Park Cities Legends & Legacies — Andrew Beal
Whether banking, mathematics, real estate or high-stakes poker, you can find Andrew Beal competing at the highest level across all these endeavors.
Legends & Legacies is a series of articles focusing on some of the most prominent and accomplished families of Highland and University Park.
In this, the third installment of the Legends & Legacies series, we’ll be taking a look at the life and career of Andrew (Andy) Beal.
Table of Contents
- Career Highlights
- Family Life
- World-Class Poker Player
- Real Estate Portfolio
- A Gifted Mathematician
Career Highlights
Mr. Beal is the founder and president of Beal Bank and Beal Bank USA, one of Texas’ biggest private banks.
With around 40 retail branches, Beal Bank and Beal Bank USA reported combined capital in excess of $2.7 billion and combined assets of more than $7.0 billion as of December 31, 2019.
- in 2000, American Banker named Beal Bank the most profitable bank in the country
In addition to Beal Bank and Beal Bank USA, Beal’s other business ventures include:
- CSG Investments, based in Dallas (CSG seeks to make direct investments in companies across the Real Estate sector)
- CLG Hedge Fund, based in Dallas
- Loan Acquisition Corp, based in Dallas
A Risk Taker
In business, perhaps Mr. Beal’s biggest strength is being able to see value where others see risk, along with the gumption to invest when others feel comfortable on the sidelines. For example:
- In the eighties, Beal ran a savings and loan whose purpose it was to buy up loan portfolios of troubled banks and other S&L institutions
- He snapped up bonds of power companies during the California blackouts in 2001 and debt backed by jetliners after the Sept. 11 attacks
- During 2008 and 2009, as the country was reeling from the financial crash, Beal bought up assets that everyone else was dumping — at ridiculously deep discounts — so that while the combined net worth of the four hundred richest people in America dropped by a collective $300 billion, he saw his own net worth triple
Banker or Hedge Fund Manager?
“Interfacing with regulators is one thing, but taking constant calls from investors is intolerable. Also, why split profits?” — Andy Beal
While Andrew Beal is technically a banker, his focus on beaten-down loans may make it difficult to distinguish him from a traditional hedge-fund manager, except in one key regard:
- by owning a bank rather than running a hedge fund, Beal has created an advantageous spread between his cost of capital (i.e., monies owed to depositors) and return on capital, and eliminated the need to divvy up profits with other investors
Beal says he succeeds because he does his homework, personally checks every deal and always buys loans that have collateral that he can get if the borrower defaults.
Trump’s Economic Adviser
“I know lots of smart bankers. Andy is right at the top of the list.” — Donald Trump
Mr. Beal was selected by then President Donald Trump to be part of his Economic Advisory Team, a member group that also included:
- Steven Mnuchin: CEO of Dune Capital
- Stephen Feinberg: Cerberus Capital Management
- Thomas Barrack: Founder and executive chairman at Colony Capital
- Howard Lorber: president and CEO of holding company the Vector Group
- John Paulson: president and CEO of investment firm Paulson & Co., which runs hedge funds.
- David Malpass: founder and president of economic research and consulting firm Encima Global
- Stephen Calk: chairman and CEO of the Federal Savings Bank
- Harold Hamm: CEO of Continental Resources, an oil and natural gas producer in Oklahoma City.
- Dan DiMicco: CEO of Nucor, an American steel company
- Steven Roth: Founder and chairman of Vornado Realty Trust
- Stephen Moore: an economists, a one-time congressional aide and Wall Street Journal editorial board member
- Peter Navarro: professor at the University of California at Irvine
- Wilbur Ross: Ross built his $2.9 billion fortune by investing in distressed assets, notably companies in the throes of bankruptcy
Family Life
Andy grew up in Lansing, Michigan, as part of middle class family.
His mother worked in state government and his father was a mechanical engineer, which is perhaps where Andy inherited his passion and ability for mathematics.
As a teenager, he began earning money by fixing and reselling used televisions with the help of his uncle. While attending high school he also installed apartment security systems. He also started a business moving houses and also managed rental properties.
Education
After high school, Beal attended Michigan State University, but dropped out partly out of boredom given his highly gifted math intelligence.
Matrimony
As a man with a large personal fortune who has been married (and divorced) twice, Mr. Beal’s risk management skills obviously extend beyond the boardroom.
