Self-Made Millionaire to Speak At the Business School Today

A self-made man, raised on a farm, lacking any formal post-high school education, and now chairman of a $500 million corporation, will give a lecture "The Corporate Marriage" at the Harvard Business School today.

J.B. Fuqua, chairman of Fuqua Industries, will speak on the practice of acquiring and divesting corporations and the philosophy of building a conglomerate, drawing on his own experience as example.

Christened John Brooks Elam, Fuqua was adopted and raised by his mother's parents and given their name. His mother died from complications arising at childbirth, and his father, a struggling tobacco farmer, could not afford to raise him.

Anxious to escape the farmer's lot in Prince Edward County, Va., Fuqua borrowed books on radio through the mail from Duke University and quickly obtained a ham operator's license and then a commercial operator's license.

In 1940, with $2000 and a few financial backers, Fuqua started radio station WGAC in Augusta, Ga., and acted as its manager, holding a small minority of the stock. Nine years later, Fuqua sold out his minority interest in WGAC, bought 100 per cent of the other Augusta radio station, WTNT, and proudly renamed it WJBF.

Took a Plunge

Intrigued by his first look at television at the 1939 New York World's Fair, Fuqua took a plunge in 1950 and bought $50,000 worth of TV equipment. Fuqua waited until 1952 when the Federal Communications Commission lifted its freeze on new TV licenses and allocated two channels to the Augusta area. In 1953 WJBF-TV began.

Fuqua got a listing on the New York Stock Exchange in 1965 by obtaining controlling interest in Natco Corporation, a Pittsburg, Pa., based tile manufacturer. In 1965, Natco's revenues were $14 million and its stock was selling far below board level. In 1967, when the company was renamed Fuqua Industries, revenues climbed to $60 million and in 1968 topped $200 million.

Today, Fuqua Industries' annual revenue is slightly under $500 million, and the conglomerate deals primarily in leisure-time fields. Fuqua, however, spends little leisure time himself. He works seven days a week "because I like it," he says. A few years ago, Fuqua and his wife went to Switzerland for a two-week vacation. He was back in his office in three days, announcing, "When you've seen one castle you've seen them all."

Fuqua's innovative business principles and ideas have stimulated financial leaders everywhere. In the spring of 1972 he made a proposal to discontinue his corporation's formal annual stockholder meetings. December of the same year, Fuqua made a landmark move by issuing a preliminary, unaudited report that included dollar forecasts and net earnings for the company as a whole and for each major project line as well.

Although not fully convinced of the merits of these projections, Fuqua says that "if this is the kind of music we will have to march to, we are willing to lead the band."

Fuqua has said that some of his best tips have come from the least likely sources. He never refuses to talk to strangers who visit his office or telephone him, explaining, "You never know when Santa Claus might be on the other end of the line."

Fuqua will lecture at 4:00 p.m. today at Baker 100 at the Business School