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The warning stuck. By using credit as their father had taught them, the boys recouped their losses and began to expand their holdings. Perhaps the most spectacular performance was Clint Jr.'s purchase of the City Construction Co., a Dallas road-paving outfit. He put up only $20,000 in cash to buy the company, met the rest of the price with an $80,000 promissory note. Then he borrowed to buy up other companies, moved into highway construction, dam building, land development and heavy construction by using his growing combines as collateral against each new acquisition. Gradually his original $20,000 investment pyramided into Tecon Corp., a general construction company that now has assets of $10 million. With it Clint Jr. even took on the ambitious job of removing a hill that threatened to fall into the Panama Canal, despite skepticism by other big companies whether it could be done at a profit. He made a handsome profit.
Coming & Going. In the early 1950s, now confident of the boys' business abilities. Clint Sr. gradually turned over to them a loose entity called Murchison Brothers, which he had set up in 1942. In one shrewd deal after another, the brothers proceeded to acquire or build up housing projects from Florida to Los Angeles, construction-material companies in a dozen cities, land developments all across the U.S., two water systems, several insurance companies and a corralful of other properties. Not content with making the building supplies for the houses they construct, they build the roads and the streets over which the supplies are transported. Says Clint Jr. with a grin: "We like to get our payoff coming and going."
There is nothing myopic about their business vision. Two years ago, the brothers bought one-third of the land within the city limits of New Orleans—a tract of 32,000 acres. Because nearly all the land was swamp, they paid only $300 an acre. Now they are drying out the swamp by draining off the water, eventually plan a huge development of industry, homes, highways and commercial projects. They have already recovered their original investment by taking in additional partners, and have attracted one of the world's largest and most modern coffee-processing plants, operated by J. A. Folger & Co., as their first tenant. Within five years, they figure, the land should be worth between $10,000 and $50,000 an acre.
Fast Situations. Unlike most of the oldtime Texas tycoons, the Murchisons run a team operation, delegate authority freely, and depend heavily on a stream of advisers. "Dad is a real financial genius," says John. "My brother and I don't consider ourselves financial geniuses." From all over the U.S., college friends, family friends, business acquaintances—and a spate of crackpots—tip them off about investment opportunities. Unlike their father, who disliked selling any of his properties, they are on the lookout for fast situations that they can get in and out of while the profits are ripe. Above all, they prize good executives ("Management is everything"), like to leave a company's operation completely in the hands of hired managers, keeping for themselves only an advisory role.