Henry Singleton

"A Prediction Today, the combination of record corporate cash levels and generally low interest rates and P/E ratios presents a historic opportunity for aggressive capital allocation. This situation is particularly pronounced among the largest, bluest-chip technology businesses—companies like Cisco, Microsoft, and Dell—many of which are still run by members of their founding management teams, have enormous cash balances, and trade at unprecedented single-digit P/E multiples. I think it’s likely one of these firms will reverse its historic emphasis on R&D investment and move to optimize returns through a combination of dramatically increased buybacks or dividends. Were this to happen, the market’s response would likely be rapturous, and one can imagine Henry Singleton as the CEO of one of these companies, rubbing his hands together in delight at the opportunities."

"Henry Singleton, in a rare 1979 interview with Forbes magazine: “After we acquired a number of businesses, we reflected on business. Our conclusion was that the key was cash flow. . . . Our attitude toward cash generation and asset management came out of our own thinking.” He added (as though he needed to), “It is not copied.”"

"This single-minded cash focus was the foundation of their iconoclasm, and it invariably led to a laser-like focus on a few select variables that shaped each firm’s strategy, usually in entirely different directions from those of industry peers. For Henry Singleton in the 1970s and 1980s, it was stock buybacks; for John Malone, it was the relentless pursuit of cable subscribers; for Bill Anders, it was divesting noncore businesses; for Warren Buffett, it was the generation and deployment of insurance float."

"Henry Singleton has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business . . . if one took the 100 top business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would not be as good as Singleton’s. —Warren Buffett, 1980 I change my mind when the facts change. What do you do? —John Maynard Keynes"

"as one of Ralston’s directors said at the time, “Why would you want to shrink the company. Aren’t there any worthwhile growth initiatives?” Stiritz, in contrast, believed that repurchases were the highest-probability investments he could make, and after convincing his board to support him, he became an active repurchaser. He would eventually repurchase a phenomenal 60 percent of Ralston’s shares, second only to Henry Singleton among the CEOs in this book, and he would earn very attractive returns on these buybacks, averaging a long-term internal rate of return of 13 percent."

"When one reads that “Warren Buffett” has bought, [for example], an interest in General Foods, it usually means that an insurance subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway—using its reserves built up against future claims—has made the investment, which can cost more than Berkshire Hathaway, the parent company, could readily afford. . . .The same maneuver, using insurance companies, is per¬ formed by such operators as Henry Singleton, Larry Tisch, Carl Lindner and Saul Steinberg, among others.63"