Speaker 1: This is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholts on Bloomberg
Speaker 1: Radio this weekend on the podcast You guys give me
Speaker 1: grief when I say I have an extra special guest,
Speaker 1: But once again I have an extra special guest. Sir
Speaker 1: Martin Franklin has such a fascinating career. He started out
Speaker 1: working with his father taking apart conglomerates and later decided
Speaker 1: he would rather build companies than disassemble them, and put
Speaker 1: together quite an amazing streak. You might be familiar with
Speaker 1: Benson I Care. The returns on that were one thousand eight.
Speaker 1: He also put together Jardan Corporation, which generated returns of
Speaker 1: over five thousand percent. He's built a number of companies
Speaker 1: and really over the past twenty years turned what was
Speaker 1: known as blank check companies or SPACs into quite a
Speaker 1: respectable way to put patient capital in place to make
Speaker 1: long term acquisitions. Different from private equity, which he describes
Speaker 1: as renting assets. He wants to own assets on behalf
Speaker 1: of himself and his investors. Really just an incredibly fascinating career.
Speaker 1: He's done so many really interesting things and his track
Speaker 1: record is quite astonishing. So, with no further ado, my
Speaker 1: conversation with the founder and CEO of Mariposa Capital. Martin
Speaker 1: Franklin VI is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholtz on
Speaker 1: Boomberg Radio. Our extra special guest this week is Sir
Speaker 1: Martin Franklin. He is the founder and chief executive officer
Speaker 1: of Mariposa Capital. Previously, he was CEO of Jordan Corporation
Speaker 1: Benson I Care. He was named Antigua and Barbudos Special
Speaker 1: Economic Envoy and was knighted as a high degree of
Speaker 1: Night and Cross. Sir Martin Franklin, Welcome, It's bloom book.
Speaker 1: Hi Marry, how are you? Thank you? Pretty good? Pretty good?
Speaker 1: So I wanted to include some of the more eclectic
Speaker 1: things in your background because your career path is is
Speaker 1: a little unusual. When someone asked you what you do
Speaker 1: for a living, how do you answer them? It's never
Speaker 1: very easy. I describe myself as a business builder. You
Speaker 1: can't sit that on your immigration form when they ask
Speaker 1: you to describe your employment. But that's that's kind of
Speaker 1: what I am. A bit of an operator and a
Speaker 1: and an investor. I guess a hybrid. So you began
Speaker 1: working on hostile takeovers at a pretty young age with
Speaker 1: your father. How did that impact your views on finance.
Speaker 1: You know, I think I learned a lot in those
Speaker 1: early years. One of the things I learned with the
Speaker 1: corporate headquarters for a bit of a waste of time
Speaker 1: and money that you hasn't really changed. My father always
Speaker 1: used to say that the quality of a corporation is
Speaker 1: an inverse proportion to its location from its headquarters. In
Speaker 1: other words, the further further away they were from the headquarters,
Speaker 1: the better the business. Often those rules are true, but
Speaker 1: that was probably the biggest thing. I mean, what my
Speaker 1: father and Jimmy Gouldvis did in those days was the
Speaker 1: necessary to deconglomerate the conglomerates of the sixties and seventies
Speaker 1: and certainly served its purpose. One of those conglomerates you
Speaker 1: were appointed CEO of was d R G, and you
Speaker 1: were assigned to break up the conglomerate via asset sales.
Speaker 1: What was that experience like? Highly unusual? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that was only about twenty four or twenty five
Speaker 1: years old. Probably did more M and A than most
Speaker 1: investment bankers in that in that time, but it really
Speaker 1: was quite an experience. What what we took the headquarters
Speaker 1: from a hundred and ten people down to seven, and
Speaker 1: we had certain businesses within the group didn't even know
Speaker 1: that it has happened. You know, the underlying businesses were
Speaker 1: of varying quality, but there was no doubt that they
Speaker 1: were all very appreciative of being sort of left free
Speaker 1: from the shackles of a fairly poorly run conglomerate. So
Speaker 1: you return to the United States, where the idea was,
Speaker 1: rather than break up companies, you wanted to build something.
Speaker 1: Kind of reminds me of a key plot point from
Speaker 1: the movie Pretty Woman. What what was the motivation of
Speaker 1: um saying let's rather than deconglomerize these mashed up companies,
Speaker 1: let's see what we can build. How did that go?
Speaker 1: You know, I'll tell you I had a very close
Speaker 1: and still have a very close relationship with my father,
Speaker 1: But like any good son, I kind of wanted to
Speaker 1: blaze my own path. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: was very apparent to me was it was much less
Speaker 1: fulfilling to break up a company. And you know, when
Speaker 1: you're building something, everybody is sort of rooting for you.
Speaker 1: The investment community is rooting for you, employees are rooting
Speaker 1: for you, the establishment is rot routing for you. And
Speaker 1: you know, when I started on that path of building
Speaker 1: Benson I Care. It was just all the energy was
Speaker 1: positive energy, and so I found it much more enjoyable.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know, again, I don't know what my
Speaker 1: father did was it was necessary, but it was very
Speaker 1: much anti establishment. It was often hostile, you know, there
Speaker 1: was there were people laid off as a result of
Speaker 1: these things. Whereas when you're building, you know, you tend
Speaker 1: to be employing more. Um, it's a much more positive
Speaker 1: energy experience. So that's what I've been doing ever since.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about Benson I Care for a moment.
Speaker 1: You were the youngest CEO of a company ever listed
Speaker 1: on the ny SC at the time, and subsequently you
Speaker 1: generated returns for your investors. Tell us a little bit
Speaker 1: about Benson I Care. Sure. Well, I really started with
Speaker 1: very little money, and I had made it made some money,
Speaker 1: you know, when I was working with my father. But
Speaker 1: basically it started with my buying eleven optical shops from
Speaker 1: a from a company called Sterling Optical which was going about,
Speaker 1: which was going bankrupt, and I got an SBA loan.
