Martin Franklin on Building Businesses (Podcast)

Benson I Care. The returns on that were one thousand eight. He also put together Jardan Corporation, which generated returns of over five thousand percent. He's built a number of companies and really over the past twenty years turned what was known as blank check companies or SPACs into quite a respectable way to put patient capital in place to make long term acquisitions. Different from private equity, which he describes as renting assets. He wants to own assets on behalf

of himself and his investors. Really just an incredibly fascinating career. He's done so many really interesting things and his track record is quite astonishing. So, with no further ado, my conversation with the founder and CEO of Mariposa Capital. Martin Franklin VI is Masters in Business with Barry Ridholtz on Boomberg Radio. Our extra special guest this week is Sir Martin Franklin. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Mariposa Capital. Previously, he was CEO of Jordan Corporation

Benson I Care. He was named Antigua and Barbudos Special Economic Envoy and was knighted as a high degree of Night and Cross. Sir Martin Franklin, Welcome, It's bloom book. Hi Marry, how are you? Thank you? Pretty good? Pretty good? So I wanted to include some of the more eclectic things in your background because your career path is is a little unusual. When someone asked you what you do for a living, how do you answer them? It's never

very easy. I describe myself as a business builder. You can't sit that on your immigration form when they ask you to describe your employment. But that's that's kind of what I am. A bit of an operator and a and an investor. I guess a hybrid. So you began working on hostile takeovers at a pretty young age with your father. How did that impact your views on finance. You know, I think I learned a lot in those

early years. One of the things I learned with the corporate headquarters for a bit of a waste of time and money that you hasn't really changed. My father always used to say that the quality of a corporation is an inverse proportion to its location from its headquarters. In other words, the further further away they were from the headquarters, the better the business. Often those rules are true, but

that was probably the biggest thing. I mean, what my father and Jimmy Gouldvis did in those days was the necessary to deconglomerate the conglomerates of the sixties and seventies and certainly served its purpose. One of those conglomerates you were appointed CEO of was d R G, and you were assigned to break up the conglomerate via asset sales. What was that experience like? Highly unusual? I mean, I think that was only about twenty four or twenty five

years old. Probably did more M and A than most investment bankers in that in that time, but it really was quite an experience. What what we took the headquarters from a hundred and ten people down to seven, and we had certain businesses within the group didn't even know that it has happened. You know, the underlying businesses were of varying quality, but there was no doubt that they were all very appreciative of being sort of left free

from the shackles of a fairly poorly run conglomerate. So you return to the United States, where the idea was, rather than break up companies, you wanted to build something. Kind of reminds me of a key plot point from the movie Pretty Woman. What what was the motivation of um saying let's rather than deconglomerize these mashed up companies, let's see what we can build. How did that go?

You know, I'll tell you I had a very close and still have a very close relationship with my father, But like any good son, I kind of wanted to blaze my own path. And one of the things that was very apparent to me was it was much less fulfilling to break up a company. And you know, when you're building something, everybody is sort of rooting for you. The investment community is rooting for you, employees are rooting

for you, the establishment is rot routing for you. And you know, when I started on that path of building Benson I Care. It was just all the energy was positive energy, and so I found it much more enjoyable. And uh, you know, again, I don't know what my father did was it was necessary, but it was very much anti establishment. It was often hostile, you know, there was there were people laid off as a result of these things. Whereas when you're building, you know, you tend

to be employing more. Um, it's a much more positive energy experience. So that's what I've been doing ever since. So let's talk about Benson I Care for a moment. You were the youngest CEO of a company ever listed on the ny SC at the time, and subsequently you generated returns for your investors. Tell us a little bit about Benson I Care. Sure. Well, I really started with very little money, and I had made it made some money,

you know, when I was working with my father. But basically it started with my buying eleven optical shops from a from a company called Sterling Optical which was going about, which was going bankrupt, and I got an SBA loan. I think I put up a hundred thousand dollars and bought these stores. I think it was the only SBA loan that they that that nat West made that year. It was, you know, one of those years that was

a you know, down economy that hadn't made many loans. Anyway, we bought that business and sold it it into a shell company called Erlick Bober Financial, which was a then defunct former municipal bond broker. Stock was thirty eight centser share when we were reversed it in. At the same time brought a chain of formerly bankrupt stores in Minnesota called Benson Optical hence the named Benson I Care and they ran dispensaries inside optomologists officers. Anyway, that's how we started.

