YouSaid · the spoken record

John Mack

lines on the record: 81
first: 2023-01-06
most recent: 2023-01-06
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“Investor. That's right. A smart, smart investor. So I believe you buy great companies and hold them, and that's what we do now. We have a family office that helps me and we work with them. And we still meet and talk to a lot of investors.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Great companies that you invest in you should hold. And I always was looking for the profit. And I made money on it. But some of these companies, take Apple computers. I'll give you a great example. My son, 11 years old, Morgan Stanley takes Apple public. I buy him a computer. He says, Dad, this is a great company. I want to buy stock in it. And he's like 11 or 12 years old. And he buys shares in it. I think that small purchase is well worth over a couple million dollars when you did. So he understood great companies, and his father didn't. You hold them. He's never sold a share. It's just been a home run. So I believe”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Business. And if you want to be an MA specialist, my advice is you need to have a degree in accounting or an MBA where you can really zero in and have the training that you need to do that. You can do that business if you didn't have any experience if they give you a chance. My point is you've got to give them enough information that they want to give you a chance. And the way you do that is do extra work or work for a hedge fund or work for whoever it may be and you'll get that shot.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, number one, you have to pursue it. You got to get in the door. Hopefully you have a background that will help you. If your education, let's say you're a history major, I was a history major. If your education doesn't put you naturally into that glide path, then take courses and get into that glide path. Go to school at night, get your MBA. That helps. But more importantly, figure out how do you get to know people within that company. Make sure your job you have now, you've performed well in it, and get to know people in the company and get introduced by them to the head of a division or department. But you can get in it. I mean, there's a lot of ways to get in this business. And one way of doing it, go work for JP Morgan, their asset management business. Go work for a hedge fund. Go work for a lot of people who are in the business and learn kind of the day-to-day sales and training.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It is a big book. So I'm taking history of the South at Duke University. And one of the things you had to do, you had to read 50 pages every other day about a history or something with the sound. So I picked up, gone with the win. I didn't put it down until I finished it.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And our employees will go up there now and read books of the kids on the weekend sometimes. It's a wonderful thing we did. We were really, really happy with it”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Which the employees love, they go up there on the weekends and they read stories to kids. That's how you build a culture that you do things like that. And I'm trying to think, Frank Bennock, who's at Hearst Corporation, said to me, he thought that was the best sign of corporate philanthropy he's ever seen. So if sometime you're up near a New York Presbyterian uptown, if you go into the children's hospital, the Morgan Stanley Children's, you'll see on the wall that Morgan Stanley gave a lot of money. And then you'll see names of hedge funds and other clients when they heard what we were doing. They gave money. You know, New York is huge. You got the Philadelphia Children's Hospital. You got them in Boston. New York City didn't have a standalone children's hospital.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Number one Dick Fisher. Hands down, he would call me in and say, Look, John, you got to do this. I know You can't manage people and try to threaten them and scare them. You got to ease up. So he did that. He also, I could go to him if I had a problem, a question. So he was without question my best mentor. And the other person who's not that she mentored me, she's my wife. She would say, John, you ought to reach out to that person. And, you know, their kid's sick. You got them into children's hospital, the Morgan Stanley Children's Hospital. So she's been a wonderful partner in telling me, you know, you're being a little too aggressive back down. And I think. I think she's right. Have I softened up? Yeah, I think I have softened up. And that's another thing. Morgan Stanley got behind us and we built this children's hospital”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“In the book. Here's what I've learned though. When the prank is on you. Laugh because everyone's trying to get me some way or one way or another.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he laughed at the end, but he had no idea what was going on. And Bart was a wonderful man, but he's a good guy to pull pranks on. So what I've learned in pulling pranks.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, he was a huge fan of Duke, and I needed him on board with what I was trying to do, and he gave up some power and money to accommodate me. And Mike Tyszewski is a good friend of mine, a close friend of mine. So I called Coach K and I said, Mike, do me a favor. Will you call this gentleman and just tell him how much I appreciate what he's done and that you are happy that you helped my friend John Mackout? So Mike calls the guy and he said, look, I want to tell you what you did is really something. John Mack is, he didn't call me an A-hole. He said, John Mack is a selfish, tough guy. And what you did just warmed his heart. And I want to thank you because he's my friend. Salesman was on Cloud Nine.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“From when he was He's the best. Well, look, he's honest. He's smart. He's straightforward. He gets things done. I have a lot of respect for Aink Paulson.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I liked him. I mean, listen. To me, I hope it's not personal to him. And the point was I'm trying to save the firm. I can't take all these calls when I'm talking to the Japanese. So, you know, we're under the gun. He's a decent guy, but he had his job to do, and I had my job to do. At the end of the day, it worked.