Word: southdown
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...year-old retired Air Force officer, Warn moved from suburban New Jersey to northern New Hampshire a year ago, plunked down several hundred dollars to fence a one-acre pasture and started taking orders for next year's spring lambs. Their "flock" of two newly purchased Southdown Dorset crossbred ewes hasn't even been delivered yet. "First I want to learn to spin," explains Pat, a thin, exuberant woman clutching a sheaf of notes from the fleece-grading lecture. "Then I want to learn to weave. I've been to the library to get all these books...
...heeding the ancient Roman proverb, "A meal without wine is like a day without sunshine": Pillsbury Co., Nestlé and the R.T. French & Co. of mustard fame have recently become vineyard owners. So have Lazard Frères, the Wall Street investment-banking firm; John Hancock, the insurer; and Southdown Inc., the Houston-based conglomerate. Takeover-ripe wineries have become rare, and the bids for them are enormous. The Gallo brothers have spurned an offer from Seagrams of reportedly $150 to $200 million...
...shop after closing hours; anticipating a burglary attempt, the cop stopped the man for questioning. The suspect protested: "But I'm Ernest Gallo." Replied the cop: "Yeah, and I'm Lyndon B. Johnson." In business transactions, Gallo's way is the only way-or no deal. Southdown Corp. Chairman D. Doyle Mize recently negotiated with Gallo about selling him some grapes. A few days later, Mize recalls, Gallo walked into his office and said, "Here's the contract. Here's a pen. Don't waste my time with any lawyers...
...Mize had grown tired of Zapata, figuring that it had reached a point at which profits could not be raised fast. His goal is to double after-tax profits each year, which he has often managed to do. For a more promising base of operations, he chose land-rich Southdown, a company that Zapata controlled. In a complicated series of transactions, Mize made Southdown an entirely separate company, severing all its ties with Zapata. He also resigned from Zapata and named himself chairman of Southdown. Again Mize went back to making acquisitions, mostly in exchange for Southdown securities. He bought...
...Southdown also owns 10,000 acres of vineyards in California's Salinas Valley. Mize recently signed an agreement to exchange 1,050 acres of land for California's San Martin winery. Mize believes that in the next five or ten years, demand for California wines will increase rapidly because the French will be unable to produce enough to satisfy America's growing thirst for good but moderately priced wine. The domestic market will soon be big enough to support another major national brand, he says, and a hustling entrepreneur could become a kingpin in American wines. That...