Larry Tisch

"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"

"I then called Larry Tisch. “Congratulations, Barry—you just made a lot of money,” he bellowed at me with his booming voice (the QVC stock I had bought for $25 million was now worth $125 million). He must have gotten their proposal over the wire a few minutes before. Now I was doubly stunned. I quickly said we could easily compete with the Comcast offer and I was sure John Malone and Liberty would back our deal instead of just selling out. Tisch interrupted me, saying, “If you think I’m going to overbid them, you’re smoking something. I’m going to the board dinner right now and I’m going to tell them we should authorize a one-point-five-billion-dollar dividend instead of doing this deal because we’re not going to get caught up in some bidding contest for a home-shopping company.”"

"This was percolating in the background as I was busy getting to know the CBS executives, and while Larry Tisch, in his fashion, began nibbling away at the edges of our deal. First he said it would be better for him to stay as chairman for the first year or so since he’d still own 20 percent of the company. I’d be president and CEO. Then he told Marty Lipton that his translation of my stock award at QVC into CBS stock would mean I’d get vastly fewer shares in the combined company, cutting me from 5 million to 800,000."

"During that first year, there were endless stories about our folly. Larry Tisch, the venerated industrialist who owned CBS, said he wouldn’t give “a plugged nickel” for Fox."

"I wobbled back into the dinner. At the first table I saw Larry Tisch, the billionaire head of CBS. I whispered in his ear, “He overbid us.” Tisch came back with “You paid too-too much, and now he’s paid *over* too-too much. Let it go.” We had three weeks before the next bid deadline, and I was struggling mightily with whether to go up one more time."

"of investments. Larry Tisch started his business career by buying up hotels and plowing the profits into a seemingly unrelated collection of businesses: movie theaters (Loew’s), insurance (CNA), cigarettes (Kent), watches (Bulova), ships, oil rigs, and finally broadcasting when he became head of CBS. The common thread that Tisch de- tected was an untapped potential to generate tons of cash. He had no all-encompassing corporate profile in mind as he built his holdings. For Larry Tisch, the game was business and the cash at the end of the day was how you kept score."

"At NYU’s School of Commerce, Larry Tisch met and studied under the legendary Marcus Nadler, whose ideas about the international money markets and the role of central banks would later influence Tisch and a group of devoted followers. Perhaps the most famous member of the group was investor Henry Kaufman, who spent 26 years at Salomon Brothers. “Nadler had an extraordinary ability to simplify complex financial practices,” said Kaufman, who studied under Nadler several years after Tisch. “He did not have a pet theory, but he was an anti-inflationist.” Perhaps Nadler’s greatest quality was his step-by-step approach to problem solving, a hallmark of Tisch’s future business strategy. Nadler developed an enormous following of former students. His classes on current economic and financial problems frequently were attended by former students, many of whom joined the Money Marke- teers, a group that met several times a year for dinner and to hear Nadler speak. Nadler was a major influence in formulating Tisch’s views on money supply fluctuations and the implications for inflation, interest rates, and the economy."

"The Tisch family now was worth about $30 million, more money than the entire family would ever need. No longer did Bob and Larry feel compelled to check out every proposal that met their requirement for a 12 percent pretax return on their investment. Larry Tisch was carving out a reputation as a persuasive negotiator—the kind who"

"The Laurel-in-the-Pines deal, Larry Tisch’s first big deal, encom- passed two themes that would characterize practically all of his invest- ment decisions. First, he showed an unshakable confidence in his own instincts and a willingness to defy conventional wisdom that didn’t make sense. Second, he showed his inclination to avoid overpriced investments—such as Florida hotels—and their accompanying higher downside risk. The family resisted the temptation to be swept up in the speculative fever in Florida. Instead, they went into a far more conservative deal—one that left plenty of room for error—on terms that gave them a few years to make a go of it before committing to an outright purchase."

"Larry Tisch’s attraction to the stock market, in 1958, didn’t mean his appetite for risk had grown. In fact, central to Tisch’s game was discovering, in a deal or a company, hidden value that no one else ap- predated—and gaining the upper hand early in the game. Such an opportunity had been evolving since 1952, when the federal govern- ment laid the groundwork for breaking up the movie giants that owned both studios and theaters."

