Peter Munk

Fifty years ago, Peter Munk and his family were safely spirited out of German-occupied Budapest after his grandfather cut a deal with the Nazis. The past few months prove that the young Munk learned the lessons of his banker grandfather well. The urbane Hungarian, now 66, is one of the slickest deal makers in North America. He is the man behind the dual stellar fortunes of Horsham Corp., named after the English hometown of his wife, Melanie, and American Barrick Resources Corp.

Fifty years ago, Peter Munk and his family were safely spirited out of German-occupied Budapest after his grandfather cut a deal with the Nazis. The past few months prove that the young Munk learned the lessons of his banker grandfather well. The urbane Hungarian, now 66, is one of the slickest deal makers in North America. He is the man behind the dual stellar fortunes of Horsham Corp., named after the English hometown of his wife, Melanie, and American Barrick Resources Corp.

TrizecHahn Corp., a Canadian real estate company headed by financier Peter Munk, said it's forming a real estate investment trust that will own its U.S. office assets and benefit from U.S. tax laws. The creation of the REIT is part of a plan by TrizecHahn to focus on its U.S. office properties and sell the rest of its assets, spokesman Rick Matthews said.

Trizec Properties Inc.'s third-quarter loss widened as the second-largest U.S. office owner on Monday again cut the value of its two biggest retail projects, including a Hollywood development that is the home of the Academy Awards show. The net loss increased to $254.3 million, or $1.70 a share, from $8.49 million, or 6 cents, a year earlier, the co-owner of Chicago's Sears Tower said. Revenue rose 5.7% to $244 million in the quarter.

Brookfield Properties Corp., owner of the World Financial Center in Lower Manhattan, and buyout firm Blackstone Group agreed to acquire Trizec Properties Inc. for $4.8 billion plus the assumption of $4.1 billion in debt, the second-largest takeover of a real estate investment trust. Trizec, whose chairman is Canadian real estate mogul Peter Munk, would almost triple Toronto-based Brookfield's U.S.

After building countless suburban shopping malls, real estate giant TrizecHahn is betting hundreds of millions of dollars that Southern Californians are ready for something different. Hollywood & Highland, a $560-million retail and entertainment complex that will serve as the permanent home for the Academy Awards show, is being built in Hollywood by TrizecHahn's development arm.

Congressional and Canadian investigators are trying to determine whether a former member of the Canadian Parliament, who is active in a staunch anti-communist group that has supplied aid to the Nicaraguan rebels, played a role in the diversion of Iran arms profits to the contras.

Design exhibitions are the visual equivalent of bringing on the Rockettes glittering with sequins and prancing like ponies. You can let your hair down at a design show. If it is like the one opening Sunday at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, you can have a good wallow in the-way-we-were nostalgia. Titled "Design 1935-1965: What Modern Was," it consists of some 250 examples of the decorative art that succeeded Art Nouveau and Art Deco.