Speaker 1: I think I put up a hundred thousand dollars and
Speaker 1: bought these stores. I think it was the only SBA
Speaker 1: loan that they that that nat West made that year.
Speaker 1: It was, you know, one of those years that was
Speaker 1: a you know, down economy that hadn't made many loans. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we bought that business and sold it it into a
Speaker 1: shell company called Erlick Bober Financial, which was a then
Speaker 1: defunct former municipal bond broker. Stock was thirty eight centser
Speaker 1: share when we were reversed it in. At the same
Speaker 1: time brought a chain of formerly bankrupt stores in Minnesota
Speaker 1: called Benson Optical hence the named Benson I Care and
Speaker 1: they ran dispensaries inside optomologists officers. Anyway, that's how we started.
Speaker 1: We were a bit of spoken mirrors. It gave us
Speaker 1: a business with about fifty million dollars of volume and
Speaker 1: very little in profits, and we were off to the races.
Speaker 1: And long story short, we started buying manufacturers and distributors
Speaker 1: of eyeware. The largest acquisition we made was a company
Speaker 1: called Optical Radiation, which I think we bought in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety four, which was a home run transaction. We ended
Speaker 1: up owning the largest system of lens processes in the
Speaker 1: United States, you know, optical lab speaking lenses into prescriptions. Anyway,
Speaker 1: we sold the company to Sor, which was the largest
Speaker 1: lens baker in the world, and you know, returned to
Speaker 1: investors to stop one from thy eight cents to nine
Speaker 1: dollars and seventy my memory recalls right. And that was
Speaker 1: my capital base, quite frankly, from which everything else I've
Speaker 1: done was built. So so let's talk about the next
Speaker 1: thing that you built. You end up joining Jordan a
Speaker 1: few years later. That wasn't the initial name, was it?
Speaker 1: And that that company I actually didn't join it. I
Speaker 1: forced myself upon it. I would be more. I bought
Speaker 1: nine point nine percent of a company called Ultrist, which
Speaker 1: was a spinoff from Ball Corporation, and made a takeover
Speaker 1: take private proposal to them, which they rejected. That they
Speaker 1: made another and another, and basically they had made a
Speaker 1: couple of very poor acquisitions and every time their numbers
Speaker 1: came down, I had readjusted my offer, and management continued
Speaker 1: to fight me on it, and in the end they
Speaker 1: held an auction that was the only bidder, and finally
Speaker 1: the board decided to invite me to be a director
Speaker 1: in exchange for stand still. So Ian Askins has been
Speaker 1: my partner in right hand for the last thirty one years.
Speaker 1: He and I went on the board. I went to
Speaker 1: my first board meeting. It was an extraordinary event um
Speaker 1: and at the end of that board meeting, they decided
Speaker 1: to fire the CEO and ninety days later made me
Speaker 1: chairman and chairman CEO and ian vice chairman and CFO.
Speaker 1: And I think split adjusted, the stock was about the
Speaker 1: dollar twenty if I remember rightly, about ten dollars pre split,
Speaker 1: and we built the company from there. It was about
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty million dollar business with about thirty millions,
Speaker 1: and it was it was one of those stories where
Speaker 1: the board decided to actually invite in a very rare
Speaker 1: story where the board decided to invite in the protagonist
Speaker 1: and actually saw that I had a plan and the
Speaker 1: view and shoreholders were richly rewarded. We we We built
Speaker 1: the company for fifteen years thirty four compound return. Sold
Speaker 1: the company when the stock was about sixty dollars, so
Speaker 1: that's about a five thou percent return. And and just
Speaker 1: to put some flesh on those bones. When you joined,
Speaker 1: it was about three million in revenues. By the time
Speaker 1: newer brand Ends boarded for fifteen billion dollars, you had
Speaker 1: over ten billion dollars in revenue, a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: global brands, thirty five thousand employees, all of which begs
Speaker 1: the question, how did you manage to scale up from
Speaker 1: what was essentially a faltering company into something so successful
Speaker 1: that rubber Maid How to grab it? It's a great story.
Speaker 1: Some of it was luck is that we actually ended
Speaker 1: up with fifty five thousand employees. It was the biggest
Speaker 1: given we we um. You know, the beginning was it
Speaker 1: was an incredible series of events. The first was one
Speaker 1: of the bad acquisitions they had made at the very beginning,
Speaker 1: and by the way, the company's loans were in the
Speaker 1: red zone, you know, the warning sort of potential default
Speaker 1: zone that Bank of America. It was like one of
Speaker 1: those sort of loans that they were watching out for.
Speaker 1: So the company was really in porchet. But they had
Speaker 1: bought the last acquisition that they made, that very poor acquisition.
Speaker 1: They paid a hundred and fifty eight million dollars if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, for a company, but they bought it
Speaker 1: as an asset purchase. So when we sold the business
Speaker 1: for twenty four million, the business that they had bought,
Speaker 1: it created a large n o l and we filed
Speaker 1: an accelerated return with the government and got back twenty
Speaker 1: five million dollars of previously paid taxes. And then we
Speaker 1: got a little bit lucky. The Bush had done the
Speaker 1: stimulus Bill and allowed companies to go back a further
Speaker 1: three years to recaptch a previously paid taxes for the
Speaker 1: n OL and got another twenty five million dollars, and
Speaker 1: they gave us enough liquidity to really solve the balance
Speaker 1: sheet issues. Our residual businesses were very profitable, and they
Speaker 1: said about thirty million of the BIDA. And then we
Speaker 1: bought a company called Tillier, which picks the food Saver product,
Speaker 1: and we paid only four times the vi DA for it.
