84, and on a second wind

[LOS ANGELES] AT 84, Los Angeles developer Jerry Snyder has US$600 million of projects under construction or planned, including two apartment towers in the city's Koreatown area and three office buildings.

"My doctor asked me, 'When are you going to quit?'" Mr Snyder said in an interview at his 30th-floor corner office overlooking the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and La Brea Tar Pits. "So I said, 'Are you a better doctor now than you were 10 years ago?' He said yes. 'Well, I am a better builder than I was 10 years ago'."

Mr Snyder, who formed his first company when he was 19, is persevering after surviving some tough economic cycles. During the recession in the early 1990s, "suicide became an option", he said, as values plunged on properties with millions of dollars of his personal guaranties. Six decades after entering the business, he's about to sell his latest apartment project and intends to use the proceeds on new office buildings.