Zeckendorf by William Zeckendorf

Author:William Zeckendorf [Zeckendorf, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780615993522
Publisher: Plaza Press
Published: 2014-07-10T00:00:00+00:00

▪ 13 ▪People and Places

A CITIZEN of a small town can, through circumstances or design, come to know almost everyone in the community. On the upper levels of our own business-oriented society it is the same. The threads of mutual acquaintanceship spread everywhere. In some cases they work and weave together as tightly as a piece of waterproof cloth. At other times they scatter out like the strings of an unfinished net, but each strand is somewhere connected to others.

What I did in the course of my work was continuously pick out and weave together a great variety of these strands. Whenever possible I made use of existing connections between people. At other times I created new ones. And deals that did not go through, every bit as much as deals accomplished, can usefully illustrate how, at the top, what one might call the "village system" of contacts operates.

For example, sometime after the American Broadcasting Company bought our West Side Riding Academy for its television studios at a handsome price, ABC's chairman, Ed Noble, called, inviting me to lunch at "21." There, after a pleasant meal and a bit of verbal sparring, he said, "Bill, I invited you to lunch because you are the first man to make any money on television—by selling us that studio. You must be doing something right, so I'd like you to join the board of directors and help us out." Noble also offered me some potentially lucrative options on ABC stock, but as it turned out, his invitation was less of an honor to me than an admission of desperation on the part of the company. I joined the board and for the next ninety days found myself working almost exclusively for ABC, which was in terrible shape. A multimillion-dollar bank loan was being called, with no cash in hand to pay it, and ABC's facilities situation around the country was chaotic. Through Charlie Stewart at Bankers Trust I was able to help ABC refloat its loan. Then, by arranging sales and leasebacks of ABC's California properties with my friends at Mutual Life, I solved the company's most pressing cash problems. Within six months, thanks in large part to these manuevers, ABC had a fairly presentable balance sheet, and I was Noble's favorite board member.

Not long after this, however, Noble called a special meeting to announce a proposed merger with Paramount Pictures Corp. This was the theater chain which was half of the old Paramount movie empire that had been broken up by an antitrust decree. The theater company was cash-rich. And, as Noble put it, "I'm like a fellow who owns a giant circus except all I've got is a great big tent and no players, no actors. . . ."

He thought Paramount would help him there, but I said, "These fellows are just a bunch of theater owners who are in trouble themselves—because of television. They're not producers. All you'll wind up with is an even bigger tent than before—and still no players.

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