Speaker 1: Everybody thought there was a one trick pony and its
Speaker 1: profits weren't going to be sustainable, and its profits went
Speaker 1: from twenty five million to forty million, so we we
Speaker 1: we had started with an extraordinary base. He was the
Speaker 1: only deal I've ever done that literally doubled earnings to
Speaker 1: share on the day we did it. Obviously, the stock
Speaker 1: performed very well from it, and and that gave us
Speaker 1: the building block on which to build. And I think
Speaker 1: the rest of the story is not so much what
Speaker 1: we did right. But the things we didn't do wrong,
Speaker 1: I mean, we didn't have any real failures. We bought
Speaker 1: good businesses and made them better under the umbrella. We
Speaker 1: never borrowed too much, We used equity, were appropriate and
Speaker 1: sort of navigated that route for fifteen years, stuck to
Speaker 1: our knitting. Quite fascinating. Let's talk a little bit about
Speaker 1: the state of business today and what's driving things. We
Speaker 1: were talking earlier about Jordan being purchased by Newell Brands
Speaker 1: in what was that experience? Like you, You've been through
Speaker 1: a lot of purchases and sales of assets, but this
Speaker 1: was a pretty decent sized transaction. It was about a
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollar growth transaction, fifteen billion on the equity.
Speaker 1: You know. My view, I looked at the sort of
Speaker 1: behaviors of my children and felt that a lot of
Speaker 1: the company, the businesses inside the portfolio, we were becoming
Speaker 1: less relevant to the next generation of behaviors. So I
Speaker 1: felt it was the appropriate time for, you know, as
Speaker 1: to consolidate portfolio with somebody who had a similar portfolio.
Speaker 1: Was giving the businesses combined, you know, greater leverage and
Speaker 1: strength within their sectors. But also the decision was a
Speaker 1: personal one. I felt that we had taken the business
Speaker 1: a very long way, We've generated superb returns and this
Speaker 1: was the right time to move on. I was also
Speaker 1: in the process of building a family office. I had
Speaker 1: a son and they had more children, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of ahead of the oldest son to come and sort
Speaker 1: of join a family office in Alament. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: the coincidence of timing felt that it was the right time.
Speaker 1: I think, with hindsight, you know, probably the right move. Obviously, uh,
Speaker 1: I didn't see COVID nineteen coming or anything like that,
Speaker 1: but definitely, um, you know, was was the right move behindsight.
Speaker 1: So since you mentioned COVID nineteen, you were until recently
Speaker 1: a director of restaurant Brands International. They have such brands
Speaker 1: as Burger King, Popeye's, Chicken Tim Horton's. How has the
Speaker 1: pandemic affected those sort of businesses and what was it
Speaker 1: like during the depth in March and April of the
Speaker 1: lockdown across the US. You know, I think that there
Speaker 1: are retailers, quick service retailers, food companies that have been
Speaker 1: hit differently than others. The retailers like McDonald's and Burger
Speaker 1: King and Popeyes have significant drive through services, have been
Speaker 1: far less damaged than you know, casual dining concepts, where
Speaker 1: you know you're sitting inside a restaurant and delivery or
Speaker 1: drive through is a fastballer proportion of the business. So
Speaker 1: I would tell you that they've managed through this admirably,
Speaker 1: obviously at lower levels of volume in some areas than
Speaker 1: than others. But you know, in terms of being able
Speaker 1: to keep them as as strong, maintain their dividends, hold
Speaker 1: on to the employees, they've been spared. As I say,
Speaker 1: the more casual dining concepts have been decimated. If you
Speaker 1: don't have a capital base of which to operate, and
Speaker 1: you you know you live, you operate months to month
Speaker 1: without this sort of government support, you're out of business
Speaker 1: until consumer behavior completely changes again. So let's do a
Speaker 1: little comparison with the industrial conglomerates today. How how do
Speaker 1: they look compared to the conglomerates of of the seventies
Speaker 1: and nineteen sixties that your father was spending a lot
Speaker 1: of time taking apart. Well, I would say, first of all,
Speaker 1: there are far fewer of them today. The conglomerates of
Speaker 1: yesterday were fueled by continual, continuous deal making. You know,
Speaker 1: they were taking advantage of accounting anomalies about you know,
Speaker 1: on treatment of goodwill and things like that that aren't
Speaker 1: the case today. They were also far fatter. They generally
Speaker 1: dealt with very large headquarters, and we were fiefdoms in
Speaker 1: their own And I say today they're much more targeted,
Speaker 1: more disciplined, rarer as I said, and get probably getting
Speaker 1: less of a discount as a result of being a
Speaker 1: little more focused than than the conglomerates of the sixties
Speaker 1: and seventies. What about a giant conglomerates sitting with a
Speaker 1: lot of cash, like Berkshire Hathaway. What what happens to
Speaker 1: that entity in the post Buffet Monger era? You know,
Speaker 1: I'll give you an analogy. I would think of it
Speaker 1: in the same way as one would think of Lows
Speaker 1: Corporation after the passing of the you know, Larry and
Speaker 1: prespentitious standards. Though the you know, they're great assets, great companies,
Speaker 1: but the if you like, the investment dynamism that existed
Speaker 1: with the founding entrepreneurs, you know, at least for now,
Speaker 1: is not the same. That's not a knock on them,
Speaker 1: it's just a different generation. And that would be a
Speaker 1: normal course of events. I think that Berkshire Hathaway will
Speaker 1: probably be the same story. I think they'll you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't change the quality of the assets when they're
Speaker 1: not there. But I think that the sort of innate
Speaker 1: instinct of when to when to make a big bet
Speaker 1: and what big bet to make is something that you
Speaker 1: don't get to pass on. You either habits or you don't.
