As Johnnie Babcock points out, “Park watchers who liked to say they knew Roy H. Park inside and out insisted that he was an aggressive business buyer who never sold anything. They were right when it came to his main leverage capital: stock in Procter & Gamble, its spin-off company Clorox, and the food giant, ConAgra. There were also some local securities that he steadily accumulated as limited offerings became available, among them: First National Bank of Ithaca (ultimately Bank of America) and locally owned Tompkins Trust Company, where at his death he was the largest stockholder.
“Pledging parts of those solid assets to secure loans for desirable communications purchases, he paid cash for the many TV and radio stations that became Park Broadcasting. He also built significant real estate holdings and became an active player in outdoor advertising. Park made some brilliant purchases, but along the line he did sell off a few things. He rarely mentioned his sales, and with good reason. Most were not good deals.
“When he bought AM and FM radio stations in Minneapolis, Park also picked up radio properties in Duluth, MN. This far-north site was a management problem for me, who secured a manager for the Duluth stations who was so talented as to rise through the ranks to supervise all the Park radio stations. The advertising market for the stations was small, however, with dim prospects for growth. The stations lost money. After a winter sojourn to stir up business and quell a union organizing drive up north, I told my boss that the only hot place in the Duluth-Superior, WI, metropolis was an indoor rink devoted to curling, that occult sport where contestants push a heavy stone toward a far-off goal and team members sweep the ice ahead of the slowly sliding object to ease its course to bump other stones out of a score.
“I told Roy no alarm clock was needed at the Duluth motel. Cars starting up outside the room door woke you up all during the night. Nights are so cold up that way that automatic engine-starters fire up periodically during the night to prevent the oil from being so frozen that a battery can’t turn the engine in the morning. The more frequent the starting noise, the colder the night. And come morning, you had to kick the motel room door open from the frost.
“Park sold the Duluth stations to a native who made a success of operating small stations in limited markets. The price was minimal. The rationale expressed by Park was that the weather was just too cold up International Falls way. Of course, he’d never been within hundreds of miles of the market. The real reason was an ice-bound operating statement.
“The Federal Communications Commission forced the sale of two Park radio stations when rules prohibited purchasing radio and TV stations in the same market. The prize was NBCTV affiliate WSLSTV in Roanoke, VA. Park readily agreed to sell off the sister radio stations. A broadcast broker came up with a client who impressed Roy. The billionaire Bass brothers of Fort Worth, TX, would buy the radio stations! Roy gloried in chatting with Perry Bass, a glib and attractive oil and cattleman and sophisticated business executive. He and Roy settled on a price of $1,500,000. Roy was openly tickled. Finally, the time came to submit the proposal to the FCC, and the official written offer from Bass hit Roy’s desk. And Roy hit the phone. The purchase price was a stark $1,350,000. After chatting up Perry Bass for a few minutes, Roy pointed out that the written offer was $150,000 short of their agreed price.
“Perry Bass’s laconic response was that down his way in Texas, his folks always got a 10 percent discount for cash. Park swallowed his complaint, but it was obvious that he had met his match in rough and tumble negotiating. He was faced with accepting the cash offer or being labeled a northern cheapskate by a well-known financial heavyweight. Roy folded like a lead balloon.
“These were two deals where the sale was not as satisfactory to him as a masterful purchase. He was to suffer one more costly business sale. Having agreed to sell all his outdoor plants to son Roy, Jr., Pops had buried an ‘out’ in their agreement allowing him to sell for himself the Scranton–Wilkes-Barre poster and paint plants, the largest and potentially most profitable. Despite a senior secretary’s statement to Mundell in the Ithaca Journal article published July 8, 1991, that one of Roy’s mottos was “We never sell anything,” he undertook personal negotiations in secret and dumped the Scranton plant at a discount price to thwart and hopefully discourage his son from acquiring and operating the balance of his outdoor empire. The expensive and unsuccessful transaction was never discussed before or after with his son or his staff. It was a preemptive strike not easily justified, and in any event vindictive.”