The May 1982 cover of Business Week pictured a rather dramatic illustration: a suited businessman, arms spread wide open, soaring on fragile wings made of share certificates and dollar bills. The title read: “Henry Singleton of Teledyne: A Strategy Hooked to Cash is Faltering”
The magazine article criticized Singleton, pictured as Icarus, the mythical character who fell to his death for flying too close to the sun, for: having no business plan, milking the profits of operating businesses he acquired, and converting real assets into financial ones.
This incited Leon Cooperman, then a partner at Goldman Sachs, to pen a fiery 9-page rebuttal (complete with detailed exhibits) to the editor of Business Week. A long-time reader of the publication, Cooperman used strong words to express his disappointment:
“I found the article to demonstrate a blatant lack of understanding of the company (bordering on the irresponsible) in its thrust as well as a lack of appreciation of what, in my opinion, is one of the greatest managerial success stories in the annals of modern business history.”
Cooperman concluded his analysis by saying:
“The cover picture of the May 31st edition portrays Dr. Singleton as the mythical Greek character, Icarus … However, I see Dr. Singleton (and his management team) as a group of exceedingly competent industrialists, working for the benefit of the Teledyne shareholder (yes, I am one of them), and my only regret is that I can not find more Henry Singletons and Teledynes in which to invest.”
Henry Singleton was born in Texas in 1916. He was a mathematician and scientist with a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT. Singleton readily displayed the “extra mental horsepower” he possessed (as Berkshire Hathaway vice-chairman Charlie Munger later called it); for his doctoral thesis, Singleton programmed the first student computer at the university!
After graduating in 1950, Singleton worked as a research engineer at a bunch of aerospace and defense companies. Then, like every other ambitious, smart engineer, he went off to work at a conglomerate. Today, the word “conglomerate” probably conjures up impressions of a slow-moving, bureaucratic organization. But back in Singleton’s time, conglomerates were like tech startups of the day, the darlings who (mostly) could do no wrong. And Singleton chose a prominent one to work in: Litton Industries.
Litton was co-founded by the legendary Tex Thornton, and was one of America’s up and coming defense conglomerates. Singleton proved his engineering chops at the company, inventing an inertial guidance system that is still used in commercial and military aircrafts today. As general manager of Litton’s “Electronic Systems Group”, Singleton quickly grew the division to be the co ...
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