Speaker 1: So um, you know. I think whoever Warren Buffett and
Speaker 1: Charlie Manger put in as caretakers, you know, of the
Speaker 1: of Berkshire for the future, they will probably be very
Speaker 1: admirable caretakers. But they won't be Warren Bufett and Charlie
Speaker 1: Maner because you can't be with doesn't know how life works, right,
Speaker 1: There is no replacing those two guys, that's correct. So,
Speaker 1: so you were founder and chairman of Element Solutions, a
Speaker 1: chemical technology company. Seems very different from some of the
Speaker 1: previous companies you worked on. How did you find your
Speaker 1: way to that and was it really all that different
Speaker 1: from some of the other companies you helped to build. No.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm currently involved in you know, five quite
Speaker 1: significant size businesses, and Element, you know, is one of them.
Speaker 1: Element has the set says the same characteristics as all
Speaker 1: the other ones, which is there the businesses inside Elements
Speaker 1: are the market leaders in their respective niche. It's a
Speaker 1: very high priest cash flow business. It's got good management,
Speaker 1: it's got some really defensible moats around it. Those are
Speaker 1: really core characteristics that you'd find in our Frondsen food businesses.
Speaker 1: To know, more foods, which is you know, same thing
Speaker 1: for a p I, a L safety business, and Royal Oaks,
Speaker 1: you know my charcoal business. That they all are leaders
Speaker 1: in their respective niche markets elements not really as it's
Speaker 1: especially chemical company, but it really is a services company,
Speaker 1: you know when you really get into what it does.
Speaker 1: What it does is it helps manufacturers in their manufacturing process.
Speaker 1: And it's really the technicians as much as the chemicals.
Speaker 1: Could we sell them. That are what our customers pay
Speaker 1: for when they're when they're dealing with various business units.
Speaker 1: M quite quite interesting. So let's talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what's going on in the world of public markets
Speaker 1: and private equity. You've worked with firms in the past
Speaker 1: like black Stone and Pinnacle. How is it what that
Speaker 1: what you do is different from private equity. I'd say
Speaker 1: most distinctly, it's the difference between owners and renters private equity.
Speaker 1: Even the best of them are renters of businesses because
Speaker 1: they own them with a specific mandate to sell them
Speaker 1: at some point in the future. So in some cases
Speaker 1: that you could be six months, could be five years,
Speaker 1: could be ten years, that they always end up selling
Speaker 1: them because that's the structure of how they have their capital.
Speaker 1: I'm in the permanent capital business, so you know the
Speaker 1: way I invest in the public market. Um, the only
Speaker 1: way that you know I'm a seller is if the
Speaker 1: company itself is sold because somebody comes along and makes
Speaker 1: an offer for all the shares. We don't tend to
Speaker 1: look at it that way. We've put up as us
Speaker 1: is from a very very long investment standpoint. We talked
Speaker 1: earlier about Books a half Away. Probably the same philosophical
Speaker 1: approach in terms of investing that once we own something,
Speaker 1: we intend to build it for the long term, so
Speaker 1: that affects decision making capital investments. Long term approach to ownership.
Speaker 1: Incentives for employees and how we treat employees I think
Speaker 1: are very different in what I do to private equity.
Speaker 1: The analogy I use is if you had an apartment
Speaker 1: and you were a renter, and you you had a
Speaker 1: hole in your wall, you might put a poster up
Speaker 1: to cover the whole, whereas if you're the owner, you're
Speaker 1: going to fix the wall. That, unfortunately or fortunately is
Speaker 1: the difference sometimes in approach. What what's the old joke,
Speaker 1: nobody washes a rented car exactly exactly? How do you
Speaker 1: make sure that your investors are patient capital? There's been
Speaker 1: so much discussion about shareholder value and focusing on the
Speaker 1: next quarter as opposed to the next decade. How how
Speaker 1: do you ensure you're attracting the right investors to be
Speaker 1: owners with you of of the companies you're running. You know,
Speaker 1: that's a that's that's a very good question. I mean,
Speaker 1: the truth is, you don't. What we tend to do reputationally,
Speaker 1: people know by you know, our long history, that we
Speaker 1: are patient capital, and that tends to attract a certain
Speaker 1: kind of institutional shareholder. We are also our own activists.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's something that is an important
Speaker 1: point to make if you have shorter term type oriented investors.
Speaker 1: I think when you communicate with them and they understand
Speaker 1: that you're balancing the short term and the long term
Speaker 1: to drive value, that gives investors some comfort for investors
Speaker 1: who really don't care about the business long term prospects
Speaker 1: and just one short term returns. You know, the something
Speaker 1: we can do about that. But they tend to be
Speaker 1: in the minority. But because we've been able to drive
Speaker 1: good value over the long term overall, you know, we
Speaker 1: tend to we tend to attract the right kind of investors.
Speaker 1: You know, I've always believed that you sell equity to
Speaker 1: investors the same way you sell products. You know, there
Speaker 1: are for investors, there are five thousand different public companies
Speaker 1: to choose from. Why invest in yours? You've got to
Speaker 1: give them a reason to be interested in your equity.
Speaker 1: And you know, for people who sit back and think
Speaker 1: it's all going to come their way, those are the
Speaker 1: ones that tend to get you know, undervalued or you know,
Speaker 1: have the wrong kinds of shareholders. We actually make a
Speaker 1: real effort to find the right shareholders that the right
Speaker 1: profile to our sectors, explain to them why our business
Speaker 1: you know, is Merits investments. M quite quite interesting. I'm
Speaker 1: curious about what you described as being an activist and
Speaker 1: esther in your own businesses. What does that look like. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, capital allocation is where you really make a
Speaker 1: difference in terms of return. You know, if you look
Speaker 1: at Jardon's history, we weren't just good owners and operators
Speaker 1: of our businesses when you went to add equity to
Speaker 1: our business, so you went to buy equity back. We
Speaker 1: did some significant buy backs during the course of Jordan's
Speaker 1: evolution at times when we felt that the market is
Speaker 1: significantly undervalued our company, and with hindsight, those decisions were
Speaker 1: very good decisions. So I think, as I say, being
Speaker 1: your own activists and being proactive with capital allocation, whether
Speaker 1: it be for acquisitions or buy backs or you know,
Speaker 1: other forms of financing, you need to be a debt
Speaker 1: at both. It's not just selling your product that that
Speaker 1: can create value for shareholders. So we're always very cognizance
Speaker 1: of that. Let's talk a little bit about these blank
Speaker 1: check investment vehicles. How did you first get involved in them?