We were a bit of spoken mirrors. It gave us a business with about fifty million dollars of volume and very little in profits, and we were off to the races. And long story short, we started buying manufacturers and distributors of eyeware. The largest acquisition we made was a company called Optical Radiation, which I think we bought in nineteen ninety four, which was a home run transaction. We ended up owning the largest system of lens processes in the

United States, you know, optical lab speaking lenses into prescriptions. Anyway, we sold the company to Sor, which was the largest lens baker in the world, and you know, returned to investors to stop one from thy eight cents to nine dollars and seventy my memory recalls right. And that was my capital base, quite frankly, from which everything else I've done was built. So so let's talk about the next thing that you built. You end up joining Jordan a

few years later. That wasn't the initial name, was it? And that that company I actually didn't join it. I forced myself upon it. I would be more. I bought nine point nine percent of a company called Ultrist, which was a spinoff from Ball Corporation, and made a takeover

take private proposal to them, which they rejected. That they made another and another, and basically they had made a couple of very poor acquisitions and every time their numbers came down, I had readjusted my offer, and management continued to fight me on it, and in the end they held an auction that was the only bidder, and finally the board decided to invite me to be a director in exchange for stand still. So Ian Askins has been my partner in right hand for the last thirty one years.

He and I went on the board. I went to my first board meeting. It was an extraordinary event um and at the end of that board meeting, they decided to fire the CEO and ninety days later made me chairman and chairman CEO and ian vice chairman and CFO. And I think split adjusted, the stock was about the dollar twenty if I remember rightly, about ten dollars pre split,

and we built the company from there. It was about a hundred and fifty million dollar business with about thirty millions, and it was it was one of those stories where the board decided to actually invite in a very rare story where the board decided to invite in the protagonist and actually saw that I had a plan and the view and shoreholders were richly rewarded. We we We built the company for fifteen years thirty four compound return. Sold the company when the stock was about sixty dollars, so

that's about a five thou percent return. And and just to put some flesh on those bones. When you joined, it was about three million in revenues. By the time newer brand Ends boarded for fifteen billion dollars, you had over ten billion dollars in revenue, a hundred and twenty global brands, thirty five thousand employees, all of which begs the question, how did you manage to scale up from what was essentially a faltering company into something so successful

that rubber Maid How to grab it? It's a great story. Some of it was luck is that we actually ended up with fifty five thousand employees. It was the biggest given we we um. You know, the beginning was it was an incredible series of events. The first was one of the bad acquisitions they had made at the very beginning, and by the way, the company's loans were in the red zone, you know, the warning sort of potential default

zone that Bank of America. It was like one of those sort of loans that they were watching out for. So the company was really in porchet. But they had bought the last acquisition that they made, that very poor acquisition. They paid a hundred and fifty eight million dollars if I remember correctly, for a company, but they bought it

as an asset purchase. So when we sold the business for twenty four million, the business that they had bought, it created a large n o l and we filed an accelerated return with the government and got back twenty five million dollars of previously paid taxes. And then we

got a little bit lucky. The Bush had done the stimulus Bill and allowed companies to go back a further three years to recaptch a previously paid taxes for the n OL and got another twenty five million dollars, and they gave us enough liquidity to really solve the balance sheet issues. Our residual businesses were very profitable, and they

said about thirty million of the BIDA. And then we bought a company called Tillier, which picks the food Saver product, and we paid only four times the vi DA for it. Everybody thought there was a one trick pony and its profits weren't going to be sustainable, and its profits went from twenty five million to forty million, so we we we had started with an extraordinary base. He was the only deal I've ever done that literally doubled earnings to

