THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Saturday/Sunday, February 22 - 23, 2020 |B
The company of British-born
John Gore, 58 years old, has a
hand in almost every Broadway
production in one way or an-
other. It has stakes in hits from
“Hamilton” to “Moulin Rouge!
The Musical,” has a leading pres-
ence on the touring circuit, and
is a prominent ticket seller
through its Broadway.com site.
For several decades, a tight
group of producers and theater
owners have largely controlled
Broadway. Now, as the industry
rides a wave of hit shows to re-
cord ticket sales, Mr. Gore hasemerged as one of the most pow-
erful individuals in the business.
“What the JohnGore Organi-
zationhas done so brilliantly is
own the brand of Broadway,”
said Greg Nobile, a producer be-
hind “Slave Play,” a show that
ran earlier this season.
Perhaps most remarkable is
the fact that Mr. Gore has built
his empire without owning a
Broadway theater. Compare that
with two industry giants whose
roots go back more than a cen-
tury: the Shubert Organization,
which has 17 Broadway venues,
and the Nederlander Organiza-
tion, which has nine.Mr. Gore has devised a mod-
ern-day growth formula based on
businesses providing solid in-
come streams without depending
on a physical toehold in New
York’s theater district.
“He’s made his profit in the
margins,” said one veteran the-
ater marketing professional.
Some senior-level profession-
als across the theater world pri-
vately grumble about the reach
Mr. Gore has across the industry:
Many productions rely on the
Gore Organization at all stages of
a show’s life, from receiving in-
vestment from the company’s in-
Please turn to page BBeirutA
s dusk settled over the capital of
Lebanon, Carlos Ghosn took a
seat in the back corner of a
dimly lit restaurant a short walk
from his house. A waiter ap-
proached. In Arabic, Mr. Ghosn
ordered an espresso.
A bodyguard, after looking the place over,
disappeared. Several groups of Lebanese
businessman talked quietly nearby, paying
little mind to the former auto titan who had
made world-wide headlines weeks earlier by
escaping house arrest in Tokyo and fleeing
Japan after sneaking onto a private plane in
a large black box.
Mr. Ghosn’s new life in Lebanon, he said
between sips of espresso, is one of restric-
tions. He can’t leave the country where he
was born without risking arrest, and Leba-
non’s banking crisis has crimped his access
to cash. At times, street protests have made
even moving around the city a challenge.And always, he is on the lookout for Nis-
san or Japanese authorities who might be
shadowing him.
“I’ve been told I need to protect myself,”
he said. “Even the building in front of my
house, Japanese people came to rent it. I
don’t know what their intentions are. People
tell me that a lot of Japanese people are
coming, taking photos and observing.”
His life of hopscotching around the world
on a private jet, he knows, is over. His primary
focus these days is mounting his counterattack
against charges that as head of the auto-mak-
ing alliance between Renault SA and Nissan
Motor Co., he misappropriated company
money and hid compensation. “We’re talking
about fighting for my reputation, fighting for
my legacy and fighting for my rights,” he said.
“I’ve never been as motivated as I am today.”
Asked whether he has anything to apolo-
gize for in the wake of his escape, his eyes
narrowed. “Apology for what...?” he said.
Please turn to page BThe Invisible King of Broadway
John Gore has quietly built an empire with a major stake in everything
from funding to touring to ticket sales, while staying out of the spotlightBYNICKKOSTOV ANDSEANMCLAIN
‘Moulin Rouge! The Musical’ is one of the Broadway hits backed by the John Gore Organization.EXCHANGE
Work Flow
Ninewaystoget
moreoutofaday
attheofficeBChild’s Pay
Navigatingthe
changestothe
‘KiddieTax’BBUSINESS|FINANCE|TECHNOLOGY|MANAGEMENTDJIA28992.41g227.57 0.8% NASDAQ9576.59g1.8% STOXX 600428.07g0.5% 10-YR. TREAS.À16/32, yield 1.470% OIL$53.38g$0.50 GOLD$1,644.60À$28.00 EURO$1.0847 YEN111.Carlos Ghosn leaving his lawyer’s
office in Tokyo in March 2019.
In December, he fled to Beirut.BYCHARLESPASSYAmericans struggling to lower
their cholesterol will have another
drug at their disposal, after the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration ap-
proved a new medicine fromEspe-
rion TherapeuticsInc.
Esperion’s once-daily pill, bempe-
doic acid, is the first oral non-statin
approved in nearly two decades. The
drug works differently than others to
lower bad cholesterol, LDL, and ulti-
mately forces it out of a patient’s
bloodstream. Doctors see the drug as
an alternative for millions of patients
who can’t take or aren’t responding
to statins—a need that other new
cholesterol-lowering drugs have been
slow to address.
More than 40 million Americans
take statins, which hit the market in
the 1980s. They remain the mainstay
drug option for cholesterol reduction,
and can be purchased for just a few
dollars a month in generic versions.
Doctors have sought additional thera-
pies, but a recent new class of
drugs—injectable therapies known as
PCSK9 inhibitors—have seen slow up-
take, in part because of their high
cost.
Esperion, based in Ann Arbor,
Mich., is targeting about nine million
patients who take statins but aren’t
seeing cholesterol drop to desired
levels. It is also targeting about nine
million patients who aren’t taking
statins because they can’t tolerate
them or for other reasons.
Not all patients can tolerate sta-
tins, and “some of these patients
can’t achieve their LDL-C goals,” CEO
Tim Mayleben said. “Today’s approval
provides them with a new medicine
to go along with a healthy diet.”
The drug is approved for patients
with chronically high LDL-C, which
Please turn to page BBYJAREDS.HOPKINSCholesterol
Drug Gains
Approval
Investors dumped stocks and
flocked to traditionally safer assets
like government bonds and gold this
week on escalating worries that the
coronavirus epidemic would crimp
global growth.
The yield on the benchmark 10-
year U.S. Treasury note touched its
lowest level since September on Fri-
day, settling at 1.470% after earlier
approaching the record low of
1.366% from 2016.
Yields on even longer-dated Trea-
surys fell to a record low. Gold
prices, meanwhile, climbed for the
seventh consecutive session to a
seven-year high and extended their
gains for the year to 8.2%.
The moves in bonds and gold sug-
gest investors are fearful about the
potential of an economic slowdown.
But despite declining this week, the
S&P 500 is sitting within 1.4% of its
record and set a new high as re-
cently as Wednesday.
The mixed signals across markets
highlight how tough investors are
finding it to assess the damage that
the coronavirus will have on economic
growth as the epidemic disrupts con-
sumer spending, manufacturing and
supply chains around the world.
“One’s telling you that things are
great in the world. The other market
is telling you that things are not
great in the world,” said Giorgio
Caputo, a portfolio manager at J O
Hambro Capital Management, refer-
ring to the disconnect between
stocks and bonds. “One market is go-
ing to be right.”
The S&P 500 dropped 35.
Please turn to page BBYGUNJANBANERJIStocks
Drop on
Fears Over
Coronavirus
MATTHEW MURPHYCarlos Ghosn’s
New Life in Exile
After a dramatic escape from Japan, the auto
titan is back in the homeland he left as ateenager. He can’t leave without risking arrest
and worries he is being watched. And for the firsttime in decades, he has time on his hands.
TAKAAKI IWABU/BLOOMBERG NEWS