The Other Ron Burkle

If you've come across the name Ron Burkle, you probably know that he's a billionaire. That's because Burkle's wealth is usually deployed as an adjective and almost always with a hint of derision. As in, Ron Burkle, billionaire playboy. Or Ron Burkle, billionaire friend of Bill Clinton.

Adjectives are hard to shake, which is why it's often overlooked that Burkle—billionaire playboy friend of Bill Clinton—is also a shrewd and secretive investor and, to the surprise of many, self-made. A former stock boy who got rich buying and selling grocery stores, Burkle, 57, owns almost 30% of A&P and has a major say in its management. He's worth $3.2 billion, according to . Now he wants control of Barneys, the troubled style supermarket of the rich, and to enlarge his holdings in Barnes & Noble (BKS), a company that Burkle thinks he can save from becoming the Tower Records of the book business.