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, what happens? The check flew in to Boston. And we had to send one of our bankers up to pick up the check and fly back. So he was at home. It was over the weekend. And he went up in his... And running shoes and picked up a check for. I don't know, a billion some, and brought it down. I got it, a copy of it, framed it in my office back at the townhouse. The Japanese saved us. They saved us because they remember our culture and we used to train tons of Japanese bankers at Morganstown.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“With Morgan Stanley. And as I said to you earlier, they remembered our culture because we would always have Japanese trainees. And they stood up, and that's what saved us”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, number one, we had too much risk. There was no question about that. But we were not alone. And we did not have a fortress balance sheet like a J.P. Morgan would have or even a citibank. No one knows when the bullet's coming, but the bullet came and shot a lot of us. And a lot of these companies either merged or went out of business. And all I can say is thank God for the Japanese and what they did. I mean, that was the lifesaver. God is through.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, you know, what's interesting, if you look at Lazard, they still do business, but it's truncated. It's not what it used to be. If you're a CFO or a CEO, you want to know what are the hedge funds doing, state of California, state of New York, big pools of money in their pension funds. What are they thinking? What do they need? You want that kind of data. You want to know what are investors looking for. And I think if you look back, and it was difficult, we went through a hard time. The Deanwitter merger really changed the firm. Now you had unbelievable banking with the retail The amount of information that you could bring to a CEO or CFO about markets and then the distribution network you now had was a huge advantage. And I think that's one of the reasons Morgan Stanley has done so well.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, because at the end of the day, the risk component went up dramatically. And, you know, if you go through the crisis, probably if you were not a public company, you'd have wiped out the partnership. So, you needed to have a strong base of capital and sell in equity and be into the public market gave you that. It also gave you the liquidity to go in the market to raise more equity if you needed or do a bond”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That's the way it worked. But other firms, including Goldman Sachs, they were a two way shop. They were buying and selling debt and equities with pension funds and getting a lot of information. What were they looking for and what were they doing? And then you take that back and you show it to New Jersey Bell Telephone or you show it to AT&T or IBM, you're bringing that CFO or that treasurer more information so he can figure out what's the next move for AT&T or Southern Bell.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“If the firm lost money And depending where you were, which firm, but the culture of Morgan Stanley had been a pure investment bank. And they really didn't have sales in trading, whether in equities or in fixed income. But what became apparent that firms like Solomon Brothers were making huge inroads because Jackie Kugler at Solomon could call the CFO at IBM or AT&T and say, Hear what pension funds are thinking and doing with your stock? We think there's an opportunity you could float $100 million equity deal or bond deal. They had better information. And Morgan Sanley didn't have that sales and trading business. We were not talking to portfolio managers as traders. We were talking to them as we're pricing AT&T at 71A's. How many do you want?”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And occasionally there'd be one woman who played golf. So Christie and I said, well, let's do things. I want women to be in charge of entertaining and doing their own golf outings. So we got David Ledbetter and his guys to come in and we did golf lessons up in Purchase New York for our women professionals. And then we took them down to North Carolina six or seven months later at a club we belong to called Landfall. And we had the golf teachers come up and work with them. And the beauty of it is now the women have their own golf outing women only, which I think is terrific. So what we try to do is pull people together and talk about how do you make this a great firm again because the roots are there, the bones are there. And it was about reaching out and bringing people together and working for our clients and making sure that we treated people fairly.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, number one, you had to return it to meritocracy. We had a lot of meetings, either in big groups, small groups. Christie and I, one of the things we did early on, if there was a golf outing at Morgan Stanley with clients, if you went to the outing, it would be all men.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, it did good. And I never forget when I got up into the auditorium to talk to people. And I said, you know. I always wanted to see all of you again, but I never thought I'd see you by coming back to Morgan Stanley and doing it. But it was a thrill. I mean, you know, you don't get many chances to redo or recorrect or change what had happened and go back the way it was. And we were able to do that. And it was a high. And you ought to get Christian here. I mean, to her, as I said, other than kids, that was the highlight of our marriage. So I got to work on it and do some other things”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I think Christy would say, who's my wife, would say, other than having our kids, It was the happiest moment of her life. She would say that, John, we grew up at Morin Stanley. We knew the culture. And to come back and to have people... Just running to get to the door to welcome us in. It was emotional. I guess a lot of it is just the circumstances. They had been. They hadn't been managed the way I think they should have been managed. They didn't have a connection with the leadership of the firm. They had become risk averse. And it was no longer the sense of you do well, you get rewarded. So the meritocracy thing had just dissipated away. So to walk in and have people scrambling to get to see me or...”