Latest news with #Agresti
Forbes
21-04-2025
- Automotive
- Forbes
The Man Who Will Make Nick Saban A Billionaire
Joe Agresti was on a conference call in his Baton Rouge office when an unknown number left a message. Nick Saban, the legendary University of Alabama football coach, was calling. He wanted to open a car dealership. 'I thought it was a prank call,' Agresti, now 52, recalls. 'I thought one of my buddies left me a bullshit prank Saban thing.' Within a few weeks, Saban and Agresti—whose Mercedes-Benz of Baton Rouge was considered one of the nation's best-run dealers—met for a 30-minute sitdown that lasted four hours. The next day, they agreed to go into business together. Now their Dream Motor Group sells 20,000 Mercedes-Benzes a year, plus a couple hundred Infinitis and Ferraris, across nine dealerships in Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, Texas and Florida, where the pair bought two Miami-area stores in a $730 million deal in 2023. Annual revenues are nearing $2 billion. 'It's one of the best decisions I ever made,' Saban says of the partnership. 'It's been really good for both of us.' So good, in fact, that Agresti—who runs the day-to-day and owns majority stakes in the dealerships—is now a billionaire, worth $1.1 billion. Saban, a minority partner in many of the ventures, likely isn't far behind, meaning he's set to become the first billionaire college football coach, thanks in no small part to a little-known car salesman with big ambition. A huge personality who races through his story at a mile a minute, but doesn't spare any detail, Agresti pulled himself onto the World's Billionaires list by fixating on operations, obsessing over corporate culture—and leveraging connections, from his early days as an accountant at Arthur Andersen to teaming up with Saban. Over the course of a three-hour call, Agresti mentions 14 'buddies,' a half-dozen 'friends,' three 'good dudes,' one 'excellent dude,' and names four people his 'best friend.' 'Coach and I get deals left and right because of our connections,' says Agresti, phoning from Miami in late March, after spending the morning negotiating a deal to expand into a sixth state. 'Right now we're at our all-time biggest—all our chips are on the table.' Agresti wasn't always going for broke. He grew up in working-class North Bergen, New Jersey, just outside Manhattan, the son of an architectural woodworker father and a nurse mother, who also manned the family's small apple orchard when they moved 60 miles west, near the Pennsylvania border. A wrestler, he chose Rutgers over Bucknell because he got a partial scholarship and his parents were willing to chip in more for the cheaper school. He studied accounting, deeming it a safe choice, and took a CPA gig in the metro New York office of Big Six firm Arthur Andersen. 'It was conservative, it was a guaranteed job, it was pretty good money coming out of college,' he says. He quickly got ambitious, handling due diligence for mergers and acquisitions, including auto deals, then parlaying his skills into a high-level operations job with dealership giant (and Andersen client) Asbury Automotive, eventually managing Asbury's Mississippi business. Then, in 2004, an Asbury exec gave him a chance to branch out on his own by investing in, and running, a Mercedes dealership in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. To buy a 20% stake, a 31-year-old Agresti chipped in his $200,000 life savings, convinced his parents to take out a $300,000 mortgage on their house and borrowed the remaining $500,000 from the exec. He waited out most of a yearlong noncompete agreement with Asbury by learning how to run everything from the wash rack to the financing department at a 'buddy's' Subaru dealership in Maine, driving back and forth from his home in New Jersey every week. Within a few years, he had quadrupled the Baton Rouge car lot's sales, bought out his partner for a highly-leveraged $32 million and caught the eye of higher-ups at Mercedes, who eventually awarded him the right to open a new dealership near Houston in 2013. Around then, Saban, whose father had owned a small service station in West Virginia, was mulling going into the car business himself. The coach—who had already won a national title with LSU, three with Alabama and was on the way to winning three more with the Crimson Tide—had done several events with Mercedes, which built its first major plant outside Germany near Tuscaloosa, not far from Alabama's campus. Execs gave Saban a couple of star dealership operators to talk with about partnering. He called Agresti, who won him over with his focus on customer service and creating the right culture, something that resonated with Saban, who's famously known for emphasizing process over results. 