General Cinema

"Smith evolved a distinctive approach to managing General Cinema’s operations. He ran the company in close collaboration with a coterie of three top executives: chief financial officer Woody Ives, chief operating officer Bob Tarr, and corporate counsel Sam Frankenheim. He officially designated this group the Office of the Chairman, or the OOC. The OOC met weekly, and Smith actively encouraged debate among his top executives."

"A Crocodile-Like Temperament That Mixes Patience . . . Armed with their return calculations, all (with the notable exception of John Malone, who was constantly buying cable companies in pursuit of scale) were willing to wait long periods of time (in the case of Dick Smith at General Cinema, an entire decade) for the right opportunity to emerge."

"these CEOs thought more like investors than managers. Fundamentally, they had confidence in their own analytical skills, and on the rare occasions when they saw compelling discrepancies between value and price, they were prepared to act boldly. When their stock was cheap, they bought it (often in large quantities), and when it was expensive, they used it to buy other companies or to raise inexpensive capital to fund future growth. If they couldn’t identify compelling projects, they were comfortable waiting, sometimes for very long periods of time (an entire decade in the case of General Cinema’s Dick Smith). Over the long term, this systematic, methodical blend of low buying and high selling produced exceptional returns for shareholders."