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Weekly documentaries on the top stories in finance
Here's the story of Trammell Crow
(the founder of modern real estate private equity)
"The Man Behind a $13 Billion Real Estate Empire"
(02:17) THE WOUND (1914–1946)
>born 1914, Dallas, 5th of 8 kids, 9 people in 3 rooms
>dad is a bookkeeper, owns nothing
>boss dies in 1928, dad loses everything overnight
>14 years old, decides: employees are vulnerable, owners survive
>grinds through the Depression, becomes youngest CPA in Texas at 24
(04:44) THE FIRST DEAL (1946–1948)
>gets out of the Navy at 32, joins wife's dying grain warehouse
>tenant says "we need more space, we're leaving"
>Crow: "what if I build it for you?" - he's never built anything, he's an accountant
>builds 11,250 sq ft when tenant only needs 6,750, fills the rest
>50 warehouses in 3 years, just invented speculative building
(07:47) THE 3 RULES (1948–1956)
>Rule 1: never sell, hold everything
>Rule 2: share equity with everyone, turn employees into owners
>Rule 3: sign personally for everything, unlimited liability
>"you can get rich selling real estate, you can only get wealthy owning it"
>these 3 rules built the empire and nearly destroyed it, twice
(09:48) THE FURNITURE MART (1956–1960)
>visits Joe Kennedy's Merchandise Mart in Chicago, becomes obsessed
>decides to build a furniture mart in Dallas, nobody wants it
>one company: "we hope you don't build it"
>his partner says let's quit, Crow goes silent, then: "I'm going to build the finest furniture mart in America" - rolls over and goes to sleep
>builds it, it works, Dallas Market Center grows to 7M sq ft, largest wholesale complex in the world
(12:43) EMPIRE BUILDING (1960–1973)
>deploys young MBAs to new cities, gives them capital, autonomy, and ownership
>Bob Glaze: 13 years, never got a raise from $16K salary, worth millions through partnership stakes
>meets Mack Pogue, young broker, zero dev experience, forms Lincoln Property - becomes 2nd largest apartment manager in America
>1971: 140M sq ft, 8,000 properties, 26 cities, 6 countries, Forbes calls him nation's biggest private landlord
>Fortune headline: "Trammell Crow Succeeds Because YOU Want Him To"
(20:21) THE FIRST CRISIS (1973–1977)
>Arab oil embargo, oil prices quadruple, interest rates spike
>personally liable for $433M, cash flow negative $25M/year
>Federal Reserve puts him on credit watch, too big to fail
>calls a partners meeting, asks them to liquidate their own wealth to save him - not legally obligated
>one partner: "I don't think the partners are safe until you are safe" - they save him
(25:15) THE COMEBACK (1977–1985)
>back on Forbes 400 by 1982, net worth $500M
>Harvard Business School asks: "most important element in business?"
>Crow: "love"
>builds the Anatole Hotel, numbers every single brick
>1984: $13B in assets, 5,000 employees
(29:09) THE SECOND CRISIS (1986–1989)
>oil collapses, S&L crisis, Tax Reform Act kills real estate incentives
>Dallas office vacancy hits 30%
>Forbes: "the dinosaurs are dying"
>partners hitting golf balls into empty buildings because there's nothing else to do
>second crisis, same mistakes
(30:48) LESSONS LEARNED (1989)
>one partner sends a memo: "please outline mistakes you have made"
>101 pages come back, single spaced, names attached
>"we covered up mistakes because we could borrow more money"
>"we continued to build because that's what we knew how to do"
>"when you don't have staying power, you turn into the fish"
(35:29) LEGACY (1989–2009)
>2006: acquired by CBRE for $2.2B
>alumni: Lincoln Property, Starwood, Transwestern, Spieker, Greystar
>"spawned more millionaires than anybody in his generation"
>dies in 2009 at 94, married to Margaret for 66 years
>asked about retiring: "you'd waste yourself instead of using yourself"
>partnership built the empire
>partnership saved the empire
>partnership outlasted the man who created it
One more thing:
If you're in real estate, private equity, or building anything on partnership, this one's for you
This took 7 people weeks to create
We spent weeks going through lost interviews, Forbes and Fortune investigations, library archives, and a 101-page internal document so that we could share this with you
Our goal is to produce content like this every single week
If you want to see more of this, like/repost the video, follow, reply, and share it with someone who needs to hear this story
Produced by Collateral, the financial storytelling firm
English
