". The Times of Israel. April 28, 2015. Retrieved February 2, 2019. Minaj was hired by a New York taxi mogul, Andrew Murstein, to grace and perform at his son Matt's bar mitzvah party last weekend in Manhattan
  3. ^ Medallion Financial Corp. Reports 2016, First Quarter Results And Announces Ticker Symbol Changes To MFIN and MFINL, Medallion Financial Corp. (Website), May 10, 2016
  4. ^ Salary.com, Site built by. "Compensation Information for Andrew M. Murstein , President, Chief Operating Officer and Director of MEDALLION FINANCIAL CORP". Salary.com. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  5. ^ "Andrew Murstein, 29," by Peter Grant "40 under 40," Crain's New York Business, Jan. 31, 1994/Feb. 6, 1994, p. 11
  6. ^ a b c Medallion Financial Corp. Retrieved Oct. 7, 2010 (Website) (www.medallion.com)
  7. ^ "About: Senior Management". www.medallion.com. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  8. ^ Andrew Murstein et al., The Business of Funding, New York, Aspatore Inc., 2006, p. 37
  9. ^ "NYC taxi medallions worth hailing," by Taylor McGraw, USA Today, Aug. 6, 2009, p. 3B
  10. ^ a b c "So you want to go public," by Stan Luxenberg, Family Business magazine, Winter, 2003 Issue (Magazine)
  11. ^ a b "Hailing New Customers," by Tania Padgett, Newsday, Nov. 3, 2003, p. A31 (Magazine)
  12. ^ "A Lender Hopes to Profit From the New Taxi Math," by Tim Gray, The New York Times, Jan. 25, 2004
  13. ^ a b “Industry Information,” New York City Taxi & Limousine Commission website (http://www.nyc.gov/html/tlc/html/misc/avg_med_price.shtml Archived 2011-09-24 at the Wayback Machine), retrieved Oct. 7, 2010
  14. ^ Time to Hail Medallion Financial Shares, Barron's, September 18, 2015 (http://www.barrons.com/articles/time-to-hail-medallion-financial-shares-1442634110)
  15. ^ "Form 10-K". www.sec.gov. Retrieved March 15, 2017.
  16. ^ "JULY 2018 MEDALLION SALES CHART" (PDF). New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission. August 16, 2018. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 17, 2018.
  17. ^ "40 Under 40 Class of 1994". Crain's New York Business. July 31, 2018. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  18. ^ a b Medallion Financial Corp. website (www.medallion.com), retrieved May 26, 2016
  19. ^ a b "New York cabs try to become ideal vehicle for advertisers," by Andrew Edgecliffe-Johnson, Financial Times, April 8, 1999
  20. ^ a b Medallion Financial Corp. annual report, 2009, p. 4, and 2004 and 2005, both p. 2 (http://www.medallionfinancial.com/pdf/annual_reports/Medallion_AR_2009.pdf[permanent dead link])
  21. ^ Stuart Elliott (July 31, 1996). "The Media Business: Advertising – Addenda; Two Developments in Ads on Taxicabs". The New York Times. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  22. ^ "You Bankin' With Me?" by David Dent, Business 2.0 magazine, April 2005, p. 62
  23. ^ "Medallion Bank - Eye on the Bailout - ProPublica". projects.propublica.org. August 18, 0202. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  24. ^ "Medallion Financial Corp. Reports 2016 First Quarter Results and Announces Ticker Symbol Changes to MFIN and MFINL". www.businesswire.com. May 10, 2016. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  25. ^ "Medallion Financial Corp. Reports Third Quarter 2017 Results". www.businesswire.com. November 7, 2017. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  26. ^ Bresiger, Gregory (October 15, 2017). "Investors see opportunity as taxi medallion prices 'bottom out'". nypost.com. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  27. ^ "Medallion Financial Corp. 9.000% Notes due 2021 (MFINL)". NASDAQ.com. Retrieved March 15, 2017.
  28. ^ Rosenthal, Brian M. (May 19, 2019). "They Were Conned". The New York Times.
  29. ^ "Medallion Financial Corp. Reports 2010 Second Quarter and Full Year Results," press release issued August 4, 2010, posted on Business Wire (http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20100804005928/en/Medallion-Financial-Corp .-Reports-2010-Quarter-Results), Yahoo, Dow Jones, Reuters, businessweek.com, marketwatch.com, and Medallion's website
  30. ^ a b "laim-mll-championship-1.10721898 Rob Pannell's Four Goals Help Lizards Rally To Claim MLL Championship, Newsday, August 9, 2015". newsday.com. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  31. ^ "Medallion Financial Corp. (TAXI) Stock Price, Quote, History & News". finance.Yahoo.com. Retrieved March 18, 2019.
  32. ^ "And The NASCAR Wild-Card river To Watch In 2018 Will Be….." by Dave Caldwell, Forbes, December 16, 2017
  33. ^ "Richard Petty Motorsports switches to Chevrolet, Aligns with Richard Childress Racing", by Mike Hembree, USA Today, December 7, 2017
  34. ^ "Richard Petty Motorsports sells majority interest to GMS Racing owner Maury Gallagher". NASCAR.com. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. December 1, 2021. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
  35. ^ Albert, Zack (December 7, 2021). "Richard Petty Motorsports sells majority interest to GMS Racing". NASCAR.com. NASCAR Digital Media, LLC. Retrieved December 12, 2021.
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