The head of one of the largest US real estate auction houses was found dead of an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said on Tuesday.
Steven Good was discovered parked in a forest preserve near Chicago on Monday morning, the Kane County Sheriff’s Department said.
There was no note found in his red Jaguar indicating a motive and it was unclear whether his death was related to his work.
Good, 52, was the chairman and chief executive of Chicago-based Sheldon Good & Company Auctions International. He was the driving force behind the firm’s expansion and was involved in US$4 billion in sales, a company biography said.
Company president Alan Kravets hailed Good as “one of his industry’s most brilliant minds and most successful entrepreneurs” and offered his condolences to Good’s wife, children and father.
“It is testimony to Steve’s leadership that Sheldon Good & Company remains well positioned for the future,” Kravets said in a statement.
Good’s death came hours before that of German billionaire Adolf Merckle, who threw himself under a train after he was brought to the brink of ruin by the financial crisis.
Merckle, a respected businessmen with a wife and four children, jumped in front of a train in the town of Blaubeuren in southwestern Germany, officials said on Tuesday.
His business empire had run into trouble in the crisis, and its problems were compounded by heavy losses in trading of shares in automaker Volkswagen AG. Merckle’s business interests included generic drug maker Ratiopharm International GmbH and cement maker HeidelbergCement AG.
Merckle’s family said in a statement that “the distress to his firms caused by the financial crisis and the related uncertainties of recent weeks, along with the helplessness of no longer being able to act, broke the passionate family businessman.”
Authorities said he left a suicide note, but gave no details.
Merckle becomes the latest high-profile casualty of a global economic crisis that already has claimed the lives of executives in Europe and the US.
In September, Kirk Stephenson — the chief operating officer of private equity house Olivant — jumped in front of a train at a rail station west of London. The 47-year-old husband and father of a young son stepped onto the tracks, was struck and killed.
A British coroner ruled last month that the death was suicide, though the precise reasons remain a mystery. He left no suicide note.
Two days before Christmas, in New York, Rene-Thierry Magon de la Villehuchet, was found dead at his desk, wrists slashed and bottle of pills nearby after his fortune and the money of his loved ones vanished along with his clients’ funds when he lost US$1.4 billion invested with Bernard Madoff.
The Frenchman’s fund was among the biggest losers in the Madoff fraud, and one of a handful to get taken for more than US$1 billion.
“He was totally ruined,” his brother, Bertrand Magon de la Villehuchet, said in Paris last month.
“At first he thought he’d be able to get the money back. He was very determined. Gradually he realized he wouldn’t be able to,” Bertrand said.
John Lucas, assistant clinical professor at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical College, said that the men may have “considered themselves to be worth as a human being what they were worth at the bank.”
Charles Goodstein, a psychiatrist at the New York University School of Medicine and past president of the Psychoanalytic Association of New York, said Merckle could have been distraught over other issues.
“We don’t know those things, so therefore the economic problems may have been the tipping point and that sent him over the edge,” Goodstein said. “To limit it solely to the issue of finance may be a big mistake.”
NEXT GENERATION: The four plants in the Central Taiwan Science Park, designated Fab 25, would consist of four 1.4-nanometer wafer manufacturing plants, TSMC said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) plans to begin construction of four new plants later this year, with the aim to officially launch production of 2-nanometer semiconductor wafers by late 2028, Central Taiwan Science Park Bureau director-general Hsu Maw-shin (許茂新) said. Hsu made the announcement at an event on Friday evening celebrating the Central Taiwan Science Park’s 22nd anniversary. The second phase of the park’s expansion would commence with the initial construction of water detention ponds and other structures aimed at soil and water conservation, Hsu said. TSMC has officially leased the land, with the Central Taiwan Science Park having handed over the
AUKUS: The Australian Ambassador to the US said his country is working with the Pentagon and he is confident that submarine issues will be resolved Australian Ambassador to the US Kevin Rudd on Friday said that if Taiwan were to fall to China’s occupation, it would unleash China’s military capacities and capabilities more broadly. He also said his country is working with the Pentagon on the US Department of Defense’s review of the AUKUS submarine project and is confident that all issues raised will be resolved. Rudd, who served as Australian prime minister from 2007 to 2010 and for three months in 2013, made the remarks at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado and stressed the longstanding US-Australia alliance and his close relationship with the US Undersecretary
‘WORLD WAR III’: Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said the aid would inflame tensions, but her amendment was rejected 421 votes against six The US House of Representatives on Friday passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2026, which includes US$500 million for Taiwan. The bill, which totals US$831.5 billion in discretionary spending, passed in a 221-209 vote. According to the bill, the funds for Taiwan would be administered by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency and would remain available through Sept. 30, 2027, for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative. The legislation authorizes the US Secretary of Defense, with the agreement of the US Secretary of State, to use the funds to assist Taiwan in procuring defense articles and services, and military training. Republican Representative
TAIWAN IS TAIWAN: US Representative Tom Tiffany said the amendment was not controversial, as ‘Taiwan is not — nor has it ever been — part of Communist China’ The US House of Representatives on Friday passed an amendment banning the US Department of Defense from creating, buying or displaying any map that shows Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The “Honest Maps” amendment was approved in a voice vote on Friday as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for the 2026 fiscal year. The amendment prohibits using any funds from the act to create, buy or display maps that show Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Wuciou (烏坵), Green Island (綠島) or Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) as part of the PRC. The act includes US$831.5 billion in