In 2000, for example, presidents and chief executives of companies with under $2 million in revenue owned 35 percent of the company stock.

A partnership of Robert Siegel - president of Metropole Realty Advisors - and Louis Vuitton North America owns 17, 19 and 21 East 57th Street.

An edition of Shakespeare's works whose bookplates say it was from "John Adams Library" was bought with the bookseller's assurance that the former president had owned it.

"When the president owned it, it was kept pristine, absolutely pristine."

The president of Capricorn, Phil Walden, will own the balance of the label, which he started in 1969.

The president of NYU, John Sexton, owns the penthouse that takes up the entire 18th floor.

The company's president, Debra Lee, owns the other 2 percent.

A former president, John L. Smith, owned the Brooklyn Dodgers with Walter O'Malley and Branch Rickey, until he died in 1950.

The conventional wisdom is that the incumbent president "owns" the economy, whether good or bad, fair or unfair.

The next chairman, president and chief executive of the Ford Motor Company, a man with the ultimate responsibility for making and selling more than three million vehicles a year, does not own a car.