share on the day we did it. Obviously, the stock performed very well from it, and and that gave us the building block on which to build. And I think the rest of the story is not so much what we did right. But the things we didn't do wrong, I mean, we didn't have any real failures. We bought good businesses and made them better under the umbrella. We never borrowed too much, We used equity, were appropriate and sort of navigated that route for fifteen years, stuck to

our knitting. Quite fascinating. Let's talk a little bit about the state of business today and what's driving things. We were talking earlier about Jordan being purchased by Newell Brands in what was that experience? Like you, You've been through a lot of purchases and sales of assets, but this was a pretty decent sized transaction. It was about a twenty billion dollar growth transaction, fifteen billion on the equity.

You know. My view, I looked at the sort of behaviors of my children and felt that a lot of the company, the businesses inside the portfolio, we were becoming less relevant to the next generation of behaviors. So I felt it was the appropriate time for, you know, as to consolidate portfolio with somebody who had a similar portfolio. Was giving the businesses combined, you know, greater leverage and strength within their sectors. But also the decision was a

personal one. I felt that we had taken the business a very long way, We've generated superb returns and this was the right time to move on. I was also in the process of building a family office. I had a son and they had more children, you know, sort of ahead of the oldest son to come and sort of join a family office in Alament. And so, you know, the coincidence of timing felt that it was the right time.

I think, with hindsight, you know, probably the right move. Obviously, uh, I didn't see COVID nineteen coming or anything like that, but definitely, um, you know, was was the right move behindsight. So since you mentioned COVID nineteen, you were until recently a director of restaurant Brands International. They have such brands as Burger King, Popeye's, Chicken Tim Horton's. How has the pandemic affected those sort of businesses and what was it like during the depth in March and April of the

lockdown across the US. You know, I think that there are retailers, quick service retailers, food companies that have been hit differently than others. The retailers like McDonald's and Burger King and Popeyes have significant drive through services, have been far less damaged than you know, casual dining concepts, where you know you're sitting inside a restaurant and delivery or

drive through is a fastballer proportion of the business. So I would tell you that they've managed through this admirably, obviously at lower levels of volume in some areas than than others. But you know, in terms of being able to keep them as as strong, maintain their dividends, hold on to the employees, they've been spared. As I say,

the more casual dining concepts have been decimated. If you don't have a capital base of which to operate, and you you know you live, you operate months to month without this sort of government support, you're out of business until consumer behavior completely changes again. So let's do a little comparison with the industrial conglomerates today. How how do they look compared to the conglomerates of of the seventies and nineteen sixties that your father was spending a lot

of time taking apart. Well, I would say, first of all, there are far fewer of them today. The conglomerates of yesterday were fueled by continual, continuous deal making. You know, they were taking advantage of accounting anomalies about you know, on treatment of goodwill and things like that that aren't

the case today. They were also far fatter. They generally dealt with very large headquarters, and we were fiefdoms in their own And I say today they're much more targeted, more disciplined, rarer as I said, and get probably getting less of a discount as a result of being a little more focused than than the conglomerates of the sixties and seventies. What about a giant conglomerates sitting with a lot of cash, like Berkshire Hathaway. What what happens to

that entity in the post Buffet Monger era? You know, I'll give you an analogy. I would think of it in the same way as one would think of Lows Corporation after the passing of the you know, Larry and prespentitious standards. Though the you know, they're great assets, great companies, but the if you like, the investment dynamism that existed with the founding entrepreneurs, you know, at least for now, is not the same. That's not a knock on them,

it's just a different generation. And that would be a normal course of events. I think that Berkshire Hathaway will probably be the same story. I think they'll you know, it doesn't change the quality of the assets when they're not there. But I think that the sort of innate instinct of when to when to make a big bet and what big bet to make is something that you don't get to pass on. You either habits or you don't.

