Royal Little: not going the last $500K to buy a great company

Another story from Textron founder Royal Little (1896-1989), author of "How to Lose $100,000,000 and Other Valuable Advice."


This is from a section called "Lost Opportunities":

In addition to losing money for Textron through mistakes, I lost millions for the shareholders by not paying the asking price on several most attractive acquisitions. There must have been at least a dozen cases where the seller and I were a few hundred thousand dollars apart, where I would not budge and refused to meet the seller's price....

JOSTEN

The outstanding case of where I got stubborn and would not meet the offering price concerned Josten. Josten was a competitor of Balfour in making rings for students in schools and colleges. Balfour originally was the leader in this industry, but Josten [as of 1978] now far exceeds them in volume and profits. The offering price was $13,000,000, and I finally came up to $12,500,000 but wouldn't go the last half million dollars. As a result of this lost opportunity, this mistake on my part undoubtedly cost the Textron stockholders over $30,000,000 in lost values. Dan Gainey, who controlled the company and was at the time treasurer of the Republican Party, then made a public offering. In 1976, sales were $163,700,000, net profit after taxes $9,525,600, net worth was $43,000,000, and their 5,040,000 common shares at $25 had an aggregate market value of $126,000,000.

Josten would have been an ideal acquisition for Textron since it fitted our basic concept if being a leader in a relatively small industry. Today Josten is the undisputed leader in the school ring business, and their performance is so superb that their shares are selling at a price/earnings multiple of 12, whereas Textron stock has recently been selling at only 6 times. In retrospect, of the many situations that Textron missed by being too conservative in the price we were willing to pay, the outstanding examples would have to [include] Josten.

ADVICE: If you have an opportunity to purchase a company as outstanding as Josten, don't let a mere $500,000 stand in the way. If a business such as Josten's with its tremendous future potential is worth $12,500,000 it certainly is worth $13,000,000. Refusing to meet the firm offering price in this case was one of the worst mistakes I ever made at Textron.


[pp. 187-188]

Excerpted from How to Lose $100,000,000 and Other Valuable Advice, by Royal Little, (c) 1979 by Royal Little and the Harvard University Graduate School of Business Administration.