How To Blow $9 Billion: The Fallen Stroh Family

[brker_guy]

Very interesting read:

 

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2014/07/08/how-the-stroh-family-lost-the-largest-private-beer-fortune-in-the-u-s/

 

 

[Liberty]

Thanks, always interesting to read about big failures.

 

Looks like the never had $9 billion ($700 million in the 1980s), but they still blew through a lot of money and made a business fail through all the usual suspects: diworsification, too much debt, damaging the brand, lack of a frugal culture, replacing the founder with his kids who might not be the best people for the job (maybe partly because they never knew hard times?), etc.

[randomep]

Thanks, always interesting to read about big failures.

 

Looks like the never had $9 billion ($700 million in the 1980s), but they still blew through a lot of money and made a business fail through all the usual suspects: diworsification, too much debt, damaging the brand, lack of a frugal culture, replacing the founder with his kids who might not be the best people for the job (maybe partly because they never knew hard times?), etc.

 

So it looks like the rich do not always get richer, it does take some skill to keep and grow the riches....

[fareastwarriors]

They made a series of mistakes.

 

I think 6 generation is great.

 

I heard something like this before: 1st generation builds it, 2nd generation maintains it, 3rd generation loses it.

 

[Liberty]

So it looks like the rich do not always get richer, it does take some skill to keep and grow the riches....

 

I think that's obvious. It's also obvious that it's a lot easier to be rich if you start out with millions than if you start out with nothing.

[brker_guy]

Liberty, the title of the article was confusing to me too, but I realized that the author took into consideration the time value of money factor.  Nevertheless, it's interesting to read about how hard it is to keep generational wealth. 

 

I guess a quote that I learned a long time ago from the famous Rothschild banking family summed it up best. I think it goes something like this: "It takes a great deal of hard work, a great deal intelligence, and a great deal of patience to make a great fortune, but it takes 10 times your wit to keep it."

[Liberty]

Liberty, the title of the article was confusing to me too, but I realized that the author took into consideration the time value of money factor.  Nevertheless, it's interesting to read about how hard it is to keep generational wealth. 

 

I saw their explanation, but I thought it was kind of BS to look at it like that just to get a bigger number in the headline. Should be about how they destroyed a business worth around $700m in the 80s or something like that.

 

Otherwise, you can write an article about how someone's grandfather lost the family's millions*.

 

*$1,000 bucks in 1900, and if they only had kept pace with the dow jones, they would have X millions now...

[ASTA]

Thanks for the article. Like rest of life small expenses and no or only none recourse debt is the way to crate a dynasty :D 

[enoch01]

You know what the Stroh's could have used? Some of the good "habits of the wealthiest people".

[stahleyp]

I'm with Liberty on this one. The title is super misleading.

[netnet]

I'm reminded of Buffett's quip (paraphrased):

 

"It's good to own a business that an idiot can run, because one day an idiot will run it."

[DTEJD1997]

Wow:

 

Interesting story.

 

I actually had one of the Stroh family members in my class in the late 1970's.  His parent's house abutted the south end of the school I went to in Grosse Pointe Woods.  Once a year our class would go to their house for a picnic.  They had a rather nice house...

 

I wonder what ever happened to him?