Kaufman & Broad

"Magness looked up at an old ranch dog, a lethargic mixed beagle named Tiger, sleeping by the fire. “About the only one we can trust in the whole world is Tiger…,” Magness said. I laughed. Then… lightning struck. TCI, too, had a sleeping asset that could save the day. By happenstance, we had an unrestricted subsidiary that was not on the balance sheet of TCI, a small cable system down in Brazoria, Texas, that for some reason was not covered by the bank agreements. If we could leverage the balance sheet of that company to purchase stock, we could buy the shares back at a bargain and redeem them into the treasury. And that is exactly what we did, buying back almost 20 percent of the company at a big discount, redeeming shares, and shrinking the equity through an entity called Tiger Inc., which included the stock held by Gulf+Western and Kaufman & Broad. The move allowed us to keep more than 40 percent of TCI shares in friendly hands. We later moved the Tiger shares over to Jerry O’Brien, publisher of *The Salt Lake Tribune,* an early TCI investor and Magness friend."

"One of TCI’s largest shareholders, homebuilder Kaufman & Broad, which owned close to 20 percent, had whispered to Bob that they were ready to get out of their investment in TCI, which was understandable. Bob had given big investors in TCI his inflated stock, assumed the debt of the construction on the business, and committed to building out these underdeveloped franchises. Now, with the stock in the tank, those investors were rethinking their position."