Speaker 1: I kind of remember in the ninety nineties they were
Speaker 1: thought of as a little bit sketchy. But they've since mature, it,
Speaker 1: haven't they They have? Indeed, I mean I think I
Speaker 1: was probably the catalyst for them getting their respectability. With hindsight,
Speaker 1: I think I've done eight and a half billion dollars
Speaker 1: worth of equity investing with SPACs. The first one I
Speaker 1: did was the largest of its kind ever done, and
Speaker 1: I think one of the first done by one of
Speaker 1: the larger Bold bracket investment banks. It was called Freedom Acquisition,
Speaker 1: and Freedom was five million dollars. I believe at the
Speaker 1: time no one had done one. I think the largest
Speaker 1: before that was maybe three or four hundred million, and
Speaker 1: yes it was. It was a very successful one. We
Speaker 1: used to buy the largest hedge fund in Europe at
Speaker 1: the time, called g LG, founded by Non Godessman and
Speaker 1: his partners. Then we had two more after that were
Speaker 1: each called Liberty, Liberty and Liberty International. And then we
Speaker 1: had Justice, So we did Freedom to Liberty in a Justice.
Speaker 1: Probably the next one should have been called for All,
Speaker 1: but we didn't. We had we changed the names after that.
Speaker 1: But we created some great companies. Obviously one of them
Speaker 1: Justice was Bergy King which now has restaurant brands, which
Speaker 1: is a what twenty billion class market kept company, say
Speaker 1: five billion dollar market kept company something like that. One
Speaker 1: of them was Liberty was used to create a company
Speaker 1: called Phoenix Group Holdings, which is now a foot company.
Speaker 1: No Matt Foods. More recent one that I've done is
Speaker 1: now the largest frozen food company in Europe. We've done
Speaker 1: a number of these. These vehicles have really created companies
Speaker 1: that are very notable. So so you mentioned Justice Holdings.
Speaker 1: One of the partners and investors in that was William
Speaker 1: Ackman of Pershing Square. How did that partnership come about?
Speaker 1: To build A friend of mine I've known for many years,
Speaker 1: Nicholas brun and I had partners into the first three
Speaker 1: or four vehicles that we had created, and really actually
Speaker 1: was it was it was a funny story. We were
Speaker 1: we were at the end of our fundraising process and
Speaker 1: we've raised you enough money to be have a fully
Speaker 1: funded deal. And we met Bill and he said, look,
Speaker 1: I really want to join you in this because I
Speaker 1: want to learn how these vehicles work, and I'd love
Speaker 1: to be your partner. And we were like, well, when
Speaker 1: you know when sort of it's a bit late to
Speaker 1: really think about having another party. So I'll tell you what.
Speaker 1: I'll give you enough money just tacking it on, but
Speaker 1: it's neutral to you economically if I joined you as
Speaker 1: a partner. So he invested. I actually can't remember the
Speaker 1: amount of money we're talking about. It was maybe it
Speaker 1: must have been over two hundred and fifty million dollars.
Speaker 1: It could have been more. It could have been five minutes.
Speaker 1: I just don't remember. Anyway, it was a significant investment,
Speaker 1: and it was it was economically neutral to us, and
Speaker 1: we'd sort of be fun to do a deal with Bill,
Speaker 1: which is what we did. So he's a pretty avid
Speaker 1: tennis player, and he later made the observation you can
Speaker 1: learn a lot about someone based on how aggressive they
Speaker 1: are with their serve. I know you're an athlete. Have
Speaker 1: have you guys played much tennis together? And how aggressive
Speaker 1: are you with your first serve? Well, I continue that
Speaker 1: the last time I played tennis would Go, which was
Speaker 1: a few years ago, I beat him the first set,
Speaker 1: and that was not a good outcome from my perspective,
Speaker 1: because he wouldn't leave me alone until we played again.
Speaker 1: And then we paid another beat me in that one
Speaker 1: and we I don't think we've played tennis since. So
Speaker 1: and I don't consider myself and uh, you know, I
Speaker 1: played squash for pen for period and I'm not a
Speaker 1: bad tennis player, but I don't play all the time.
Speaker 1: I actually probably played two or few times a year.
Speaker 1: But I'm an I'm an athlete. By background, and so
Speaker 1: I can get lucky on on on a set every
Speaker 1: once in a while. Yeah, you've done some triathlons and
Speaker 1: some ultramarathons and iron Man championships. How how did you
Speaker 1: get interested in in that sort of personal abuse? The
Speaker 1: good description. I was a soccer player. I played in college,
Speaker 1: and then I played in the Cosmopolitan League in the
Speaker 1: New York state area until I was about thirty two,
Speaker 1: and every weekend, you know, injuries would get make it
Speaker 1: less and less fun. And then my brother actually suggested
Speaker 1: that I try a triathlon. I did my first one
Speaker 1: and I really enjoyed it, and then they did another
Speaker 1: and another. Then somebody said, you know, you should try
Speaker 1: half iron Man, so I tried that, and then somebody said, well,
Speaker 1: you couldn't do an iron Man, So I went and
Speaker 1: did one of those, and then I started doing a
Speaker 1: bunch of iron Man to found that I enjoyed the distance.
Speaker 1: And then I met a guy called Vito Billa who said,
Speaker 1: I'm going to take you to a place where very
Speaker 1: few people have been. And they said what does that mean?
