So. Who Bought the M Mansion for $4.5 at Last Thursday's Auction???

A lovely North Dallas couple and family who currently live in a 5100 square foot home in Preston Hollow. I love this stuff as it is the American Dream in action. Raj is a totally self-made man, and built his company from the ground up with hard work. From a dozen employees 12 years ago, Raj now employs about 130.

You might call him the flip-flop king. He is the founder and CEO of Bioworld Merchandising Inc. Based in Irving, the company once sold licensed fashion headwear to private label headwear products, as well as accessories, flip flops and licensed apparel for the retail trade. Big time clients include Target and J.C. Penney Co. Inc. and also licensed music merchandising for the bands AD/DC, Misfits and Ramones, among others. The company has also expanded into fashion wear more recently. Here are more snippets on Raj from the Dallas Business Journal:

“Raj has a self-made personality and a self-made company,” said David Reynolds, CFO of Bioworld. “He’s worked very hard to implement that vision and has been very successful.”

“I would say some of the recent successes are the addition of our apparel division, which launched two years ago,” said Omar Cantu, executive vice president of operations. The company’s willingness to venture into new areas was key to its ongoing expansion, according to Reynolds and Cantu.

“I believe Raj really concentrates on the here and now,” Reynolds said. “He spends just as much time thinking about the next twelve months as he does thinking about today. He is very fashion-oriented … and he has his finger on the pulse of what is happening at the retail stores.”

Raj also apparently has his finger on the pulse of real estate. Concierge now says there were a total of 12 people bidding on the M Mansion last Thursday, but his was the winning one. And almost everyone I talk to says the Malik’s got a steal of a deal.

Also, the M Mansion can still be the M Mansion: now the M stands for Malik, rather than Mascolo!