Six years before he took his company public, my father told Business Week in an interview that he “cherishes his ability to spend his money as he pleases and turned down brokers who suggested going public in the bull market of 1968 for that reason.” He explained: I like the freedom of not being responsible to other people. I want to be able to make a deal on a handshake. People will think I’m a real square, but I didn’t think my stock was worth as much as the brokers thought it was. They wanted to sell it at something like thirty times the earnings. I didn’t want to have a lot of people hurt if it went down.
His twenty-one-year old media company, one of the largest privately owned conglomerates in the nation, was known as a “quiet organization.” Aside from Park Communications, Inc., and his real estate holdings, Forbes estimated in 1983 that my father also controlled some $10 million in P&G stock and almost the same amount of ConAgra, the parent company of the Nebraska flour mill that made the Duncan Hines cake mix.
In October 1983, Park Communications, Inc., became a public company, and the stock (symbol PARC) was listed on the Nasdaq National Market System. Goldman Sachs & Co., which managed the underwriting group, had planned to price the shares between $17 and $20. The company earned $4.8 million on revenues of $44.7 million in the first half of 1983. It employed over 2500 people and operated in twenty-three states, with a major concentration in North Carolina.
On October 26, 1983, my father sold 11 percent of Park Communications in a public offering. The opening offer was $19 per share, and the stock bid on May 17, 1985, was $34.50. There were 9.2 million shares of stock outstanding on May 13, 1985, and 750 stockholders. Park remained the sole owner of 8.2 million shares, or 89 percent of the remaining stock. It was a decision, he said, that was prompted by the need to place a value on his holding for estate purposes and to offer some protection from estate taxes.
In an article in the Ithaca Journal on May 17, 1985, Joseph Junod reported that through it all, my father had built a personal fortune that he refused to discuss. He wrote, Park says he won’t talk about money, how much he is worth, how much he gives away and who will benefit from his estate, for three reasons. “It’s nobody’s business, it’s stupid and it’s a good way to make enemies.”
Park Communications in 1984 increased its gross revenue over 1983 by 13 percent and its net income by 26 percent, which set a new high in revenues and profits. Gross revenues were $93.8 million and net income was $11.1 million. Earnings per share climbed 22 percent to $1.31. By this time, the circulation figures ranked Park newspapers at thirty-eighth, with 73 publications, in the country among 153 group publishers. With twenty-one broadcasting stations also under his belt, my father was positioned to expand the company even more.
This growth, in one way at least, bothered the man who built a media empire by focusing on midsized television markets (Richmond, VA) and smaller daily newspaper markets (Statesville, NC). “We’re sorta getting away from being a person,” Pops said. He also admitted to having some qualms about going public. He told Junod it would mean: “[H]aving to stand naked ’bout every quarter.” Junod goes on to report “[Park] said, with a touch of chagrin, ‘that it cost him 72 cents to mail each 1984 annual report,’ a document that contains hints about the man and his company.
In an era of sophistication, colorful, expensive annual reports, Park’s is simplicity itself. Clear, focused, easy-to-understand and containing but one photograph of an individual, that of the founder.”33 In 1990, the country entered a recession, and Park Communications’ stock dropped from a high of $22.25 during first quarter 1990 to a low of $10.25 during fourth quarter. It closed at $15.25 a share. The nationwide recession that began in July had taken its toll on media companies, which saw huge drops in operating revenues and slashed staffs and closed news bureaus in response.
In contrast, Pops got through 1990 with a 2 percent decline in operating revenues. By controlling costs, the company’s net income was up 1 percent and earnings per share equaled those for 1989, according to the company’s annual report.
Though he was feeling the pinch, my father was still upbeat, saying that, in many ways, he was enjoying the recession. In 1991, advertising linage was down at Park Communications for the year, as were profits. For its 1991 fiscal year, the company reported net income of $11.9 million, compared with $18.9 million in 1990. Yet in a January 1992 interview with C.E. Yandle, a staff writer for the News & Observer, Park said he was optimistic about his company’s operations, expecting a slight upturn in sales that year. His company’s strong cash position insulated it from problems that plagued other media corporations, he explained.
Yandle wrote: The 81-year old chairman of media giant Park Communications, Inc., is taking advantage of sagging profits at the nation’s newspapers and radio and television stations. Using a cash arsenal of more than $100 million, the Ithaca, NY, firm has bought three newspapers, a television station and a radio station over the past four months.
And Park, who was in Raleigh for the corporation’s annual shareholders’ meeting, says he and his company are hungry for more. “We squirreled away some money,” he said in an interview at the McKimmon Center, the site of the meeting. “I don’t like to use the word depressed in relation to prices, but there are more newspapers available at a fair price right now. Let’s put it that way.”