So um, you know. I think whoever Warren Buffett and Charlie Manger put in as caretakers, you know, of the of Berkshire for the future, they will probably be very admirable caretakers. But they won't be Warren Bufett and Charlie Maner because you can't be with doesn't know how life works, right, There is no replacing those two guys, that's correct. So, so you were founder and chairman of Element Solutions, a chemical technology company. Seems very different from some of the

previous companies you worked on. How did you find your way to that and was it really all that different from some of the other companies you helped to build. No. I mean, I'm currently involved in you know, five quite significant size businesses, and Element, you know, is one of them. Element has the set says the same characteristics as all the other ones, which is there the businesses inside Elements are the market leaders in their respective niche. It's a

very high priest cash flow business. It's got good management, it's got some really defensible moats around it. Those are really core characteristics that you'd find in our Frondsen food businesses. To know, more foods, which is you know, same thing for a p I, a L safety business, and Royal Oaks,

you know my charcoal business. That they all are leaders in their respective niche markets elements not really as it's especially chemical company, but it really is a services company, you know when you really get into what it does. What it does is it helps manufacturers in their manufacturing process. And it's really the technicians as much as the chemicals. Could we sell them. That are what our customers pay for when they're when they're dealing with various business units.

M quite quite interesting. So let's talk a little bit about what's going on in the world of public markets and private equity. You've worked with firms in the past like black Stone and Pinnacle. How is it what that what you do is different from private equity. I'd say most distinctly, it's the difference between owners and renters private equity. Even the best of them are renters of businesses because they own them with a specific mandate to sell them

at some point in the future. So in some cases that you could be six months, could be five years, could be ten years, that they always end up selling them because that's the structure of how they have their capital. I'm in the permanent capital business, so you know the way I invest in the public market. Um, the only way that you know I'm a seller is if the company itself is sold because somebody comes along and makes an offer for all the shares. We don't tend to

look at it that way. We've put up as us is from a very very long investment standpoint. We talked earlier about Books a half Away. Probably the same philosophical approach in terms of investing that once we own something, we intend to build it for the long term, so that affects decision making capital investments. Long term approach to ownership. Incentives for employees and how we treat employees I think are very different in what I do to private equity.

The analogy I use is if you had an apartment and you were a renter, and you you had a hole in your wall, you might put a poster up to cover the whole, whereas if you're the owner, you're going to fix the wall. That, unfortunately or fortunately is the difference sometimes in approach. What what's the old joke, nobody washes a rented car exactly exactly? How do you make sure that your investors are patient capital? There's been so much discussion about shareholder value and focusing on the

next quarter as opposed to the next decade. How how do you ensure you're attracting the right investors to be owners with you of of the companies you're running. You know, that's a that's that's a very good question. I mean, the truth is, you don't. What we tend to do reputationally, people know by you know, our long history, that we are patient capital, and that tends to attract a certain kind of institutional shareholder. We are also our own activists.

I mean, I think that's something that is an important point to make if you have shorter term type oriented investors. I think when you communicate with them and they understand that you're balancing the short term and the long term to drive value, that gives investors some comfort for investors who really don't care about the business long term prospects and just one short term returns. You know, the something we can do about that. But they tend to be

in the minority. But because we've been able to drive good value over the long term overall, you know, we tend to we tend to attract the right kind of investors. You know, I've always believed that you sell equity to investors the same way you sell products. You know, there are for investors, there are five thousand different public companies to choose from. Why invest in yours? You've got to give them a reason to be interested in your equity.

And you know, for people who sit back and think it's all going to come their way, those are the ones that tend to get you know, undervalued or you know, have the wrong kinds of shareholders. We actually make a real effort to find the right shareholders that the right profile to our sectors, explain to them why our business you know, is Merits investments. M quite quite interesting. I'm curious about what you described as being an activist and

esther in your own businesses. What does that look like. Well, you know, capital allocation is where you really make a difference in terms of return. You know, if you look at Jardon's history, we weren't just good owners and operators of our businesses when you went to add equity to

our business, so you went to buy equity back. We did some significant buy backs during the course of Jordan's evolution at times when we felt that the market is significantly undervalued our company, and with hindsight, those decisions were very good decisions. So I think, as I say, being your own activists and being proactive with capital allocation, whether it be for acquisitions or buy backs or you know, other forms of financing, you need to be a debt