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“She said I had to do it. She said, John, that firm is part of you, and you've done so much. You've got to go back and do this”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“That I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't know that. Charles Morgan was related to Henry Morgan, who was not on the management committee, but there was a relationship going all the way back to the Morgan's. So Parker got together with a number of retired partners who own a tremendous amount of Morgan Stanley slash Deanwood of Stocknau. And they went on a campaign to force Purcell out, and at the end of the day, they were successful.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, I'm at Pequot, which is a hedge fund with Art Sandberg and having a good time. Morgan Stanley is falling upon, and then Parker Gilbert, who had been the chairman of the firm, and I think going all the way back his stepfather was one of the original partners at JP Morgan, spun out and started Morganstale.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I didn't mind it. I mean, being known back the knife, it kind of built a reputation for me. And, you know, people, I'd go to a bar somewhere. I'd go to a Christmas party with a lot of Wall Street guys and invariably someone would be pointing at Smack the Knife. I have an ego. I like that. I am Akani.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But look, I don't think in general we have to ask my friends and people who know me. I don't think I'm arrogant, but clearly I came across as arrogant know-it-all. And they shot me.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, when I went to Credit Suisse, I said I could pick someone that I liked and trusted a friend to go on the board. And I asked a guy named Tom Bell, who's a close friend of mine. He used to run Y&R. Advertising agency, and then he ran cousins' properties in Atlanta to go on the board. And he called me after their meetings, said, John, be prepared they're going to fire you tomorrow. I said, well, thanks for the heads up. So I went in, they fired me. I sat and I said, you know, Walter, what do you think of this? Trying to get them to talk. They didn't want any part of talking. And look, you know. I don't have any issue with him firing. I guess you could say I was aggressive or obnoxious one or the other. But we turned the place around. We started making money.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Oh, yeah, oh, we started making money. It was great. I mean I remember the Oleon group out of the Middle East said to me, and they were a huge investor in credit. So at least John, you're doing a great job. We're finally making money again. But I can't take people telling me, you know, you don't have access for this, you don't have access for that. My view, which drove them crazy, was to open up their vault and let the European Jews come in and see how much money Credit Suisse took.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So it just wouldn't be unaged. And the Swiss, you know, they make a lot of money because they get money from all the places that maybe JP Morgan and others wouldn't take. They did a lot of investing with that money. They got a carry on some of it. It's a great system for running a very profitable business, but the world was changing and disclosure was becoming more and more open. People want to know who has the money, where is it going, how is money being transferred. And we finally got that to start moving and changing in Switzerland. And I was pretty tough on them. And of course, they thought I was the most arrogant person they ever met. I thought they were the dumbest people I ever met.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, they were very independent. They had a lock on certain clients, whether it was leaders out of the Middle East or out of Oligarchs in Russia, they got a lot of money coming in because they were Swiss They had a great franchise, and they really lived off their private banking business. And in their investment banking business, they had a guy who was very talented, very smart named Alan Wheat, and they had other people that come in. But everyone was running it for their own return into their own pocket. And so when I got there, I cut commissions. I got Frank and his guys to give up some of their money. And someone said, you know, we're cutting commissions and not getting less. Will you give up your contract? And I did.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“But if you're going to ask people to give up their contract, you can't be different than them. This term that I run from Tom DeLong, it's a one firm firm. We all have to be in it together. So for me to keep the contract, it's just not the right thing to do. And also, I learned so much from Dick Fisher. I'm looking way down the road. I'm not looking about what's going to happen next week or two weeks from now.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Absolutely. And they were smart. You would like a room full of Franco Trones. You've got to be managed and you got to be a team player.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I took Steve Volk, who had been at Sherman and Sterling as the lead lawyer or lead partner. He had joined me to help clean up credit fees. So I sit with George Butris, Quatron, and I think a guy named Brady. And I said, look, guys, I want you to make a lot of money. I don't have any issue with that. But this is craziness, and I can't do that. And they said, Well, look, it may be craziness, but that's our contract. I said, it may be your contract. And I'll see you in court and we'll fight it out. And they gave up the contracts. But I still paid him a lot of money. But you can't create a culture when you have one offs doing whatever they want to do.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They got a piece of every deal they did So, you know, one of them says Know, John, this is in our contract. But I think this compensation is way out of kilter. And just to add a little color to this, when I said to them, I want to come out and I want you to come to New York and we've got to talk about these contracts. And this is after 9-11. And they said, well, we're afraid to do that. I said, well, tell me why. Well, after 9-11, we don't go to New York. I said, okay, pick a city. I'll meet you in the city. So I met him in Denver. Now think about that, how absurd that is. So I flew out to Denver.