But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself again. Before my father passed away, Jim Dumbell wrote in the Charlotte Observer: “Probably no one amasses that kind of wealth and reaches the age of 71 without considering what will become of it when he’s gone.” The newspaper quoted my father saying, “Park Newspapers will remain, we hope, but you can’t run anything from the grave.” It reported, “He has provided an opportunity for some of his key employees to buy sizeable shares of his holdings at low interest rates, and for the remainder of his empire to go public when he’s no longer there to run it.”54 As reported by Byrd in the Winston-Salem Journal in February 1983, my father “left instructions for after his death that he says were modeled on those of Frank E. Gannett, the founder of the Gannett Co., the country’s biggest newspaper chain.” The newspaper reported the family will get part of his company stock and that: “The Park Foundation, which already gets part of his companies’ profits, will get enough stock to ‘have considerable influence.’ The remainder will be offered to the Park companies’ management, at low interest rates.” Quoting my father, the newspaper said: “‘Hopefully we’ll have enough good key people [to buy] that they’ll be able to carry on.’” 55 Park Communications did not need to be sold. It had competent management and could have continued to run like a well-oiled machine, at least for a while. My father owned 89 percent of the shares at Park Communications, valued at $429 million, when he died, and he willed 57 percent of his shares to the Park Foundation. This was an outright bequest of 51 percent of the Park Communications stock to the Park Foundation, and his Residuary Bequest also willed the remaining residue of his estate to the Foundation.
Pops’s will, dated November 19, 1992, stated “[I]t is my belief that it would be in the best interests of Park Communications, Inc. and its stockholders to have selected employees of the company acquire some of its stock. Accordingly, it is my wish that the Park Foundation, Inc.…from time to time, permit those employees who have three or more years of consecutive service to the Company, to purchase from the Foundation appropriate amounts of such stock on terms and conditions as favorable to such employees as are consistent with maintaining the Foundation’s status as a charitable organization.” In the will my father said, “I believe that this would tend to encourage such employees to devote their best efforts to the improvement of the company and the enhancement of the value of its stock.”
This did not happen, since my mother made the decision to sell Park Communications as quickly as possible. In 1993, I was named to the Park Communications, Inc., board of directors, joining my mother, Wright Thomas, Senator Harry Byrd, Mark Green and John McNair in having the responsibility of selling the company. My mother and I briefly entertained the idea of my purchasing the radio, television and newspaper properties that were in the territory that my outdoor company served, but this was precluded by the estate attorney who, because I was on the board, pointed out I was a disqualified person. With the job I had running Park Outdoor at the time along with a number of other outside responsibilities, I had no objections to a sale which would immediately maximize cash funding for the Foundation.
After interviews with numerous investment bankers, Goldman Sachs, which originally took Park Communications public, was selected. Various bids were received and reviewed by the board, with the surprise high bidder being two investors who were financed by loans from the Retirement Systems of Alabama. These investors came in at between $10 and $15 million more than the highest bidder from media conglomerates, and its bid was qualified and accepted.
The sale closed May 1995. During 1996, the new owner of Park Communications sold off the twenty-two radio stations to pay down the debt to the Alabama retirement fund and then refinanced the whole transaction by issuing company bonds through Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs enabling them to pay off the entire remaining Alabama Retirement System debt. Park Communications was then sold to Media General, a leading communications company located in Richmond, VA, who owned and operated television stations and newspapers in the southeastern region of the United States. Media General, following its corporate policy, immediately sold the TV stations and newspapers not located in the southeast to other communication companies. The majority of the Park properties, the television stations and newspapers in the Southeast my father bought over the years based on his belief that this region would continue to have above average economic growth, remained intact operating under the Media General banner.
After the sale of Park Communications, the estate still owned my father’s two real estate companies: RHP Incorporated and RHP Properties, Inc. This included Ag Research, the ad agency where my father started out and which Johnnie Babcock and I both formerly ran which had survived through it all. My father still owned the first building he bought in Ithaca, and most every other piece of real estate he had bought. The real estate holding and operating companies included orange groves, timberland, and dozens of parcels of land in Pennsylvania and central and western New York, apartment buildings, houses, parking lots, and commercial establishments.
While negotiations for Park Communications were taking place in 1994, I was named director and senior vice president of these companies with the responsibility for selling my father’s real estate holdings in New York and Pennsylvania. Most of these properties had to be sold one at a time, and the proceeds from these sales amounted to approximately $9 million, of which a substantial part went to fund the Park Foundation.