"That’s what Larry Tisch meant when he said he thinks of stocks as businesses. For Tisch, buying a stock is buying a business. It becomes his business. To make sure that the business is sufficiently profitable, Tisch was an owner who liked having some say in who ran the com- pany and in setting policy, goals, and strategy."

"In Larry Tisch’s view, ego was the number'One stumbling block for effective management. “The manager wants the company to grow and grow even if it isn’t making any more money as a result,” he said. “He wants a bigger plane and a bigger office. That may not be at all the same thing that’s best for his shareholders.” The number'two menace for managers? Surrounding oneself with yes men."

"As part of his continuing education on the business, Larry Tisch traveled to Hollywood to meet the industry’s most successful enter' tainment executives—Michael Eisner of Walt Disney Co., Barry Diller, then CEO and chairman of Fox Inc., and Robert Daly, then chairman and chief executive of Warner Brothers Inc. These were the people who packaged and produced the programs that formed a network’s lifeblood. CBS, he recognized, needed the equivalent of a Grant Tinker and a Brandon Tartikoff. Tartikoff had developed the idea of “The Cosby Show,” which at that point was a major reason for NBC’s passing CBS in the ratings. Tisch wanted to know how they did it. He asked everyone who ought to know, unconcerned about the possibility of sounding ignorant."

"In 1973, inflation was starting to pick up, and the stock market was beginning to sag. If the economic cycle was on schedule, the downside of expansion was about to take hold. Sometimes, an event will accel- erate the process; for example, the demand for military hardware at the start of World War II lifted the country out of the Depression of the 1930s. Once again, war would play a role, but with the opposite economic effect. On October 6, 1973, Israel’s Arab neighbors attacked the Jewish nation. As Larry Tisch spearheaded a $25 million fund-raising drive to help Israel in what became known as the Yom Kippur War, Presi- dent Nixon committed the United States’ unqualified backing to Is- rael. For Nixon’s transgression, the oil-exporting Arab nations in the Mideast launched a devastating economic war by imposing an oil em- bargo on the West. The embargo was custom-made to accommodate the cyclical trend. It sent the price of a major inflation component soaring. Motorists lined up for hours at gas stations for the privilege of buying increas- ingly rare gallons of gasoline at two to three times the previous price. Consumer confidence was destroyed. Car sales plunged. Factories were shuttered. Unemployment climbed. Air went out of the stock market and its premium-priced Nifty Fifty. The inflation run-up forced inter- est rates higher. The first oil-shock recession was under way."

"A Loews source at the time said that Larry Tisch would be “an in- terested director at CBS but “is not going to tell CBS how to run its business. ^ It was true that Tisch preferred to have the right people running his business, rather than run them himself. Tisch said he liked being far enough removed from daily operations to have an overall view that comes in handy in the decision process.” He was happier managing money than managing people. Now the question was: Was Wyman the best person to run CBS? In the past, Bob Tisch would take the hands-on approach in answering such management questions, but so far, CBS’s board had made it clear they didn’t want more than one Tisch involved at CBS. At the first hoard meeting he attended, in November, Tisch posed tough ques- tions that tended to focus on Wyman’s management skills."

"“Wealth doesn’t impress us,” Billie Tisch said. “Larry and I are both very mindful of the things money cannot buy and the things it can buy. We always felt that we wanted the kids to be mindful of that. To be able to stand out as different in whichever community they chose to live in, we felt that you couldn’t create an economy of scarcity where one didn’t exist. We never made any pretense of not being able to afford things, nor did we see any value in extravagance. I think they know that.”"

"What makes it hard to describe Larry Tisch as a tycoon, despite his billions, is that, unlike so many other wildly successful builders of cor- porate empires, the extent of his wealth wasn’t generated by the need to compensate for some hidden personality flaw, real or imagined. In him were found no double life, no skeletons in the closet, no shattered lives, no deep-seated insecurity, no need for the approval of some hard'tO'please, long-since deceased parent, no greed, no fraud, no craving for social acceptance, no insatiable ego taking credit for every success, no trampled victims on the path to the top, no shattered man riage, no compromised personal values."