Outrageous Fortune

For the moment, all is quiet on Tim Durham’s 100-foot-long yacht. Britney Spears has stopped calling about buying the Indianapolis financier’s Beverly Hills home, and hip-hop artist Ludacris and Marion County prosecutor Carl Brizzi have already phoned in, unable to make it to southern Florida for a cruise. Standing barefoot on the lower deck, Durham admires a shoreline of palm trees swaying in the breeze. A few flags snap back and forth on boats docked nearby, water lapping gently against their hulls. Otherwise, the harbor is as still as a painting. On the upper deck of the Obsidian, Durham’s sinewy girlfriend, Jami Ferrell—a former Playboy Playmate—sunbathes in the 90-degree heat. Lounging in the living room below, David Tornek, his partner in the South Beach restaurant Touch, watches VH-1 celebrity profiles on a flatscreen television. The ocean is calm, the afternoon humidity almost unbearable. With an empty glass in hand, Durham heads inside to tell the captain it is time to set sail.

In the air-conditioned luxury of the cabin, Durham’s laptop sits open on the bar. Opportunities to buy companies have been pouring in via e-mail, but at the moment none tempts him quite as much as another Dom Perignon mimosa. A pretty girl in short shorts serves one in a champagne flute. Tornek motions to a stack of papers awaiting Durham’s signature, documents that will finalize their purchase of a steakhouse. He will get to those later. The yacht’s captain fires up the engines, and the boat propels into open water. The Miami skyline looms in the distance.

Filming all of this is a CNBC crew that has been following Durham all week. Anchorman David Faber has flown here to record a segment for a program tentatively titled The New Rich, scheduled to air in early 2008. Two cameramen trail Durham around the boat, occasionally asking him to walk back across the room again for another take. He is happy to oblige. Now seated in front of his computer as the yacht moves farther from shore, Durham divides his attention between the stock quotes scrolling across the screen and the CNBC crew that has been asking some mildly discomfiting questions.

“They asked me how I justify all this,” Durham says in an off-camera moment. “They asked me if I consider myself a materialist. I said, ‘Without a doubt! Look around.’ Does anyone not consider himself a materialist? Who doesn’t want stuff? This country is founded on the idea of people wanting stuff.”

Few people have been better at acquiring “stuff” than Durham. The 45-year-old founder of Obsidian Enterprises, a leveraged-buyout firm in Indianapolis, he claims to be worth $75 million. At last count, he owned or co-owned more than 70 classic and exotic cars, three private jets, the yacht, numerous Picassos and Renoirs, two restaurants (Touch and, in Indy, Bella Vita), a nightclub (GELO Ultra Lounge in Castleton), two limousines, a magazine (Car Collector), a plastic-surgery center, a cigar store, and—most strangely—the storied comedy brand National Lampoon. That’s to say nothing of the profitable but less glamorous manufacturing companies that fall under the umbrella of Obsidian.

Though Durham is far from being the richest man in town, it would be difficult to find someone flashier. More than 1,000 people attended his birthday party last summer at his 30,000-square-foot estate in Fortville, enjoying the investor’s hospitality while girls from Penthouse strolled around half-naked and celebrities from Jermaine O’Neal to Kato Kaelin hung out by the pool. Durham frequents Hugh Hefner’s Playboy parties in L.A., and he says he tries to bring a little of that “magic” to Indianapolis. Whether or not Indy is ready for it is the question. When photos of the birthday bash emerged on Durham’s MySpace page this September (including those of topless girls groping each other and him getting a lap dance), Indianapolis Star columnist Matthew Tulley wrote a piece connecting the host of the bawdy event to the governor and other politicians whom Durham supports heavily. “Every time you try to bring something from somewhere else, everybody freaks out,” the financier says. “If I’m going to live here, I try to at least have some fun.”

For a man fast becoming famous for debauchery, however, Durham can be disarmingly decent. Even in the midst of this lazy afternoon soiree on the yacht, he is on the phone with his ex-wife, Joan SerVaas, helping her work through some issues with her aging mother. And he tends to be quiet around crowds—sometimes painfully so. “I get nervous,” he says. “I clam up and don’t interact well. But I like the energy. I guess I’m a quiet guy who likes to go to parties.” Durham’s relationship with the press is complicated, too. Although the Star column was less than flattering and the Indianapolis Business Journal’s coverage of him has been so scathing that he has contacted his lawyer, Durham continues to welcome reporters with open arms.

As the cameras circle him on the yacht this afternoon and he fields questions about the rumors (whispered among Indy executives) that he is overleveraged, the investor just lounges back in a deck chair, sipping his mimosa. The jittery Tim Durham is nowhere to be found. Now gliding through the water at 20 knots, the Obsidian—purchased for $7 million—motors out to sea. Although he is currently on his sixth cocktail and continues to address a miniature media circus in the blistering heat, Durham remains composed. Pretending to be engaged in a conversation with Tornek, he smiles for the cameras. When they avert their gaze, Durham explains why he cooperates so readily.

“I’m not afraid of the press,” he says. “It can help to have a degree of visibility—you get the opportunity to look at deals. When this CNBC thing airs, it’s possible that I’ll start to get more national opportunities. Every dealmaker in the world is going to watch that show.”