Beal has six children — two from his first marriage and four from his second marriage with Simona Beal (pictured below).
A World-Class Poker Player
Beal is believed to hold the record for the most money won in a single day of poker when on May 13, 2004, at the Las Vegas Bellagio, he won $11.7 million
Given Mr. Beal’s mathematical abilities, his willingness to take risk and his bankroll, his passion for poker is probably not that surprising.
Over the years, Beal has applied probability to the game of poker and found new fame by repeatedly challenging poker elite in high-stakes games of Texas hold’em.
Legendary Battles
During visits to Las Vegas between 2001 and 2004, Beal participated in high-stakes poker games against a cabal of professional players known as ‘The Corporation’.
The matches were all heads-up limit, with Beal attempting to take the professionals out of their comfort zone by playing very early in the morning and raising the stakes beyond what had been seen before.
For those interested, these legendary battles are chronicled in Michael Craig‘s excellent book The Professor, the Banker, and the Suicide King: Inside the Richest Poker Game of All Time.
Real Estate Portfolio
Over the years, Beal has bought and sold some of the most iconic properties in Dallas, including:
- The Cox Estate: 4101 Beverly Drive
- The Crow Estate: 4500 Preston Road
- The Crespi Estate: Preston Hollow
4101 Beverly Drive
The more-than-century-old house sits on 7 acres along Turtle Creek, just south of the Dallas Country Club.
The recent auction of late Dallas businessman Edwin L. Cox Sr.’s art collection made headlines around the world for its $332 million price tag, but not much has been said about the sale of the oilman’s Highland Park estate, which sold quietly to billionaire banker Andy Beal for one of the highest prices for a Dallas-area property.
Cox, who died in 2020 at 99, had owned the grand Beverly Drive house since the mid-1970s and it had previously been the home of fabled Park Cities socialite Susie Rose Lloyd, known for her over-the-top parties and eccentricities.
The Cox estate is the second mansion along Turtle Creek recently purchased by Mr. Beal, following his purchase of 4500 Preston Road (later sold to Dallas attorney Leslie Ware).
4500 Preston Road
The 6+ acre property, previously owned by the Crow family and later Mr. Beal, sold in 2021 to Dallas attorney Leslie Ware (construction on this property is currently ongoing).
The Crespi Estate
Situated in Mayflower Estates (on Walnut Hill near the Tollway), the Crespi Estate may be Dallas’ most ostentatious mansion.
Recent Ownership History:
- Former Texas Rangers and Dallas Stars owner Tom Hicks lived in the mansion until 2014
- Dallas billionaire banker Andy Beal bought the property in 2016 then sold it in 2017 to Mehrdad Moayedi, CEO of Centurion American, who planned to create Preston Hollow’s most exclusive ‘subdivision’ with The Crespi Estate as its centerpiece.
- In 2019, the Cox Family purchased The Crespi Estate
A Gifted Mathematician
Mr. Beal has a well-earned reputation as a math whiz.
In 1993, he challenged the world’s leading number theorists to either prove (or disprove) his conjecture, known as ‘The Beal Conjecture’, putting up a prize of $1 million for anyone who could do it.
To this day, the prize, which is held in trust by the American Mathematical Society, remains unclaimed.
Fermat’s Last Theorem
The Beal Conjecture, put forth by Andrew Beal in 1993, is the generalization of Fermat’s Last Theorem (FLT), made famous by the 17th century French mathematician Pierre de Fermat.
FLT has attained an almost cult-like status in the 350 years since Fermat scribbled the following assertion in the margin of one of his books:
“It is impossible to separate a cube into two cubes, or a fourth power into two fourth powers, or in general any power higher than the second into powers of like degree. I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to contain.”
While Fermat obviously hints that he had in fact found a prove for this conjecture, few mathematicians today believe that to be the case.
FLT asserts that the following equation cannot be solved for values of N>2
The Beal Conjecture
Prior to his work, there is no known evidence of prior knowledge of Beal’s Conjecture and all references to it begin after Andy Beal’s 1993 discovery and subsequent dissemination.
To this day, The Beal Conjecture’s $1 million prize, awarded to anyone who can prove or disprove it, remains unclaimed.
For those interested in collecting the $1 million, more details about the Beal Conjecture and the Beal Prize can be found here.
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