Word: stilles
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...vast store of nervous energy makes it impossible for him to sit still long enough to read anything but business reports. Even while dictating he usually swings a No. 3 iron at imaginary golf balls. At 62, he is still willing to try almost anything once. At Sun Valley, not long ago, he spotted "Prince" Mike Romanoff, the Hollywood restaurateur, on skis, and promptly declared: "If Romanoff can do it, so can I." Soon Hilton was snowplow-ing down the beginners' slope...
Shortly after, Hilton decided that Dallas needed a new hotel-and he built it by a fabulous deal that Dallas still recalls with wonder. He started by persuading George Loudermilk, an ex-undertaker and a large landholder, to give him a 99-year lease on some Dallas property he owned. Then he used the leased land as collateral for a $500,000 bank loan. Hilton put up $100,000 of his own money, and raised $200,000 from friends. He needed another $150,000, and he borrowed it from the contractor who was to build the hotel. Then...
Finally, the American National Insurance Co. of Galveston, Hilton's biggest creditor, took over his hotels. But Hilton still kept a foot in the door; American National gave him an $18,000-a-year job running their hotels. Gradually he raised enough cash to get back five of his nine hotels. By 1939 things were going so well that he built the Albuquerque Hilton and was on the move again...
Resort Trouble. Like all other hotel-men, Conrad Hilton is currently riding the crest of the wave. In most hotels, the trick is still to find a room and Hilton is confident that business will remain good for at least five years. Because of increased efficiency, the break-even point of Hilton hotels is now down to about 60% to 75% of capacity, as against a national average of 80%. For the first ten months of 1949, their operating profit totaled $6,886,108, slightly higher than last year...
Some hotelmen, who have enviously watched Hilton's amazing growth, darkly say that he has grown too fast. But Hilton points to his books in answer. Still remembering his collapse in the depression, Hilton has cut the total debt on his hotels from $32,806,000 in 1946 to $21,308,252 (not including the Waldorf), now owes nothing on the Stevens, the Mayflower or the Hilton Hotels in Lubbock and Albuquerque. He thinks he is as depression proof as any business...