T. Boone Pickens, a Texas-Size Businessman, Calls It Quits
- 6 years ago
T. Boone Pickens, a Texas-Size Businessman, Calls It Quits
“In oil, you can make a lot of money and lose a lot of money,” Ms. Jaffe said.
“Pickens got farther than most,” Daniel Yergin wrote in “The Prize,” his authoritative history of the oil business.
He would take a small stake in a public company, call on it to slash expenses
and return money to investors, and often pressure the company to sell itself.
Decades past his heyday as a self-made oil mogul and old-school corporate raider, his fortune
and his public profile diminished, Mr. Pickens was still hoping to strike it rich, just as he had done some 60 years ago as a young wildcatter in Amarillo.
“Today you’re seeing in corporate America a lot of the things
that he espoused 30 years ago,” said David Bradshaw, an investment banker at Moelis and Company who is close to Mr. Pickens.
“I truly believe I was put on this Earth to make money,
but also to be generous with it,” Mr. Pickens, whose current worth is estimated at $500 million, said in his email.
“He wasn’t afraid to stand up to some of these guys in the oil patch,” Mr. Icahn said in an interview.
As a corporate raider in the 1980s, Mr. Pickens — along with men like Carl C. Icahn
and Michael Milken — helped develop a shrewd new playbook for making money.
Mr. Pickens proceeded to go on a hot streak, correctly betting on price fluctuations in oil and gas for years and becoming a billionaire.
“In oil, you can make a lot of money and lose a lot of money,” Ms. Jaffe said.
“Pickens got farther than most,” Daniel Yergin wrote in “The Prize,” his authoritative history of the oil business.
He would take a small stake in a public company, call on it to slash expenses
and return money to investors, and often pressure the company to sell itself.
Decades past his heyday as a self-made oil mogul and old-school corporate raider, his fortune
and his public profile diminished, Mr. Pickens was still hoping to strike it rich, just as he had done some 60 years ago as a young wildcatter in Amarillo.
“Today you’re seeing in corporate America a lot of the things
that he espoused 30 years ago,” said David Bradshaw, an investment banker at Moelis and Company who is close to Mr. Pickens.
“I truly believe I was put on this Earth to make money,
but also to be generous with it,” Mr. Pickens, whose current worth is estimated at $500 million, said in his email.
“He wasn’t afraid to stand up to some of these guys in the oil patch,” Mr. Icahn said in an interview.
As a corporate raider in the 1980s, Mr. Pickens — along with men like Carl C. Icahn
and Michael Milken — helped develop a shrewd new playbook for making money.
Mr. Pickens proceeded to go on a hot streak, correctly betting on price fluctuations in oil and gas for years and becoming a billionaire.