'I interviewed Joe and didn't interview anybody else,' Saban tells Forbes. 'It's like interviewing a good offensive coordinator—you just know it's the right guy.' The duo took over a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Birmingham in 2014, expanded to Nashville with Mercedes-Benz of Music City in 2017, and built a palatial dealership with an in-store bakery on the other side of Birmingham in 2018. They added a Ferrari dealership, Prancing Horse of Nashville, to their stable in 2022, complete with three guest libraries and a cocktail room. Then, in 2023, they made waves with the $730 million agreement to buy two Miami-area Mercedes megastores. Saban, who collected nearly $150 million in (pretax) earnings over his 51 years in football before his 2024 retirement, is a full partner, but Agresti—who splits his year traveling between homes he keeps near all his dealerships—runs the daily operations. He and Saban speak upwards of three times a day about ideas as big as expansion plans or as small as how a specific manager is performing. A third partner in Dream Motor Group, former Mercedes-Benz USA CEO Steve Cannon, has joined them on recent deals. 'Joe operates at a different cadence than most people,' Cannon says. 'He's pure entrepreneurial energy.' Agresti is obsessed with company culture, personally interviewing as many potential new hires as possible and asking them questions like, 'What's one thing you've done in your life that has changed somebody else's life?' If employees spot a Mercedes on the side of the road, he expects them to stop and help, customer or not. He's even more obsessed with the financial details. The former accountant compiles his own monthly statement for every store. 'If you say to me, 'How's March going?' I can look and say Cutler Bay sold 13 cars last night—eight new, five pre-owned. I can tell you who the salespeople were and I can tell you that Evelyn bought one. I know every name, what car we sold, how much money we made, and then I track them on parabolic curves to make sure that we're not overcharging anybody or undercharging anybody.' Besides the dealerships, Agresti has a fledgling bourbon company in Kentucky (Saban and Cannon are partners) and created a medical supplies business, Dream Medical Group, that sold nine figures worth of PPE during the Covid-19 pandemic. Next up: Agresti, decrying big government and the 'nanny state' of the Covid-era, says he's considering running for federal office in Alabama. 'The way it happened was such a turnoff to me as an American,' he says. 'That's when I started to seriously think about politics.' He has close ties to senators Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who he says asked him to put together a weekly meeting with auto industry leaders to help shape automotive policy, including Moreno's proposed Transportation Freedom Act. President Trump's tariffs might raise car prices, and Mercedes has reportedly considered pulling its entry-level vehicles from the U.S. market in response, but Agresti seems unconcerned, telling Forbes that sales at his dealerships spiked 30% after the tariffs were announced as buyers rushed to pick up cars before any price increases. In the long-run, he expects Trump to offer a credit for cars manufactured in the U.S. and exported elsewhere, softening the blow to automakers. 'I trust him,' Agresti says. 'Is he doing it perfectly? No one will ever know. Let's see how it ends.' In the meantime, Agresti says he, Saban and Cannon are eyeing investments in 'three or four' professional sports teams in Tennessee (he won't say which) and an 'automotive-related' business in South America. Then there's the agreement to expand his dealership empire into a sixth state and 'a whole myriad of different brands' besides Mercedes, Infiniti and Ferrari, which the hyperactive Agresti signed 'two minutes' before his call with Forbes—and continued to negotiate during our interview. 'Sorry pal, this is rude,' he says at one point, going uncharacteristically silent while he answers a text, 'but I don't want to miss this deal.'
