Joe Lewis (businessman)

Joseph C. Lewis (born 5 February 1937) is a British businessman and investor who holds a number of assets mainly through his Tavistock Group investment portfolio.

When he took the reins, he quickly expanded it by selling luxury goods to American tourists, and also owned West End club the Hanover Grand, where he gave Robert Earl his first job.

[14] Lewis seeded Lake Nona, covering 7,000 acres next to Orlando's international airport, with $100 million in gifts and land which was cultivated into a large-scale community offering research and educational facilities, hospitals for veterans and children, a town center, and a range of workspaces and residential options.

[16] In 2009 Lewis was ordered by the Superior Tribunal de Justicia (STJ) to create and keep access to the lake, with "sufficient signage and to keep it transitable", but the ruling has not been enforced.

[19] By December 2007 Lewis had raised his stake at the brokerage firm to 9.4%, a total of 11 million shares, for which he paid an average price of $107 apiece.

[7][21][22] Lewis is the largest shareholder in the British public house group Mitchells & Butlers, controlling 26.85% of the issued share capital through his investment vehicle Piedmont, which he built up since 2008.

[23][24] On 25 July 2023, United States attorney for the Southern District of New York Damian Williams announced that Lewis would be charged for multiple counts of insider trading.

Lewis is accused of tipping off employees, associates, friends, and romantic interests with non-public information about various entities and lending some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars to trade on the privileged knowledge.

[40] Lewis is the owner of several versions of Arturo Di Modica's iconic Charging Bull, including the original, which the artist installed during the middle of the night on 15 December 1989 on Wall Street with no prior permission from the authorities.