Speaker 1: He said, well, have you ever thought of running in
Speaker 1: the desert? Dred and thirty five miles non stop in
Speaker 1: the middle of July. I said, no, nobody does that.
Speaker 1: He said, you said, yeah, we could do that, So
Speaker 1: that I'm in. And so one of my first ultras
Speaker 1: was doing this race called bad Water, which is this
Speaker 1: ultramarathon and the hunted any degree in the shade heat
Speaker 1: in Death Valley in July. And it's it's hard to explain,
Speaker 1: but it's kind of addicting. And but I did that race.
Speaker 1: I ran. I think in that race, I ran for
Speaker 1: forty one hours and then um did a bunch of
Speaker 1: other ultras around it. But um, but I don't do
Speaker 1: those anymore and too old. Yeah, you lost me a
Speaker 1: Death Valley. Anytime they name a place like that, it's
Speaker 1: probably no where anyone should really be running. So let's
Speaker 1: get back to some of the SPACs you mentioned. Burger King.
Speaker 1: Eventually Justice Holdings merge with Burger King. That worked out
Speaker 1: pretty well. How did that deal time about? So you know,
Speaker 1: we've looked at the number of these different opportunities. Bill
Speaker 1: had had an existing relationship with three G. We've actually
Speaker 1: gone very close to doing another different deal with black Stone.
Speaker 1: And my role really was to do the diligence because
Speaker 1: Bill was conflicted since he was already an inner esther
Speaker 1: in the three G fund that had invested in burger Kine.
Speaker 1: You know what I saw, I liked and we ended
Speaker 1: up agreeing a transaction. But with hindsight, has been very successful.
Speaker 1: I mean we really brought burge Kine before it was
Speaker 1: ready to do an I p O. But we gave
Speaker 1: them we had a billion and a half dollars or
Speaker 1: so in the vehicle, and that gave them the opportunity
Speaker 1: to deploy that capital into other projects that they were
Speaker 1: working on at there at three G and really recycled
Speaker 1: the capital that invested in the burger Kine buyout was
Speaker 1: a very successful deal, but became way more successful after
Speaker 1: had gone public. I mean, stock went from fifteen where
Speaker 1: we created the vehicle really too, I think at the
Speaker 1: height about seventy five seventy seven or set the stock was,
Speaker 1: and since COVID it's still held in there pretty well,
Speaker 1: it's over fifty five dollars today. That's uh, pretty respectable.
Speaker 1: The other spect that I wanted to ask about was
Speaker 1: freedom that you alterly used to help GLG go public.
Speaker 1: What was that experience like back in was that O seven? Yes,
Speaker 1: that was probably one of the easiest deals I've ever done,
Speaker 1: because no goddessman who's a good friend of mine and
Speaker 1: Nicholas's Nicolas Boins and my partner at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: he understood how SPACs worked. I remember the meeting. We
Speaker 1: said enough in his office that geog and said, look,
Speaker 1: we both know how these things work and how they
Speaker 1: should look. This has drawn us out in the back
Speaker 1: of a napkin, and if we can agree on the terms,
Speaker 1: let's just give it to the lawyers and be done.
Speaker 1: And that's exactly what we did. I think the whole
Speaker 1: the whole negotiation took about forty five minutes. The rest
Speaker 1: was done by the lawyers. And at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of these other hedge funds were looking, or
Speaker 1: these alternative managers that we call them. We're looking at
Speaker 1: different avenues of how to go public. Some were going
Speaker 1: through a vehicle that Goldman Sacks were created to try
Speaker 1: and create a listing. Some had looked at the traditional
Speaker 1: I P O route, had done, you know, look to
Speaker 1: reverse acquisitions. Very different approaches. This one was by far
Speaker 1: and away the most successful and traded the best of
Speaker 1: all of them. So it was it was with hindsight
Speaker 1: you know the right thing to do, and I think
Speaker 1: that gave us the sort of credibility to move on
Speaker 1: to the next vehicles that we created. So you're still
Speaker 1: pretty active with SPATS today, given the COVID nineteen pandemic
Speaker 1: and the lockdown. What areas are you seeing where opportunities
Speaker 1: exist and are there any areas of the economy that
Speaker 1: you see as permanently impaired that aren't particularly attractive to you. Well,
Speaker 1: I would say two things. First of all, I am
Speaker 1: still active, and we just bought a company at the
Speaker 1: end of last year called a PI Group. Great company.
Speaker 1: It's the largest installer of life safety systems first depression
Speaker 1: and the like in buildings and in the United States.
Speaker 1: Does a lot of service and inspection work that's regulated work.
Speaker 1: You know, love. So we you know, loved the last
Speaker 1: vehicle that we're created. We're going to create another one,
Speaker 1: I'm sure in the coming months. You know. Look, I
Speaker 1: think that there are sectors that are permanently impaired, and
Speaker 1: I think the markets, as all markets are, sometimes get
Speaker 1: a little upside down. You've got a lot of companies
Speaker 1: today that have very few, very little in the ware
Speaker 1: of revenues and very little aware of profits trading at
Speaker 1: ridiculous valuations, and then you've got some really solid companies
Speaker 1: that the market doesn't seem to care about, and you know,
Speaker 1: those things correct themselves over time. They always do. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that I would say that there are sectors
Speaker 1: that are permanently impaired, because permanently as a very big word.
Speaker 1: But I would there are sectors I wouldn't touch today.
Speaker 1: No one really knows whether there will be a good
Speaker 1: vaccine that will come out for the coronavirus, but we
Speaker 1: have out there today. But if there is, you know,
Speaker 1: some industries that are that could be permanently impaired will recover.
Speaker 1: But I wouldn't want to be in in travel today.
