A child of immigrants who shared his wealth with his city, the son of a baker, a shoeshine boy who became a billionaire, a loans clerk who rose to lead a bank – these are among February’s obituaries from the world of business.
Mike Ilitch
Mike Ilitch, who turned a pizza parlour into a fortune and then spent much of it to sustain his beloved Detroit, died on February 10. He was 87.
The founder of the Little Caesars restaurant chain invested in Detroit at a time when most everyone else was staying away.
Ilitch, the son of Macedonian immigrants, was born on July 20, 1929. He played baseball at Detroit’s Cooley High School and was signed by his hometown Tigers – the team he would later own – after his four-year stint in the US Marines. He spent three years in the team’s farm system before a knee injury ended his playing career.
He found his niche in business. It started in the late 1950s when Ilitch and his wife, Marian, opened their first Little Caesars in a strip mall in a working-class suburb. In those days pizza was still somewhat exotic. Their business plan involved a streamlined menu and low prices. One strategy was "stuffing a family for less than US$10", according to a New York Times story in 1992. "When they walk out of the store, I want them to get a hernia," the newspaper quoted Ilitch as saying.
The couple started selling franchises in the early 1960s. Mike Ilitch handled the menu and marketing while Marian managed the finances. In 1979, he started a two-for-one deal called Pizza! Pizza! and created a conveyor oven to quickly bake takeout pies so customers wouldn’t have to wait or call ahead. Sales mushroomed.
It was his subsequent turn as a white knight for Detroit that made "Mr I" a local legend. He bought the Detroit Red Wings ice hockey team in 1982 for $8 million when they were lousy. He spent freely and they went on to win Stanley Cups in 1997, 1998, 2002 and 2008.
In 1992 he paid $85m for baseball’s Detroit Tigers. They made the World Series twice, losing both times, as Ilitch signed big cheques to snag top talent.
The Ilitches also spent $12m to renovate the down-at-heel Fox Theatre in downtown Detroit. Then Ilitch moved the Little Caesars headquarters from the suburbs into an office building next to the theatre. He even built a new stadium for the Tigers across the road.
Other gestures of his were smaller in scale. After the civil rights hero Rosa Parks was robbed in her home, he paid for her rent in a better part of town.
"Mike Ilitch is totally committed to Detroit," said Damon Keith, a local judge. "He brought the Little Caesars corporate offices here. He saved the Fox Theatre. He built Comerica Park, and he kept the hockey and baseball teams thriving here when times were tough. But of all the incredible things he has done for the city, people should know what he did for Rosa Parks."
Lorenzo Servitje
The Mexican bakery magnate Lorenzo Servitje died on February 3. He was 98.
Servitje was one of the six founders of Grupo Bimbo. Together they built the world’s biggest bakery, an international snack and baked-goods empire that acquired brands including Wonder Bread, Entenmann’s, Freihofer’s and Stroehmann.
Servitje was born in Mexico City in 1918, the son of a Spanish immigrant who started a bakery called El Molino.
He was studying accountancy at university when his father died in 1936. The son inherited the bakery and began trying to figure out how to modernise it.
After the Second World War, he launched Grupo Bimbo in 1945 with his partners. They started out with 38 employees and 10 delivery vehicles.

Source: The National