But JMB's fortunes--and Bluhm's--rose again in the dramatic recovery of the market that began a year later.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune

By 1992 even some of JMB's better properties were barely making mortgage payments.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune

JMB's properties were lost in a junk heap of unneeded new office buildings that hadn't a prayer of finding tenants.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune

Like JMB, Walton buys commercial properties on behalf of pension funds.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune

In Los Angeles' tony Century City district JMB owns a large block of land that it may soon develop into a 38-story tower, to be dubbed Constellation Place.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune

It was formed in 1993, when Bluhm sold the public a 61% stake in JMB's collection of lucrative shopping malls--among them landmarks like downtown Chicago's Water Tower Place and Boston's Copley Place.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune

Now he's nearly a billionaire, thanks to his more than one-third interest in JMB, his 10% stake in a new real estate opportunity fund he launched in 1995, and to businesses that have little to do with real estate at all.

FORBES: Rebuilding His Fortune