at both. It's not just selling your product that that can create value for shareholders. So we're always very cognizance of that. Let's talk a little bit about these blank check investment vehicles. How did you first get involved in them? I kind of remember in the ninety nineties they were thought of as a little bit sketchy. But they've since mature, it, haven't they They have? Indeed, I mean I think I

was probably the catalyst for them getting their respectability. With hindsight, I think I've done eight and a half billion dollars worth of equity investing with SPACs. The first one I did was the largest of its kind ever done, and I think one of the first done by one of the larger Bold bracket investment banks. It was called Freedom Acquisition, and Freedom was five million dollars. I believe at the

time no one had done one. I think the largest before that was maybe three or four hundred million, and yes it was. It was a very successful one. We used to buy the largest hedge fund in Europe at the time, called g LG, founded by Non Godessman and his partners. Then we had two more after that were each called Liberty, Liberty and Liberty International. And then we had Justice, So we did Freedom to Liberty in a Justice. Probably the next one should have been called for All,

but we didn't. We had we changed the names after that. But we created some great companies. Obviously one of them Justice was Bergy King which now has restaurant brands, which is a what twenty billion class market kept company, say five billion dollar market kept company something like that. One of them was Liberty was used to create a company called Phoenix Group Holdings, which is now a foot company. No Matt Foods. More recent one that I've done is

now the largest frozen food company in Europe. We've done a number of these. These vehicles have really created companies that are very notable. So so you mentioned Justice Holdings. One of the partners and investors in that was William Ackman of Pershing Square. How did that partnership come about? To build A friend of mine I've known for many years, Nicholas brun and I had partners into the first three or four vehicles that we had created, and really actually

was it was it was a funny story. We were we were at the end of our fundraising process and we've raised you enough money to be have a fully funded deal. And we met Bill and he said, look, I really want to join you in this because I want to learn how these vehicles work, and I'd love to be your partner. And we were like, well, when you know when sort of it's a bit late to really think about having another party. So I'll tell you what.

I'll give you enough money just tacking it on, but it's neutral to you economically if I joined you as a partner. So he invested. I actually can't remember the amount of money we're talking about. It was maybe it must have been over two hundred and fifty million dollars. It could have been more. It could have been five minutes. I just don't remember. Anyway, it was a significant investment, and it was it was economically neutral to us, and we'd sort of be fun to do a deal with Bill,

which is what we did. So he's a pretty avid tennis player, and he later made the observation you can learn a lot about someone based on how aggressive they are with their serve. I know you're an athlete. Have have you guys played much tennis together? And how aggressive

are you with your first serve? Well, I continue that the last time I played tennis would Go, which was a few years ago, I beat him the first set, and that was not a good outcome from my perspective, because he wouldn't leave me alone until we played again. And then we paid another beat me in that one and we I don't think we've played tennis since. So and I don't consider myself and uh, you know, I played squash for pen for period and I'm not a bad tennis player, but I don't play all the time.

I actually probably played two or few times a year. But I'm an I'm an athlete. By background, and so I can get lucky on on on a set every once in a while. Yeah, you've done some triathlons and some ultramarathons and iron Man championships. How how did you get interested in in that sort of personal abuse? The

good description. I was a soccer player. I played in college, and then I played in the Cosmopolitan League in the New York state area until I was about thirty two, and every weekend, you know, injuries would get make it less and less fun. And then my brother actually suggested that I try a triathlon. I did my first one and I really enjoyed it, and then they did another

and another. Then somebody said, you know, you should try half iron Man, so I tried that, and then somebody said, well, you couldn't do an iron Man, So I went and did one of those, and then I started doing a bunch of iron Man to found that I enjoyed the distance. And then I met a guy called Vito Billa who said, I'm going to take you to a place where very few people have been. And they said what does that mean? He said, well, have you ever thought of running in

