Ted Forstmann's Bad Bet  

Oleh:

Cohan, William D.

Jenis: Article from Bulletin/Magazine
Dalam koleksi: Fortune vol. 163 no. 3 (Feb. 2011), page 36-43.
Topik: IMG College; Mark McCormack; Gulfstream Aerospace; General Instrument; and Topps; Sports Betting; Gambling
Fulltext: Ted Forstmann's Bad Bet.pdf (52.18KB)

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Last spring, in his office in the GM Building, 45 floors above Fifth Avenue, Ted Forstmann, now 70 years old, began wooing Ben Sutton. Forstmann, the once-peerless buyout king, is the chairman and CEO of IMG Worldwide, the sports, media, and fashion powerhouse he bought for $750 million in 2004 with the last of his buyout firm Forstmann Little's institutional private equity funds. As the treesin Central Park outside the window were starting to bloom. Forstmann told Sutton that IMG wanted to buy ISP Sports, the regional college-sports licensing and agency business Sutton started in North Carolina in 1992. Forstmann's idea was to merge ISP Sports with IMG's three year-old advertisers access to the growing ranks of consumers addicted to college sports. Sutton's ISP, with its lock on the Southeast market, was key to Forstmann's plan to build a national footprint. The strategy was classic Forstmann: visionary, opportunistic, and persuasive. After all, he was the private equity mogul who had made billions for his investors— and himself—buying and selling companies such as Gulfstream Aerospace, General Instrument, and Topps; he was also the guy who had persuaded the family members and estate trustees of the late IMG founder Mark McCormack to sell the company to him. But this was the opposite of the script Sutton had written for himself. IMG was the enemy and, if anything, Sutton wanted to buy IMG's college business. Even so, Sutton was impressed by Forstmann's knowledge of the college-sports market and his vision for the combined businesses. What sealed the deal for Sutton, though, was Forstmann's invitation for Sutton and his son to attend Wimbledon in July with the never-married Forstmann and his two adopted South African sons, Siya and Everest. The Suttons had a great time, and Ben Sutton was particularly impressed by the interaction between Forstmann and his sons. "In my life, I've kind of lived by the mantra 'Do the right thing the right way at the right time,'" Sutton says. "And I said that to him then: 'We need to do this.'" They shook hands and started to put the deal together; Sutton would become the head of the newly renamed IMG College.

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