Ken Uptain

"Line by line she read down the page. The overview showed that Kjell Inge Røkke had done well in the USA. He had hit the jackpot in the real estate market together with Ken Uptain and owned apartments, office buildings, and restaurant properties worth over 30 million kroner. But the real coup was the fleet at Golden Alaska Seafoods. The overview Røkke received from his accountants showed that the fishing boats were worth at least 150 million kroner."

"Ken Uptain remembers differently: "I knew that the American deposit insurance fund Resolution Trust Corporation (RTC) had a number of properties for sale. I asked a broker for a list and went around looking at the properties," his version goes. This is how Uptain came to Vero Beach, and when he saw Grand Harbor, he had no doubt that he had found what Røkke wanted. In the summer of 1991, an incredible 116 million dollars (835 million kroner) were invested in the magnificent plan to transform 4,000 acres of mosquito-infested marsh and swamp into what the developers boasted would become "Florida's most exciting harbor town and resort." So far they had not progressed, but as Uptain wandered around the area, it struck him that quite a few of these millions must have been spent to steal balls from unlucky golfers. The sadistic course designer had made it easier to hit the water than the fairways. But golfers are masochists, and wealthy doctors and lawyers from the East Coast gladly pay dearly to be humiliated, so Uptain immediately realized that this could become a gold mine."

"It is in real estate that Kjell Inge Røkke has performed his toughest stunts, and it is here he has used some of the toughest methods. Method number one has been to buy up the debt of crisis-stricken companies and then pressure the management and owners to beg for mercy. When you sit with large loans and do not have money to pay interest, then you do not have much to say. With the merger with Avantor, Røkke's foreign properties were separated out so that they were not included in the deal. Thus, Ken Uptain continued to manage the luxurious Grand Harbor project in Florida and the less lucrative Lynnwood shopping center in Seattle for RGI. At the beginning of the 90s, Uptain represented one of the real veterans in Røkke's business life. They had known each other since the first party in 1984 and had been partners in many hundreds of apartments. Moreover, it was Uptain who came up with the name that would become Røkke's: The Resource Group, which eventually became RGI. Now, he was a bit sidelined as Jan Petter Storetvedt emerged as the new real estate comet within the group."