Tom Murphy

"Echoing in my head was something Tom Murphy had said to me years earlier: “If something doesn’t feel right to you, then it’s probably not right for you.”"

"“When the opportunity to buy Energizer came up, a small group of us met at 1:00 PM and got the seller’s books. We performed a back of the envelope LBO model, met again at 4:00 PM and decided to bid $1.4 billion. Simple as that. We knew what we needed to focus on. No massive studies and no bankers.”5 Again, Stiritz’s approach (similar to those of Tom Murphy, John Malone, Katharine Graham, and others) featured a single sheet of paper and an intense focus on key assumptions, not a forty-page set of projections."

"With Occasional Bold Action Interestingly, as we’ve seen, this penchant for empiricism and analysis did not result in timidity. Just the opposite, actually: on the rare occasions when they found projects with compelling returns, they could act with boldness and blinding speed. Each made at least one acquisition or investment that equaled 25 percent or more of their firm’s enterprise value. Tom Murphy made one (ABC) that was greater than his entire company’s value. In 1999 (at a time when oil prices were at historic lows), Exxon bought rival Mobil Corporation in a blockbuster transaction that totaled more than 50 percent of its enterprise value."

"The times, like now, were so uncertain and scary that most managers sat on their hands, but for all the outsider CEOs it was among the most active periods of their careers—every single one was engaged in either a significant share repurchase program or a series of large acquisitions (or in the case of Tom Murphy, both). As a group, they were, in the words of Warren Buffett, very “greedy” while their peers were deeply “fearful.”a a. Author interview with Warren Buffett, July 24, 2006."

"Tom Murphy and Dan Burke were probably the greatest two-person combination in management that the world has ever seen or maybe ever will see. —Warren Buffett"

"Tom Murphy chose his targets patiently and carefully, reviewing their profit and operating histories. And when he moved forward with an acquisition, it was because he was confident that his team could successfully infuse the Capcities philosophy and business savvy into the new assets."

"Tisch eventually became one of a group that joined Buffett every two years on a one-week trip for business leaders and investors. Oth- ers included the likes of Tom Murphy of newspaper publisher Capital Cities, Katharine Graham of The Washington Post, and William Ruane, whose investment fund focused on media stocks; they met in places such as Aspen, Colorado, or en route to Britain via the Queen Elizabeth II. “Half the time we discuss the media and media stocks and investments,” Tisch said of these trips. “Certain things in the investor world when you don’t have a working knowledge, you sort of shy away. When you get a familiarity with the subject, it makes it easier to take a position.”"