Henry Singleton

“Charlie Munger said Henry Singleton was the smartest person that he ever met.”

“Warren Buffett said it was a crime that business schools didn't study him.”

“From this point on, the company never made another material purchase and never issued another share of stock.”

“Singleton did not believe in detailed strategic plans, preferring instead to retain flexibility and keep his options open.”

“The subsidiaries existed to generate cash, and Singleton's job was to allocate that cash.”

“And between. And 1969, he purchased a 130 companies in industries ranging from aviation electronics to specialty metals and insurance. All but two of these companies were acquired using Teledyne's pricey stock.”

“Our contention was that smaller units gave management better control and made the local manager fully responsible for the success of their own operations and motivated them to perform well.”

“Not the one Henry helped to finance. He invested in Apple.”

“In fact, the book says that he never sold a single piece of real estate, whether it's a house or his ranch or just empty land in his entire life.”

“Many of the distinctive tenants of Warren Buffett's unique approach to managing Berkshire Hathaway were first employed by Singleton at Teledyne. In fact, Singleton can be seen as a proto-Buffett, and there are uncanny similarities between the two.”

“At headquarters, there were fewer than 50 people in a company with over 40,000 total employees and no human resource or investor relations departments.”

“He concluded, Henry was a lot smarter, but Warren had thought about investments a lot longer.”

“Singleton bought his own stock extremely well and generated an incredible 42% compound annual return for Teledyne's shareholders across the tenders.”

“If you had invested a dollar with Singleton in 1963, by 1990 when he stepped down, It would have been worth a 180.”

“When he dies, I think he's the third largest landowner in the United States at the time.”

“Henry Singleton founded it when he was 43 and had never founded a company before.”

“He believed that cashflow, not reported earnings is what determines long-term value.”

“Both Singleton and Buffett recognized the potential to invest insurance company float to create shareholder value. And for both companies, insurance was the largest and most important business.”

“He invested over 70% of combined equity portfolios in just five companies, with an incredible 25% of his portfolio allocated to a single company, which was his former employer, Litton Industries.”

“And I think at that point, the previous year, he had, I think, a 130 different business units, and I think a 129 of them were profitable.”

“Singleton believed buying stock at attractive prices was self catalyzing. Analogous to coiling a spring that at some future point would surge forward to realize full value, generating exceptional returns in the process.”

“Here's a quote from Warren Buffett and Buffett said, Henry Singleton, Has the best operating and capital deployment record in American business. If one took the hundred top business school graduates and made a composite of their triumphs, their record would no…”

“Singleton, in contrast, ran Teledyne for almost 30 years, and the annual compound return to his investors was an extraordinary 20.4%.”

“Henry Singleton's grades everywhere were a hundred. Three digits squeezed into the space for only two. For every course he took, every final exam, 100.”

“We went into the semiconductor business in 1960, even though we were in the midst of a business crisis at the time, we did it because of our conviction that it was necessary for our long-term future growth and not because of any conviction that we would immedi…”

“There are tremendous values in the stock market, but in buying stocks, not entire companies. Buying companies tends to raise the purchase price too high. Don't be misled by the few shares trading at a low multiple of six or seven. If you try to acquire those c…”

“He believed that what counts in the long run is the increase in per share value, not overall growth or size.”

“Munger said Henry Singleton was the smartest single human being I've ever known in my entire life.”

“They devised a unique metric that they called the Teledyne return, which by averaging cash flow and net income for each business unit emphasize cash generation and became the basis for bonus compensation for all business unit general managers.”

“In mid-nineteen 69, with the multiples on his stock falling and acquisition prices rising, he abruptly dismissed his acquisition team.”

“We actually held enough shares in six of these corporations to effectively have control over them, but Henry never exercised that capability.”

“Through doing the signing, it's amazing how much you learn about the business. There's a reminder of each event or action behind every check.”

“By 1977 Teledyne was the largest shareholder in nine of the fortune 500 companies.”

“So Henry was actually ranked first in his class of 820 people in mathematics. He won the Putnam Award, which is one of the most prestigious and notoriously difficult mathematics competitions in the world.”

“1972 and 1984 and eight separate tender offers. He bought back an astonishing 90% of Teledyne's outstanding shares.”

“He believed that sometimes the best investment opportunity is your own stock.”