Yahoo
23-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Expert turns tables on Dem critics after Musk accuses Social Security of being 'Ponzi scheme'
Democrats have pushed back after Elon Musk claimed that social security operates like a "Ponzi scheme" as he continues to argue for cuts to the federal bureaucracy, but one expert tells Fox News Digital that Musk is on track with his criticism of the agency. "Musk's statement about Social Security being the world's biggest Ponzi scheme does have validity," James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, told Fox News Digital in response to pushback from Elon Musk's claim, which included a "false" rating from Politifact. "A Ponzi scheme operates by taking money from new investors to pay current investors. That's the definition given by the SEC, and contrary to popular belief, that's exactly how Social Security operates." Agresti explained to Fox News Digital that Social Security, believed to be a target of Musk's efforts at DOGE, "doesn't take our money and save it for us, as many people believe, and then give it to us when we're older" like many Americans might believe. Expert Reveals Massive Levels Of Waste Doge Can Slash From Entitlements, Pet Projects: 'A Lot Of Fat' "What it does is, it transfers money when we are young and working and paying into Social Security taxes," Agresti said. "That money, the vast bulk of it, goes immediately out the door to people who are currently receiving benefits. Now there is a trust fund, but in 90 years of operation, that trust fund currently has enough money to fund two years of program operations." Read On The Fox News App The trust fund only being able to last for two years is not a result of the fund being "looted," Agresti explained, but rather it was put in place to "put surpluses in it" from money that Social Security collects in taxes that it doesn't pay out immediately and pays interest on. "The interest that's been paid on that has been higher than the rate of inflation," Agresti said. "So, the problem isn't that the trust fund has been looted. The problem is that Social Security operates like a Ponzi scheme." Doge's Plans To Offload Government Buildings Supported By Former Gsa Official One of the top Social Security criticisms from Republicans, including President Trump, has been a concern that individuals who are dead or listed with an age well over 100 years old are on the rolls and receiving benefits. Agresti told Fox News Digital that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about that issue. "What's unclear to me at this moment is whether or not the people who are on the books are actually receiving checks," Agresti said. "Back during the Obama administration, there was a stimulus, and the Obama administration sent out stimulus checks via Social Security numbers to 80,000 people who were dead, and about 70,000 of them, the Social Security Administration knew they were dead. So I don't know if they've remedied that situation since then, but clearly the system is not keeping up with the pace of current data, and that provides an opportunity for fraud." Democrats have also made the case that Musk is attempting to strip away benefits that senior citizens have rightfully earned. Agresti told Fox News Digital that is not what is happening. "There's been a lot of misinformation about that as of late," Agresti said. "You know, when DOGE came in and suggested that the Social Security Administration cut, I think it was about 10,000 workers, Democrats erupted that this is going to weaken Social Security. But the fact of the matter is that Social Security pays those workers who are for administrative overhead from the Social Security trust fund. So, by cutting out the money that they're paying them, you actually strengthen the program financially." Agresti told Fox News Digital that the current administrative overhead for Social Security is $6.7 billion per year, which is enough to pay more than 300,000 retirees the average old age benefit. Questions have emerged from critics in recent years as to whether Social Security, in its current form, is even capable of remaining solvent to pay benefits to Americans who have paid in over the past few decades. Agresti told Fox News Digital that the program will "become insolvent" as soon as 2035 if changes are not made. "To give you a feel of how disconnected Social Security is from a fully funded pension plan, if to keep the program solvent and put it on the same firm financial footing as a real pension plan, it would require an extra $272,000 in additional payroll taxes from every person paying payroll taxes right now," Agresti told Fox News Digital. "I'll give you another way in which more numbers prove this point. If you retired in 1980, it took about three years of receiving Social Security benefits to get back the value of your payroll taxes plus interest. If you retired in 2000, it took 17 years. If you retired in 2020. it will take 22 years, assuming the program has enough money to pay those benefits, which it won't without another increase in taxes on another generation of Americans."Original article source: Expert turns tables on Dem critics after Musk accuses Social Security of being 'Ponzi scheme'
Fox News
23-03-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Expert turns tables on Dem critics after Musk accuses Social Security of being 'Ponzi scheme'
Democrats have pushed back after Elon Musk claimed that social security operates like a "Ponzi scheme" as he continues to argue for cuts to the federal bureaucracy, but one expert tells Fox News Digital that Musk is on track with his criticism of the agency. "Musk's statement about Social Security being the world's biggest Ponzi scheme does have validity," James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, told Fox News Digital in response to pushback from Elon Musk's claim, which included a "false" rating from Politifact. "A Ponzi scheme operates by taking money from new investors to pay current investors. That's the definition given by the SEC, and contrary to popular belief, that's exactly how Social Security operates." Agresti explained to Fox News Digital that Social Security, believed to be a target of Musk's efforts at DOGE, "doesn't take our money and save it for us, as many people believe, and then give it to us when we're older" like many Americans might believe. "What it does