IF YOU WILL IT IS NO DREAM - I

 

                                                                         

After an intense study of the stock market, Siggi Wilzig began his extraordinary career by buying five shares at a time in the Wilshire Oil and Gas Co. This was a small  company whose stocks sold at an affordable price. Siggi had become a close friend of a fellow Jew, Sol Diamond, who was a very successful, well-known entrepreneur. Diamond had also invested in the Wilshire Co. and was concerned over Wilshire’s failure to realize its potential. The company was in trouble and needed fresh energy and a charismatic leader. Since Diamond was too old to take on fresh challenges (almost eighty) he promised Siggy that he would back him financially - if he would take up the challenge of overturning the present President of Wilshire. This meant purchasing large amounts of stock.

Siggi never refused a challenge. With no money of his own to do so, he enrolled everyone he could think of,  to purchase small shares of Wilshire and join his investor group – even though nobody had even heard of Wilshire Oil Co. of Texas.  Such were his powers of persuasion. By the end of 1964, Siggi and his small group of investors had finally acquired enough stock, nearly 17%, that he could address the Wilshire board in person, and assess their response to his takeover bid.

He flew to Texas and entered the board room whose members were invariably all old, white, non-Jews. After his brief introductory speech, he removed his jacket and rolled up his sleeve. Revealing the number tattooed on his arm, he then described what he had been though in Auschwitz. “Gentlemen”, he concluded, “you are looking at a man who had the foxlike instincts to survive history’s darkest hour, a  man who has no fear of adversity, and who cannot be intimidated by overwhelming odds. The Almighty has given me a second chance at life, along with the skills to make great fortunes. My partners and I look forward to doing business with you”.

He put on his jacket said his goodbyes and left. One of the sympathetic members told Siggi afterwards what had been the reaction. The board members shook their heads, laughed nervously and discussed Wilzig’s complete lack of experience running an oil company. One of the directors asked, “Who the hell is this little Jew bastard?”

Siggi returned to New Jersey and once again went knocking on  doors. By the end of 1964, Siggi and his investor group had increased their ownership of Wilshire stock to nearly 20%, putting them in a strong negotiating position. He studied the company’s present methods, drafted radical plans for overhauling its operations, and submitted his recommendations to the board. The board’s main  advisor, Bob McDonald, was a highly respected banking lawyer and tax expert, who concluded that Siggi’s plans were risky - but the alternative was to allow Wilshire to continue its downward trend. He advised them to “let him run with it”. And run he did - with the development of eleven exploratory new wells in the space of one year. It was the evaluation of potential client’s  character and abilities, more than the deal itself, which was the decisive factor for Siggi.

In 1965, Wilshire’s president died suddenly and the board studied its options. Rather than elevating one of their own officers, the board elected Siggi as Wilshire’s new president and chief executive officer. Soon  after, they also elected him as their chairman and CEO. Only one year after Siggi’s first meeting with the Wilshire board!

His first act as the new president was to cut operating expenses. He then persuaded the board that they should diversify the company’s holdings. Consequently, he purchased two companies: Brooklyn Tire and Oil Corp; and Eastern Radio Corp. In 1967, the addition of these two companies enabled Wilshire to issue, for the first time in the company’s history, a stock dividend of 4 percent.

When Siggi  became President, the company was in debt. In the 1970 annual report, Wilshire posted impressively high revenues: nearly $9 million, with a net income of $700,000. “Although these gains are very gratifying,” Siggi wrote to shareholders, “your management is not satisfied, since the growth potential of the Company has not yet been realized”. If Wilshire was going to keep growing, the company would need a steady stream of cash.

“Why not buy a bank?” suggested Bob McDonald. “Banks have lots of cash.”