Word: murchison
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...excitement of the risk and the satisfaction of pulling off a deal. And with an almost Calvinistic compulsion, they all drove themselves to work, work, work-even after they had made more money than they could ever personally use. "We are obligated to do something useful," says Clint Murchison Jr., "and the most useful thing I can do is be in business. The most important thing about money is as a measure of your value in the economy...
Once, That's All. John and Clint Murchison had some early trouble establishing their value. John got stuck in an unprofitable timber investment in the Northwest, lost millions in mining uranium. Clint Jr. plunged into a residential deal in Dallas on which old Clint figured a smart operator could have made a million. Clint Jr. lost half a million. Said old Clint: "You can afford to go broke once, but that...
Coming & Going. In the early 1950s, now confident of the boys' business abilities. Clint Sr. gradually turned over to them a loose entity called Murchison Brothers, which he had set up in 1942. In one shrewd deal after another, the brothers proceeded to acquire or build up housing projects from Florida to Los Angeles, construction-material companies in a dozen cities, land developments all across the U.S., two water systems, several insurance companies and a corralful of other properties. Not content with making the building supplies for the houses they construct, they build the roads and the streets over...
...their Dallas headquarters, six executives known as "associates" keep a close watch over assigned portions of the Murchison empire, deciding the right time to buy, to sell, or to exert more control. The associates do not get large salaries, but they benefit from a friendly Murchison-and Texan-custom: helping friends to get rich by letting them in on deals. "We want our boys to make money," says John. "If one of them makes a million, we've made 10 million. Naturally, they need very little encouragement...
Aiding the Legend. The brothers keep in touch with their father, who at 66 spends much of his time in a wheelchair as a result of two recent strokes, but they rarely consult him about business deals any longer. To B. H. Majors, an old Murchison family friend, the boys are motivated above all by a desire "to do right by their father and the legend he has created." They certainly live by a principle inculcated in them by old Clint. Says Clint Jr.: "There isn't any sense in having $40 million in the bank or even...