is, it transfers money when we are young and working and paying into Social Security taxes," Agresti said. "That money, the vast bulk of it, goes immediately out the door to people who are currently receiving benefits. Now there is a trust fund, but in 90 years of operation, that trust fund currently has enough money to fund two years of program operations." The trust fund only being able to last for two years is not a result of the fund being "looted," Agresti explained, but rather it was put in place to "put surpluses in it" from money that Social Security collects in taxes that it doesn't pay out immediately and pays interest on. "The interest that's been paid on that has been higher than the rate of inflation," Agresti said. "So, the problem isn't that the trust fund has been looted. The problem is that Social Security operates like a Ponzi scheme." One of the top Social Security criticisms from Republicans, including President Trump, has been a concern that individuals who are dead or listed with an age well over 100 years old are on the rolls and receiving benefits. Agresti told Fox News Digital that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about that issue. "What's unclear to me at this moment is whether or not the people who are on the books are actually receiving checks," Agresti said. "Back during the Obama administration, there was a stimulus, and the Obama administration sent out stimulus checks via Social Security numbers to 80,000 people who were dead, and about 70,000 of them, the Social Security Administration knew they were dead. So I don't know if they've remedied that situation since then, but clearly the system is not keeping up with the pace of current data, and that provides an opportunity for fraud." Democrats have also made the case that Musk is attempting to strip away benefits that senior citizens have rightfully earned. Agresti told Fox News Digital that is not what is happening. "There's been a lot of misinformation about that as of late," Agresti said. "You know, when DOGE came in and suggested that the Social Security Administration cut, I think it was about 10,000 workers, Democrats erupted that this is going to weaken Social Security. But the fact of the matter is that Social Security pays those workers who are for administrative overhead from the Social Security trust fund. So, by cutting out the money that they're paying them, you actually strengthen the program financially." Agresti told Fox News Digital that the current administrative overhead for Social Security is $6.7 billion per year, which is enough to pay more than 300,000 retirees the average old age benefit. Questions have emerged from critics in recent years as to whether Social Security, in its current form, is even capable of remaining solvent to pay benefits to Americans who have paid in over the past few decades. Agresti told Fox News Digital that the program will "become insolvent" as soon as 2035 if changes are not made. "To give you a feel of how disconnected Social Security is from a fully funded pension plan, if to keep the program solvent and put it on the same firm financial footing as a real pension plan, it would require an extra $272,000 in additional payroll taxes from every person paying payroll taxes right now," Agresti told Fox News Digital. "I'll give you another way in which more numbers prove this point. If you retired in 1980, it took about three years of receiving Social Security benefits to get back the value of your payroll taxes plus interest. If you retired in 2000, it took 17 years. If you retired in 2020. it will take 22 years, assuming the program has enough money to pay those benefits, which it won't without another increase in taxes on another generation of Americans."
Yahoo
14-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Expert reveals massive levels of waste DOGE can slash from entitlements, pet projects: 'A lot of fat'
As Democrats blast Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts as a "constitutional crisis," Fox News Digital spoke to a government spending expert who explained that many departments, including entitlements, are ripe with fat that can and should be cut. James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, spoke to Fox News Digital about some of the opportunities to make cuts to entitlements and pointed to $2 billion worth of improper payments at the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2022, which was enough to pay 89,947 retired workers in 2023. "It's hard to wrap your head around a figure like that," Agresti said. "There's a lot of fat in Social Security, as there are in almost all entitlement programs." The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). House Dem Fumes Over Musk's Doge Crackdown During Fiery Interview: 'I'm Pissed' The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency. Read On The Fox News App President Donald Trump and Musk have signaled concerns about illegal immigrants with Social Security numbers contributing to fraud at SSA, which Agresti said are concerns backed up by facts. "In 2010, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration did a study of this problem, and it found that there were 800,000 noncitizens who had Social Security numbers and were working under them, which means they can receive benefits on them, and they obtain those Social Security numbers by submitting false birth certificates to the Social Security Administration," Agresti said. Doge Subcommittee Holds First Hearing Slamming $36T National Debt, As House Republicans Declare 'War On Waste' Agresti explained that there are similar problems at the Internal Revenue Service "where they're doling out child tax credits for the children of illegal immigrants, and they are basically accepting anything that's thrown at them." "There was an investigation back several years ago where the same birth certificate was issued, it was given to them in numerous cases to get these child tax credits, and they just gave it to them," Agresti said. "There was absolutely no accountability. In fact, the order from management was just get it done, get it off your desk. Don't worry about investigating whether or not it's legit and this is quite frankly, it's theft." "It's stealing from the US taxpayers, it's stealing from the government. And certain people have just come to tolerate it. And quite frankly, I just think that's