Real estate mogul and Michigan billionaire A. Alfred Taubman is shown in his office in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., in this April 4, 2007 file photo. AP
BLOOMFIELD HILLS, Michigan — Real estate mogul and Michigan billionaire A. Alfred Taubman, whose business success and philanthropy was clouded by a criminal conviction late in his career, has died. He was 91.
Son Robert S. Taubman, the president and CEO of Taubman Centers, Inc., says his father died Friday night of a heart attack.
Taubman donated hundreds of millions of dollars to universities, hospitals and museums, and was a major backer of stem-cell research. His business success spanned real estate, art auction houses, and the A&W restaurant chain.
But it was his rearrangement of how people shop — parking lot in front, one-stop shopping — that left a mark on American culture.
He was convicted in 2001 in a price-fixing scandal involving his Sotheby’s auction house and served about a year in prison, but long denied involvement.