Customer Reviews

The King of Cash: The Inside Story of Laurence Tisch

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Although the information you get is quite nice, the way it is brought to you is not. Winans is so pro Tisch it becomes silly. Most of the world is bad and Tisch is fighting it. I, for instance, would love to learn more about the, so convenient, burning down of the two money losing and well insured hotels.

This book is a pretty good read. I am a big reader of business biographies (Starbucks, Walmart, McDonalds, Blockbuster, John Malone, Diller, etc). What I had hoped for in this book was more insight and background on Larry Tiches other deals. This one focussed mostly on CBS and was not written in any exciting fashion. Having said all that - I did enjoy it but would only give it three stars.

The King of Cash: The Inside Story of Laurence Tisch
By Christopher Winans

"His net worth is more than$1 billion. His corporate assets total more than $40 billion and generate almost $14 billion in annual revenue."

This book tells a fascinating story starting with how Larry's father had 30 cents when he was married to his mother and how through hard work Larry worked his way up to remarkable business heights. It covers his first accusation (at the age of 23 in 1946) of a 300 room hotel in Lakewood, New Jersey. What's particularly interesting is the explanations of the reasoning that went into this decision as well as others throughout his business career. Also covered is the deal structure and the financials, which are both very valuable information. With roughly $175,000 down on a purchase price of $375,000 Tisch had an expected pro-forma (or expected return) of $100,000 a year. That's an expected return of 57%. Now there was a bit of work to be done as far as repairs and improvements, but this would turn out to be Larry's forte; buying business that needed a bit of TLC and had tremendous cash flow potential, often unrecognized by others.

As I cover in my book, A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate, by Kevin Kingston cash flow is the dominating factor in the success or failure of a business, and Larry Tisch grasped this concept early and ran as fast as he could with it. This book gave me the push to get into the hospitality business by buying two hotels / inns in Hollywood Beach Florida. A key to Larry's success is his ability to vision how some changes and improvements will affect the cash flow of a business.

As the cash came in it did not sit around for long, it went right into another business thus allowing the compounding effect to work its wonders.

As Einstein says, "Compound interest is the 8th wonder of the world"

A longtime friend of Tisch says, "The game, that's what motivates him. He lives modestly, he has no use for the money himself...He's just fascinated with trying to solve the problem at hand."

You get a lot from this book, a good dose of values, the importance of cash flow, the thought process behind how Tisch grew his companies as well as the hard numbers and deal structures of several of his deals.

By Kevin Kingston, author of: A 20,000% Gain in Real Estate

My Blog:
http://www.bloglines.com/blog/KevinKingston