Speaker 1: It's just not a sector that I think is going
Speaker 1: to fair well in this environment. I'd want to be
Speaker 1: in businesses where people are doing more things at home,
Speaker 1: just sort of a general theme. So, you know, I
Speaker 1: think that whether it be the casual dining concepts we
Speaker 1: talked about earlier, or you know, vacation package companies, convention companies,
Speaker 1: you know, things, whether where human beings are gathering in
Speaker 1: large numbers, I'm not sure those affectives i'd want to
Speaker 1: be in today. Makes a lot of sense. So we've
Speaker 1: talked about string after string of successful investments and winds.
Speaker 1: Were there any misfires or failures along the way. You
Speaker 1: You've really put together quite a streak. I you know,
Speaker 1: it's been very fortunate. I think that my father always
Speaker 1: used to say, you make more money on the deals
Speaker 1: you don't do than the deals you do. And I
Speaker 1: think where I've been most fortunate is not making some
Speaker 1: very large hours. The only two times that I've got
Speaker 1: out of my lane and did sort of venture capitally,
Speaker 1: things like I lost all my money, but it wasn't
Speaker 1: what the amount of money we're talking about wasn't that
Speaker 1: much relatively speaking, So they were cheap lessons, but there
Speaker 1: were lessons I didn't soon forget. And so I've tended
Speaker 1: to stick to my lane. And you know, I've never
Speaker 1: gotten complacent, and voy stayed fairly humble about these things,
Speaker 1: and kept my investment discipline, you know, did my own
Speaker 1: due diligence, never sort of delegated it to consultants. The
Speaker 1: team around the has been with me for my career,
Speaker 1: as I told you earlier in Ashkin Has it will
Speaker 1: be for thirty one years. Genially, my partner on the
Speaker 1: operations side, and would be for seventeen years. Head of
Speaker 1: my family office has been with me for thirty years.
Speaker 1: You know, we when we find the right people, keep
Speaker 1: them around. June, you tend to navigate to the right place.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you about two kind of interesting things
Speaker 1: you're involved with of a little more personal nature. Tell
Speaker 1: us about your work with the Wounded Warrior Project. I
Speaker 1: actually haven't been involved with Wounded Warriors for a while,
Speaker 1: but I when I raced bad Water, actually raced the
Speaker 1: wounded warriors I had. I had a soldier, her name
Speaker 1: Steve Robeson, still a good friend of mine who lost
Speaker 1: his leg in Mozole. And I actually hosted every year
Speaker 1: still now for holiday stays at my home in Antigua.
Speaker 1: And you know, just American hero and I was quite
Speaker 1: involved in their early years in in Winded Warriors, but
Speaker 1: really a the fundraiser as a post to anything else. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the unsung heroes in our in our country are the
Speaker 1: masses of wounded veterans that have come home and need
Speaker 1: support and work and everything else. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the things I love about a PI, the company that
Speaker 1: we invest in today is a lot of military vets
Speaker 1: in the business, which proves not only a great culture,
Speaker 1: but a great work ethic as well. So let's talk
Speaker 1: about antigue was since she mentioned it, What does a
Speaker 1: special economics envoy actually do? And e as a small place.
Speaker 1: My family have been there for over thirty years. My
Speaker 1: parents lived there, they've been citizens there for many many years.
Speaker 1: So you know, my my love of the island. It's
Speaker 1: a small island, only a population where we about a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand people. Getting connected to the right people outside
Speaker 1: the governments of small countries is sometimes not easy. So
Speaker 1: what I do, it's not a job, it's an honor
Speaker 1: and to do it for them. But I tried to
Speaker 1: connect them wherever I can, to the right people who
Speaker 1: would take an interest in investing in Antigua or helping
Speaker 1: Antigua in any particular way, particularly when we have crisis.
Speaker 1: You know, we had a hurricane that basically wipe out Barbuda,
Speaker 1: so I was quite involved with helping them with relief efforts.
Speaker 1: And really the same thing with COVID nineteen. We're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of things in the ways of food programs
Speaker 1: and sourcing medical supplies, flying medical supplies down to the country.
Speaker 1: You know, little things that to a population that's relatively
Speaker 1: small a big difference. So, um, you know, that's really
Speaker 1: the role I've played. It's not a formal role. It's
Speaker 1: you know, it's a role I played because of my
Speaker 1: connections to the island and the knighthood is does that
Speaker 1: have anything to do with this being a former British
Speaker 1: colony or is that specific to much? Very much. It's
Speaker 1: something that's on the Queen's List, but it's something that
Speaker 1: the recommendations come from the colony, so it's an honor.
Speaker 1: I don't take it too seriously. It helps every once
Speaker 1: in a while getting a good reservation at a restaurant, right,
Speaker 1: That's that's what doctors used to do in the United
Speaker 1: States in the nineteen sixties. Medical school was worth the
Speaker 1: worth of that. But you did you get to meet
Speaker 1: the queen? Was she the one who actually night did you?
Speaker 1: Or was it a little less formal of a ceremony?
Speaker 1: It was a little It was equally formal, but it
Speaker 1: was done by an envoy. It was done in Antigua,
Speaker 1: so they send an envoy over from the UK to
Speaker 1: oversee it, and it's no Queen's list. I actually have
Speaker 1: been to Bucking let's all that. But that was the
Speaker 1: more charitable things in the UK quite interesting. So I
Speaker 1: know we only have you for a finite amount of time.
Speaker 1: Let's get to our favorite questions and and see what
Speaker 1: we can learn learn about Sir Martin the person as
Speaker 1: opposed to the Night of the Grand Cross. Let's talk
Speaker 1: about we've been talking about Lockdown and pandemics. What are
Speaker 1: you watching under lockdown these days? Tell us your favorite
Speaker 1: Netflix or Amazon shows, or or what podcast you're listening to.
Speaker 1: I watched the other day, I watch Eurovision, which is
Speaker 1: Will farrell latest movie that got launched on I think
Speaker 1: it's a Netflix, which you know, because I grew up
Speaker 1: with the Eurovision song contest. I thought was extremely funny.