ridiculous. We would never tolerate this in our regular life. Somebody ripping us off for 10, 20% of our income." Agresti told Fox News Digital that Social Security is "actually one of the better ones" when compared to other entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid, where the improper payments are "astronomical" and "sometimes five, 10, 15%, 20% with the Children's Health Insurance Program." Speaking about the IRS, Agresti said it has essentially become a "welfare program" with the "introduction of congressional laws that issue refundable tax credits" and said there are "massively" high improper payments in the agency, particularly with the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. Democrats have been vocally railing against Trump and Musk's DOGE efforts, particularly when it comes to entitlement programs, where they argue that the administration is attempting to strip legitimate earned benefits owed to taxpayers. Agresti told Fox News Digital that "nothing could be further from the truth" and when it comes to social security, DOGE is "trying to make sure that your Social Security check is there and not lost to fraud." "I think we're seeing one big obstacle right now, the Democratic Party, which is going after it and demonizing Trump and Musk for making a good faith effort to fix this kind of problem, and I don't see the reason for it," Agresti said. "I don't see the motivation for it. But it's ridiculous that they're misconstruing what they're doing." "The federal government is a behemoth, and it's got a lot of tentacles. A lot of employees and governments are infamous for having very low accountability for their employees. It's just the way it's always been."Original article source: Expert reveals massive levels of waste DOGE can slash from entitlements, pet projects: 'A lot of fat'
Fox News
14-02-2025
- Business
- Fox News
Expert reveals massive levels of waste DOGE can slash from entitlements, pet projects: 'A lot of fat'
As Democrats blast Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) efforts as a "constitutional crisis," Fox News Digital spoke to a government spending expert who explained that many departments, including entitlements, are ripe with fat that can and should be cut. James Agresti, president of the nonprofit research institute Just Facts, spoke to Fox News Digital about some of the opportunities to make cuts to entitlements and pointed to $2 billion worth of improper payments at the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 2022, which was enough to pay 89,947 retired workers in 2023. "It's hard to wrap your head around a figure like that," Agresti said. "There's a lot of fat in Social Security, as there are in almost all entitlement programs." The SSA sent roughly 7,000 federal employees disability benefits in 2008 while they were still taking wages from federal jobs, according to a 2010 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO). The GAO estimated that about 1,500 of those individuals "may have improperly received benefits" since their wages went beyond maximum income thresholds. The GAO investigation also found that over 71,000 "stimulus checks" were sent by the Obama administration to people who were deceased, including 63,481 people whose deaths had been previously reported to the agency. President Donald Trump and Musk have signaled concerns about illegal immigrants with Social Security numbers contributing to fraud at SSA, which Agresti said are concerns backed up by facts. "In 2010, the chief actuary of the Social Security Administration did a study of this problem, and it found that there were 800,000 noncitizens who had Social Security numbers and were working under them, which means they can receive benefits on them, and they obtain those Social Security numbers by submitting false birth certificates to the Social Security Administration," Agresti said. Agresti explained that there are similar problems at the Internal Revenue Service "where they're doling out child tax credits for the children of illegal immigrants, and they are basically accepting anything that's thrown at them." "There was an investigation back several years ago where the same birth certificate was issued, it was given to them in numerous cases to get these child tax credits, and they just gave it to them," Agresti said. "There was absolutely no accountability. In fact, the order from management was just get it done, get it off your desk. Don't worry about investigating whether or not it's legit and this is quite frankly, it's theft." "It's stealing from the US taxpayers, it's stealing from the government. And certain people have just come to tolerate it. And quite frankly, I just think that's ridiculous. We would never tolerate this in our regular life. Somebody ripping us off for 10, 20% of our income." Agresti told Fox News Digital that Social Security is "actually one of the better ones" when compared to other entitlements like Medicare and Medicaid, where the improper payments are "astronomical" and "sometimes five, 10, 15%, 20% with the Children's Health Insurance Program." Speaking about the IRS, Agresti said it has essentially become a "welfare program" with the "introduction of congressional laws that issue refundable tax credits" and said there are "massively" high improper payments in the agency, particularly with the earned income tax credit and child tax credit. Democrats have been vocally railing against Trump and Musk's DOGE efforts, particularly when it comes to entitlement programs, where they argue that the administration is attempting to strip legitimate earned benefits owed to taxpayers. Agresti told Fox News Digital that "nothing could be further from the truth" and when it comes to social security, DOGE is "trying to make sure that your Social Security check is there and not lost to fraud." "I think we're seeing one big obstacle right now, the Democratic Party, which is going after it and demonizing Trump and Musk for making a good faith effort to fix this kind of problem, and I don't see the reason for it," Agresti said. "I don't see the motivation for it. But it's ridiculous that they're misconstruing what they're doing." "The federal government is a behemoth, and it's got a lot of tentacles. A lot of employees and governments are infamous for having very low accountability for their employees. It's just the way it's always been."