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I flew out to see them, and I said, look, guys, I'll pay you a lot of money. There's no question about that. But what you're doing and the amount of money you're making now versus the rest of the firm and using the balance sheet of the firm is unacceptable. So we're going to have to figure out a way. I want you to make a lot of money. I think that's a great motivator, but this is totally out of control. And I wish I could remember exactly some of the numbers. But there were numbers like I'd never seen before.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, it was totally out of control. And the Swiss were kind of absentee landlords And they were used to getting all this money in a Swiss bank account, and a lot of money coming, I assume, from other parts of the world. So it was pretty easy when I got there that we had to do some headcount reduction. When I got there, three of my bankers who had worked for me at Morgan Stanley were big in technology, Frank Quatron and his team. And when I saw what kind of money they were making, it was mind boggling.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Well, and Morgan Stanley, when I thought, especially in the fixed income division at that time, that's the only thing I ran, that we were too fat. We needed to do a reduction. So I did. And this isn't.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Had a big investment with the Swiss and they were not happy with what was going on. So I met with him and then I met some of the other people in the management of Credit Suisse. And I said to Christy, I would rather do this job and regret it than not do this job and regret it. So that's how I made the decision.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Before I could make any decisions. Look, it's their style. They've been successful. The retail business was important to the firm. And by putting retail and institutional together, we had tremendous clout. But from a managerial point of view, it's not a culture I wanted to be in.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, well, it was difficult, but I couldn't stay there under a philosophy or a management style where you're not allowed to go to your boss and tell him, you know, I think you're a jerk. And I had a number of people say that to me. And I didn't get even with them. I just changed some of the things. Sometimes they were right. I wasn't sure. Just two different cultures. I mean, Morgan Stanley built its business on telling clients exactly what they thought. They didn't sugarcoat it. They didn't try to say, you know, maybe a little of this, a little that. They told the client, these are the issues. And that's the way I grew up. And that's the way Dick Fisher was. So as much as I tried to change, I was miserable. I couldn't do it. And he put me in charge of the retail system, but everything was bounced through him.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was just two different cultures And no one challenged or spoke up either to a guy named Jimmy who ran Retail business, or clearly for sale, who ran both retail institutional and the credit card business. In my view at Morgan Stanley, and I did this with Dick Fisher, and people did it with me. In my office, I don't care what you say to me. I want to hear it. And Dean Witter, you didn't do that. And that was the big cultural change.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, but not from day one. I mean, look, they had built a great business in retail at Dean Witter. They had brokers all over the country doing business. They didn't have international business. I think they thought International was going to Canada.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And I heard the complaints. I came back and I talked to the manager of all retail, and I talked to Purcell. And then Purcell said to me, you know, John, you can't do that. I said, what do you mean I can't do that? You can't just drop into an office and talk to him. I said, well, last time I checked, you're the CEO, but I'm present of the firm. I'm in Sacramento seeing Safeway stores, and you're telling me I can't go into the office and talk to him. He said, well, you know, Ed Brennan would never do that at Sears. And I said, you know, this is not Sears. And so right then we knew we had an issue.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It was a money machine. But we clashed and we clash in the sense, like I said, I think earlier, if I were out in Sacramento seeing the state funds of California and I had an extra hour, I would drop by. The local office, the Morgan Stanley Deanwooder office, and go in, talk to the salesman. And clearly, salesmen who are on commission by and large do a good job, but always have complaints.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“I'll take the number two job, feel a good guy. I'll get along with him. And let's do this merger. And we did. And what we also inherited when we did that merger was Discover card.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So they had better information. So, you know, we talked and talked, and finally we came to the conclusion on a handshake to do the deal. Sears and Dean Witter was much larger in market cap than Morgan Stanley. So it was agreed upon, and he wouldn't do it without being the CEO. And we had a couple of dinners in New York with Dick Fisher and him, Ed Brennan, and to get the deal done, he had to be the CEO. So Fisher says to me in a private meeting in his office, I'm not going to let you do this trick or do this management change. I said, well, Dick, no, it's not our firm. It's shareholders' firm. And for me to say that, Dick Fisher was kind of ridiculous because he was always teaching me about the business. And he was a wonderful man and a smart man. So I said, look, this is what makes sense for shareholders.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Hundred thousand people, there was a store. And he said, you know, we ought to open up Dean Witter offices in all these sear stores. And that's what they did. And it grew and grew. And then they came to the point that Priscilla had convinced Sears, let's spin it out and take this company public. So Morgan Stanley was chosen to be the lead underwriter on the spin out of Dean Whitter from Sears. Dick Fisher calls me in. I meet Purcell, who I liked, and I looked at their business and the information they were getting from clients versus what we were getting. They were in every, well, how many Sears stores are there? They were everywhere.”
2023-01-06 · Masters in Business · John Mack on Life Lessons From Financial Crisis · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source