Speaker 1: So that's that's my latest favorite. I've been watching all
Speaker 1: the episodes of Powder. I don't know if you know
Speaker 1: that series, but oh sure, it's it's nail biding, Its
Speaker 1: nail biding, and it's frighteningly accurate. I watched an interesting
Speaker 1: movie movie on fun Guy, which I find fascinating. So yeah,
Speaker 1: those are sort of my favorite so far. Yeah. I've
Speaker 1: learned not to watch Fowder right before I go to bed,
Speaker 1: otherwise I'm I'm up for hours. It's uh, it's so exciting,
Speaker 1: and I was shocked to learn it's actually very popular
Speaker 1: throughout the Middle East, not just in Israel's kind of
Speaker 1: interesting how widely that that has been viewed throughout you know,
Speaker 1: the West Bank and everywhere else. It's true, and it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the real I've go out Bare quite a
Speaker 1: bit as a place in Tel Aviv, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of accuracy to all of that. Quite interesting. So
Speaker 1: tell us about some of your early mentors. I have
Speaker 1: to assume your father is somewhere on that list. You know,
Speaker 1: he certainly was in all my formative years, my priorities
Speaker 1: in life. But I worked for Wilbur Ross. Was my
Speaker 1: first real job really the time, and Wilbur was a
Speaker 1: great mentor for me. He was, you know, he was
Speaker 1: very kind teaching me things in the early days when
Speaker 1: I really knew nothing about business. You know, I was
Speaker 1: a political science major. I've never taken a business course
Speaker 1: or anything like that. So he was really someone who
Speaker 1: was a big factor. And then my father's partner, Jimmy Goldsmith,
Speaker 1: you know, watching him and my father at work and
Speaker 1: doing what they do. Okay, I guess those were my
Speaker 1: my three biggest mentors, my father, Wilbury and Jimmy. What
Speaker 1: are you reading these days? Tell us what's keeping your
Speaker 1: mind busy and and what are some of your all
Speaker 1: time favorite books? So my favorite book I've just finished
Speaker 1: actually is have you read American Kingpin. It's all about
Speaker 1: the fellow who built the Silk Road, which was this
Speaker 1: place where you can buy and sell pretty much anything
Speaker 1: on the dark web. Someone who's not really a technology person.
Speaker 1: I thought it was fascinating. It's also of a quick,
Speaker 1: easy read. I really enjoyed that. You know, I tend
Speaker 1: to read books sort of more historical context. One of
Speaker 1: my favorite books of all times is called The Third Chimpanzee,
Speaker 1: which is an early book by Jared Diamond. You know.
Speaker 1: I Paul Johnson's Modern Times another favorite book of mine.
Speaker 1: All the evolvary books. I rather like Sapiens, Comma Death,
Speaker 1: little great books. That's my kind of my kind of reading.
Speaker 1: I don't figured about what I'm going to read next.
Speaker 1: They just literally just finished American Kington. I'll put those
Speaker 1: on my list. What sort of advice would you give
Speaker 1: to a recent college grad who was interested in a
Speaker 1: career in either finance, investing, um M and A. For me,
Speaker 1: I think, by far and away, the most important thing
Speaker 1: to learn is how to communicate. I think so many
Speaker 1: kids today, you know, they're very smart technically, but they're
Speaker 1: i Q is a lot better than their EQ, and
Speaker 1: so I would say, really learn how to write, be
Speaker 1: able to communicate in writing. It's not just about a
Speaker 1: short email. Also, you know the personal touch to it.
Speaker 1: How to write a letter, you know, I think, learn
Speaker 1: how to treat others as you would expect to be treated.
Speaker 1: You know, the right way to present yourself is those
Speaker 1: are to me. I know this sounds very basic, but
Speaker 1: those bill sets that have often been lost in our youth.
Speaker 1: I think in our final question, what do you know
Speaker 1: about the world of investing today that you wish you
Speaker 1: knew when you were getting started out twenty five or
Speaker 1: so years ago, Well, I wish I knew that there
Speaker 1: was going to be the greatest long long term growth
Speaker 1: inexerties in history, because you could probably use a pen
Speaker 1: and been pin rather and been successful in investing just
Speaker 1: by buying something twenty five years ago and keeping it.
Speaker 1: But I guess outside of that, I think, you know,
Speaker 1: sticking to one's lane is what I've learned over the
Speaker 1: years is if you really know something in depth, stick
Speaker 1: to it for the long term, and I think that
Speaker 1: you can make superior returns doing that instead of being
Speaker 1: if you like two wide in your approach. I think
Speaker 1: that's something that over the years I've learned, you know,
Speaker 1: paid better. If you really know space and focus on it,
Speaker 1: or have a philosophy about the kind of business you
Speaker 1: like and stick for that, you're going to make better returns.
Speaker 1: Thank you, sir Martin Franklin for being so generous with
Speaker 1: your time. If you enjoy this conversation, well check out
Speaker 1: any of the other previous three hundred such discussions we've
Speaker 1: had over the past six years. You can find that
Speaker 1: at iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, Overcast, Stitcher, wherever your final
Speaker 1: podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions
Speaker 1: right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net.
Speaker 1: You can check out my weekly column on Bloomberg dot
Speaker 1: com slash Opinion. Sign up for our daily reads at
Speaker 1: Ridoltz dot com. Give us a review at Apple iTunes,
Speaker 1: follow me on Twitter at Riholtz. I would be remiss
Speaker 1: if I did not thank the Cracks staff who helps
Speaker 1: put these conversations together each week. Maroufal is my audio engineer,
Speaker 1: Michael Boyle is my producer. A Tikaval Bron is our
Speaker 1: project manager. Michael Batnick is our head of research. I'm
Speaker 1: Barry Riholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on
Speaker 1: Bloomberg Radio.