the desert? Dred and thirty five miles non stop in the middle of July. I said, no, nobody does that. He said, you said, yeah, we could do that, So that I'm in. And so one of my first ultras was doing this race called bad Water, which is this ultramarathon and the hunted any degree in the shade heat in Death Valley in July. And it's it's hard to explain, but it's kind of addicting. And but I did that race. I ran. I think in that race, I ran for forty one hours and then um did a bunch of

other ultras around it. But um, but I don't do those anymore and too old. Yeah, you lost me a Death Valley. Anytime they name a place like that, it's probably no where anyone should really be running. So let's get back to some of the SPACs you mentioned. Burger King. Eventually Justice Holdings merge with Burger King. That worked out pretty well. How did that deal time about? So you know,

we've looked at the number of these different opportunities. Bill had had an existing relationship with three G. We've actually gone very close to doing another different deal with black Stone. And my role really was to do the diligence because Bill was conflicted since he was already an inner esther in the three G fund that had invested in burger Kine. You know what I saw, I liked and we ended up agreeing a transaction. But with hindsight, has been very successful.

I mean we really brought burge Kine before it was ready to do an I p O. But we gave them we had a billion and a half dollars or so in the vehicle, and that gave them the opportunity to deploy that capital into other projects that they were working on at there at three G and really recycled the capital that invested in the burger Kine buyout was a very successful deal, but became way more successful after

had gone public. I mean, stock went from fifteen where we created the vehicle really too, I think at the height about seventy five seventy seven or set the stock was, and since COVID it's still held in there pretty well, it's over fifty five dollars today. That's uh, pretty respectable. The other spect that I wanted to ask about was freedom that you alterly used to help GLG go public.

What was that experience like back in was that O seven? Yes, that was probably one of the easiest deals I've ever done, because no goddessman who's a good friend of mine and Nicholas's Nicolas Boins and my partner at the time, you know, he understood how SPACs worked. I remember the meeting. We said enough in his office that geog and said, look, we both know how these things work and how they

should look. This has drawn us out in the back of a napkin, and if we can agree on the terms, let's just give it to the lawyers and be done. And that's exactly what we did. I think the whole the whole negotiation took about forty five minutes. The rest was done by the lawyers. And at the time, you know, a lot of these other hedge funds were looking, or these alternative managers that we call them. We're looking at

different avenues of how to go public. Some were going through a vehicle that Goldman Sacks were created to try and create a listing. Some had looked at the traditional I P O route, had done, you know, look to reverse acquisitions. Very different approaches. This one was by far and away the most successful and traded the best of all of them. So it was it was with hindsight you know the right thing to do, and I think that gave us the sort of credibility to move on

to the next vehicles that we created. So you're still pretty active with SPATS today, given the COVID nineteen pandemic and the lockdown. What areas are you seeing where opportunities exist and are there any areas of the economy that you see as permanently impaired that aren't particularly attractive to you. Well, I would say two things. First of all, I am still active, and we just bought a company at the end of last year called a PI Group. Great company.

It's the largest installer of life safety systems first depression and the like in buildings and in the United States. Does a lot of service and inspection work that's regulated work. You know, love. So we you know, loved the last vehicle that we're created. We're going to create another one, I'm sure in the coming months. You know. Look, I think that there are sectors that are permanently impaired, and I think the markets, as all markets are, sometimes get

a little upside down. You've got a lot of companies today that have very few, very little in the ware of revenues and very little aware of profits trading at ridiculous valuations, and then you've got some really solid companies that the market doesn't seem to care about, and you know, those things correct themselves over time. They always do. I'm not sure that I would say that there are sectors that are permanently impaired, because permanently as a very big word.

