Bowlmor Lanes and Arafat: The Inside Story

It has come to light that the recently deceased Yasser Arafat was an investor in none other than Bowlmor Lanes. For those of you not privileged enough to live in New York, Bowlmor Lanes is a trendy/hip/lame bowling place downtown. I know a kid who had a Bar Mitzvah there. And a briss. From Bloomberg News (via Gawker):

Arafat used a holding company to buy stakes that ranged from $285 million in Egyptian mobile-phone company Orascom Telecom Holding SAE and its affiliates to some $30 million in private equity, mostly in the U.S. These included $3.2 million in Herndon, Virginia-based Simplexity Inc., which makes electronic-commerce software, $2.1 million in New York- and Boston-based Vaultus Inc., which makes software for wireless computers, and $1.3 million in New York-based Strike Holdings LLC, which owns the Bowlmor Lanes bowling alley in Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

Arafat, who died on Nov. 11 at age 75, disclosed $799 million of investments in documents the Palestinian Authority has released over the past two years that show he didn't just invest in building basic services in the West Bank and Gaza.

At a time when the authority was starved for funds, Arafat's money managers placed bets from Tel Aviv to Silicon Valley on venture capital funds, software startups and telecommunications companies.

Bowlmor Lanes does brisk business with Wall Street, boasting a client list on its Web site that includes Morgan Stanley, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., Credit Suisse First Boston, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bear Stearns Cos. and Citigroup's Salomon Smith Barney unit. Bowlmor also promotes bar mitzvah parties and offers a kosher caterer.