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Letter to the editor

Doing business, the Malcolm Glazer way

By SCOTT BARANCIK and DAMIAN CRISTODERO
Published December 26, 2004

After the Buccaneers won the Super Bowl in January 2003, Malcolm Glazer considered putting his business experiences down on paper.

He never wrote the book. But interviews with his business associates and a review of his unlikely caree r suggests he follows a basic set of principles:

Always grow. Despite a net worth conservatively estimated by Forbes at $1-billion, Glazer is forever on the lookout for new deals.

It's a lesson he learned early in life. Glazer was still operating the family jewelry store in Rochester, N.Y., when a friend told him about the photography concession he had operated at a military base.

"Malcolm had asked the guy, "Isn't it hard to get something like that?' And the guy said, "No, you just ask,"' said Rochester attorney and family friend Beryl Nusbaum.

Glazer proceeded to obtain a jewelry concession spot at Sampson Air Force Base in Geneva, N.Y., from 1951 to 1956, earning the dollars that would enable him to begin investing in real estate.

Today, Glazer's children have taken over the hunt. Sons Joel and Avram, for example, are the driving force behind the Manchester United bid, while Joel and Bryan run day-to-day operations of the Bucs.

Be open to businesses of all types. Glazer will buy any type of company as long as it generates a strong income stream, can be sold later for a large profit, or both. If he doesn't know anything about the business, he or his kids will learn, whether it's restaurants, fish protein, junk bonds, shopping malls, television stations, nursing homes, motorcycles, banking, or a professional football team.

"That is very unlike most successful people," former Bucs general manager Rich McKay said. "Most successful people have a core business and they know how to do that business. They groove it, like a golf swing."

Don't worry what people think. If Glazer worried about public opinion, he never would have built trailer parks. He certainly wouldn't be trying to buy the crown jewel of British sport, or applying the hardball tactics to which he's resorted there.

"He's sensitive to it," said Bob Leffler, Glazer's longtime associate. But "they're not going to not do something because somebody's upset about it."

Don't pay cash. Glazer and his kids could afford to pay all cash for many acquisitions, including their multimillion-dollar homes. But they don't. Tying up cash in a few investments would prevent the accumulation of others.

In certain cases, like Manchester United, the Glazers simply don't have enough cash. That's the story behind the Daily Mail headline, "Glazer's Style is More Mouth than Money."

Don't micromanage. "(The Glazers) get a few trusted people, and they let them go with it," said Mary Nell Sanchez, vice president and general manager of KGNS-TV, an NBC affiliate in Laredo, Texas, that the Glazers owned until late 2004. "It's a very efficient system they're running."

Sanchez should know. In five years at the station, she never met Glazer or son Kevin, an executive at parent company First Allied Corp.; never visited the company headquarters in Rochester; and never talked to either man on the phone. She would have liked t o visit and thank the elder Glazer for hiring her, she said, but never had the chance.

"I've seen them on TV, Bucs games, like you have."

Don't give up. Call it perseverance, call it stubbornness. Either way, Glazer is a fighter.

He failed several times to acquire a professional football or baseball team before finally succeeding with the Bucs. In Manchester, the team and its fans have done everything in their power to block or discourage him, but Glazer keeps coming back for more.

Use your own judgment. They laughed at Glazer for paying more for the lowly Bucs in 1995 than any other sports franchise in history. Given the team's steady stream of profits and vastly increased value since then, no one's laughing now.

Bar no holds. If it's legal, it's fair.

[Last modified December 25, 2004, 23:09:18]