But I would there are sectors I wouldn't touch today. No one really knows whether there will be a good vaccine that will come out for the coronavirus, but we have out there today. But if there is, you know, some industries that are that could be permanently impaired will recover. But I wouldn't want to be in in travel today. It's just not a sector that I think is going to fair well in this environment. I'd want to be in businesses where people are doing more things at home,

just sort of a general theme. So, you know, I think that whether it be the casual dining concepts we talked about earlier, or you know, vacation package companies, convention companies, you know, things, whether where human beings are gathering in large numbers, I'm not sure those affectives i'd want to be in today. Makes a lot of sense. So we've talked about string after string of successful investments and winds. Were there any misfires or failures along the way. You

You've really put together quite a streak. I you know, it's been very fortunate. I think that my father always used to say, you make more money on the deals you don't do than the deals you do. And I think where I've been most fortunate is not making some

very large hours. The only two times that I've got out of my lane and did sort of venture capitally, things like I lost all my money, but it wasn't what the amount of money we're talking about wasn't that much relatively speaking, So they were cheap lessons, but there were lessons I didn't soon forget. And so I've tended to stick to my lane. And you know, I've never gotten complacent, and voy stayed fairly humble about these things, and kept my investment discipline, you know, did my own

due diligence, never sort of delegated it to consultants. The team around the has been with me for my career, as I told you earlier in Ashkin Has it will be for thirty one years. Genially, my partner on the operations side, and would be for seventeen years. Head of my family office has been with me for thirty years. You know, we when we find the right people, keep them around. June, you tend to navigate to the right place. Let me ask you about two kind of interesting things

you're involved with of a little more personal nature. Tell us about your work with the Wounded Warrior Project. I actually haven't been involved with Wounded Warriors for a while, but I when I raced bad Water, actually raced the wounded warriors I had. I had a soldier, her name Steve Robeson, still a good friend of mine who lost his leg in Mozole. And I actually hosted every year still now for holiday stays at my home in Antigua.

And you know, just American hero and I was quite involved in their early years in in Winded Warriors, but really a the fundraiser as a post to anything else. Obviously, the unsung heroes in our in our country are the masses of wounded veterans that have come home and need support and work and everything else. You know. One of the things I love about a PI, the company that we invest in today is a lot of military vets in the business, which proves not only a great culture,

but a great work ethic as well. So let's talk about antigue was since she mentioned it, What does a special economics envoy actually do? And e as a small place. My family have been there for over thirty years. My parents lived there, they've been citizens there for many many years. So you know, my my love of the island. It's a small island, only a population where we about a hundred thousand people. Getting connected to the right people outside

the governments of small countries is sometimes not easy. So what I do, it's not a job, it's an honor and to do it for them. But I tried to connect them wherever I can, to the right people who would take an interest in investing in Antigua or helping Antigua in any particular way, particularly when we have crisis. You know, we had a hurricane that basically wipe out Barbuda, so I was quite involved with helping them with relief efforts.

And really the same thing with COVID nineteen. We're doing a lot of things in the ways of food programs and sourcing medical supplies, flying medical supplies down to the country. You know, little things that to a population that's relatively small a big difference. So, um, you know, that's really

the role I've played. It's not a formal role. It's you know, it's a role I played because of my connections to the island and the knighthood is does that have anything to do with this being a former British colony or is that specific to much? Very much. It's something that's on the Queen's List, but it's something that the recommendations come from the colony, so it's an honor.

I don't take it too seriously. It helps every once in a while getting a good reservation at a restaurant, right, That's that's what doctors used to do in the United States in the nineteen sixties. Medical school was worth the worth of that. But you did you get to meet the queen? Was she the one who actually night did you? Or was it a little less formal of a ceremony? It was a little It was equally formal, but it

was done by an envoy. It was done in Antigua, so they send an envoy over from the UK to oversee it, and it's no Queen's list. I actually have been to Bucking let's all that. But that was the more charitable things in the UK quite interesting. So I know we only have you for a finite amount of time. Let's get to our favorite questions and and see what we can learn learn about Sir Martin the person as opposed to the Night of the Grand Cross. Let's talk

about we've been talking about Lockdown and pandemics. What are you watching under lockdown these days? Tell us your favorite Netflix or Amazon shows, or or what podcast you're listening to. I watched the other day, I watch Eurovision, which is Will farrell latest movie that got launched on I think it's a Netflix, which you know, because I grew up with the Eurovision song contest. I thought was extremely funny. So that's that's my latest favorite. I've been watching all

