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Tisch had no real master plan in building his empire, no carefully crafted long-term strategy to consult. He just looked for good deals, an elusive goal for many corporate chiefs. In the late 1960s, Tisch started playing the takeover game. His first catch was Lorillard, maker of Kent and True cigarettes. In 1968 Loews acquired the company in a friendly deal, but soon after the merger was completed, Tisch, taking an active hand, forced out the company's chief executive. No sense in sitting back and watching an acquisition turn sour, he believed. Lorillard profits subsequently showed stronger growth under Loews management.
Perhaps Tisch's finest acquisition was also his toughest. In 1974 he fought for nine months to take over CNA Financial, an insurance company that battled to remain independent. Tisch won; Loews owns 80% of the company. After the purchase, Tisch put in place a new chief executive. Today CNA is Loews' most profitable division. Still, Tisch felt bruised by the struggle and vowed never again to launch a hostile takeover.
Along the acquisition trail, Tisch made several false moves. In 1973 Loews bought a substantial share of Equity Funding just before the insurance company fell apart in the wake of a scandal that involved selling fraudulent insurance policies. Loews suffered a pretax loss of $3 million on its investment. Another ill-timed move was the acquisition of Bulova Watch in 1979, which proved a money-losing division for Loews until 1984.
The family also unwittingly became embroiled in a New York scandal during the mid-1970s. Loews had bought a $40 million stake in the Franklin National Bank, which was sold to Michele Sindona, an Italian financier. When the bank later failed, Sindona was convicted of looting its assets, and Loews was sued by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and a bankruptcy trustee for breach of fiduciary duty and misuse of inside information. Without admitting any wrongdoing, Loews agreed to pay $1.2 million to settle the suits.
Tisch has tried to avoid any situations that could compromise his reputation. Says he: "American companies must be represented by people who have the highest standards of business ethics." Insider trading scandals on Wall Street, Tisch suggests, are "sad. There are certain pressures on these people that make them succumb."
None of the past chapters in Tisch's business career could have prepared him for his latest incarnation as the acting chief of a broadcasting company. Until last summer, Tisch had confined most of his investments to firms in more prosaic lines of business. CBS is his first really glamorous investment. Last week Tisch was delighted to find himself in a CBS control room watching the morning news show in action. Said he: "I've always wanted to do that."
Tisch may have had several motives for buying into CBS. First he was looking, as always, for a lucrative investment, and the price of CBS stock seemed right. Says Tisch: "Originally we invested in CBS as part of the opportunity of the moment. The stock went down to a point where we thought it was interesting." Tisch figured that sooner or later he could realize a profit on his investment.