the episodes of Powder. I don't know if you know that series, but oh sure, it's it's nail biding, Its nail biding, and it's frighteningly accurate. I watched an interesting movie movie on fun Guy, which I find fascinating. So yeah, those are sort of my favorite so far. Yeah. I've learned not to watch Fowder right before I go to bed,

otherwise I'm I'm up for hours. It's uh, it's so exciting, and I was shocked to learn it's actually very popular throughout the Middle East, not just in Israel's kind of interesting how widely that that has been viewed throughout you know, the West Bank and everywhere else. It's true, and it's uh, you know, the real I've go out Bare quite a bit as a place in Tel Aviv, and there's a lot of accuracy to all of that. Quite interesting. So tell us about some of your early mentors. I have

to assume your father is somewhere on that list. You know, he certainly was in all my formative years, my priorities in life. But I worked for Wilbur Ross. Was my first real job really the time, and Wilbur was a great mentor for me. He was, you know, he was very kind teaching me things in the early days when I really knew nothing about business. You know, I was a political science major. I've never taken a business course or anything like that. So he was really someone who

was a big factor. And then my father's partner, Jimmy Goldsmith, you know, watching him and my father at work and doing what they do. Okay, I guess those were my my three biggest mentors, my father, Wilbury and Jimmy. What are you reading these days? Tell us what's keeping your mind busy and and what are some of your all time favorite books? So my favorite book I've just finished

actually is have you read American Kingpin. It's all about the fellow who built the Silk Road, which was this place where you can buy and sell pretty much anything on the dark web. Someone who's not really a technology person. I thought it was fascinating. It's also of a quick, easy read. I really enjoyed that. You know, I tend to read books sort of more historical context. One of my favorite books of all times is called The Third Chimpanzee, which is an early book by Jared Diamond. You know.

I Paul Johnson's Modern Times another favorite book of mine. All the evolvary books. I rather like Sapiens, Comma Death, little great books. That's my kind of my kind of reading. I don't figured about what I'm going to read next. They just literally just finished American Kington. I'll put those on my list. What sort of advice would you give to a recent college grad who was interested in a career in either finance, investing, um M and A. For me, I think, by far and away, the most important thing

to learn is how to communicate. I think so many kids today, you know, they're very smart technically, but they're i Q is a lot better than their EQ, and so I would say, really learn how to write, be able to communicate in writing. It's not just about a short email. Also, you know the personal touch to it. How to write a letter, you know, I think, learn how to treat others as you would expect to be treated. You know, the right way to present yourself is those

are to me. I know this sounds very basic, but those bill sets that have often been lost in our youth.

I think in our final question, what do you know about the world of investing today that you wish you knew when you were getting started out twenty five or so years ago, Well, I wish I knew that there was going to be the greatest long long term growth inexerties in history, because you could probably use a pen and been pin rather and been successful in investing just by buying something twenty five years ago and keeping it.

But I guess outside of that, I think, you know, sticking to one's lane is what I've learned over the years is if you really know something in depth, stick to it for the long term, and I think that you can make superior returns doing that instead of being if you like two wide in your approach. I think that's something that over the years I've learned, you know,

paid better. If you really know space and focus on it, or have a philosophy about the kind of business you like and stick for that, you're going to make better returns. Thank you, sir Martin Franklin for being so generous with your time. If you enjoy this conversation, well check out any of the other previous three hundred such discussions we've had over the past six years. You can find that at iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, Overcast, Stitcher, wherever your final

podcasts are sold. We love your comments, feedback and suggestions right to us at m IB podcast at Bloomberg dot net. You can check out my weekly column on Bloomberg dot com slash Opinion. Sign up for our daily reads at Ridoltz dot com. Give us a review at Apple iTunes, follow me on Twitter at Riholtz. I would be remiss if I did not thank the Cracks staff who helps put these conversations together each week. Maroufal is my audio engineer, Michael Boyle is my producer. A Tikaval Bron is our

project manager. Michael Batnick is our head of research. I'm Barry Riholts. You've been listening to Masters in Business on Bloomberg Radio.