dsmith2904
ONE love, blood, life
Giving Like a Rock Star
You know you've done good when Bono comes calling
At age 64, Richard Kiphart seems an unlikely traveling companion for Bono's charity missions to Africa. Especially since the Brooks Brothers-clad investment banker didn't know who the rock star was until two years ago. His children had to put a U2 CD on his stereo to explain.
But without Mr. Kiphart's background in banking and the wealth he's amassed from it, it's unlikely that William Blair & Co. LLC's head of corporate finance would have been asked to join Bono's advocacy group, Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa. There's a high ante to get on the organization's eight-member board of directors.
"It's seven-figure math," says the high-energy dealmaker, who fidgets with pens and window shade cords as he talks. Mr. Kiphart is known jokingly by colleagues as the firm's token Democrat — as well as a top corporate giver.
A REALLY GOOD DEAL
Much of his wealth comes from his investment in Massachusetts-based Concord Computing Corp., one of William Blair's best investment banking clients. The company specialized in electronic fund transfers just as the use of ATMs took hold.
Between 1986 and 1996, Concord's stock price had a better 10-year track record than Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp., racking up an average 60.6% annual return. William Blair handled the public offerings and was an adviser on its sale to First Data Corp. for $7.2 billion in 2003, netting fees of $20 million to $25 million.
Mr. Kiphart's personal stake in the company performed even better, at one point reaching more than $200 million. "That's why I can afford to be involved in all these charities," he jokes. His salary from William Blair helps, too. He won't say how much he earns but acknowledges it's at least seven figures a year.
In truth, Mr. Kiphart has been involved in charities longer than he's been rich. Inequity and class differences have bothered him for a long time.
His father was a maintenance man. "This was his Brooks Brothers suit," he says, pointing out a picture on display in his office of his father in coveralls, wrench in hand. His mother was a housewife. Although Mr. Kiphart attended Dartmouth College, where he received a degree in engineering in 1963, and Harvard Business School immediately thereafter (his roommate at both places was former IBM Corp. CEO Louis Gerstner), he's been keenly aware of those less fortunate.
After serving a year on a Navy minesweeper in the South China Sea, the Vietnam veteran noted America's great racial divide when he returned in 1967. "The problem with Vietnam," he says, "was that people like me were able to get out of it with a doctor's notice."
BRIDGING DIVIDES
Most of his charitable work has been geared to bridging those divides. As chairman of the board of Chicago's Merit School of Music, he led the campaign to raise $19 million to build a facility to teach music to inner-city kids. "He was one of the first to say let's raise our sights," Duffie Adelson, Merit's executive director, says of the campaign drive, which originally set its goal at $12 million.
Mr. Kiphart, who serves on the board of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, will take over in June as chair of the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a school for child development and learning. He's also taught Sunday school for more than 20 years at Kenilworth Union Church.
Although Mr. Kiphart spends 10% of his time on charity and the other 90% at William Blair, the two activities are intimately connected. A good investment banker is "a good peddler," he says.
And a relentless one. Mr. Kiphart's strategy at William Blair to drum up business was to scour neighboring states. He called on Wisconsin-based children's apparel maker Osh Kosh B'Gosh more than 30 times, and was beginning to believe the CEO, who told him "nothing is going to happen here." But when Osh Kosh decided to go public, the same CEO called him. "You were the one who hung in there," he remembers the CEO telling him.
MR. BUFFETT ON LINE ONE
Mr. Kiphart also represented International Dairy Queen Inc. in its sale to Warren Buffett, a job that came from repeatedly calling on Dairy Queen's then-leading shareholder John Mooty, a Minnesota lawyer.
That took years. The sale itself was easier. Mr. Kiphart made one call to Warren Buffett's secretary at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to find out who handled acquisitions. Mr. Buffett's secretary thought he should have been more prepared for the call. She referred to Mr. Kiphart (then in his 50s) as "Sonny" and chastised him for not reading Berkshire's annual report. But a few moments later Warren Buffett picked up the phone and told Mr. Kiphart he'd been thinking about Dairy Queen for a while.
"I'll have a bid letter to you in the morning," the legendary investor said. The rest is history.
Charitable giving and fund raising, Mr. Kiphart says, is much the same way. It depends heavily on relationship-building. And plenty of smarts. Knowing who cares about music and who cares about education leads to big donations, including two gifts that totaled $7 million for Merit.
Among other issues that concern him, Mr. Kiphart is also preoccupied with whether there is enough affordable housing in Chicago.
As he contemplates those, he'll continue to follow Bono on his mission to help Africa, though he admits he is little more than a valet on trips to meet legislators in Washington. On a recent trip, he says: "I think I said six words: Excuse me for bumping into you."
--Crain's Chicago Business
You know you've done good when Bono comes calling
At age 64, Richard Kiphart seems an unlikely traveling companion for Bono's charity missions to Africa. Especially since the Brooks Brothers-clad investment banker didn't know who the rock star was until two years ago. His children had to put a U2 CD on his stereo to explain.
But without Mr. Kiphart's background in banking and the wealth he's amassed from it, it's unlikely that William Blair & Co. LLC's head of corporate finance would have been asked to join Bono's advocacy group, Debt, AIDS, Trade, Africa. There's a high ante to get on the organization's eight-member board of directors.
"It's seven-figure math," says the high-energy dealmaker, who fidgets with pens and window shade cords as he talks. Mr. Kiphart is known jokingly by colleagues as the firm's token Democrat — as well as a top corporate giver.
A REALLY GOOD DEAL
Much of his wealth comes from his investment in Massachusetts-based Concord Computing Corp., one of William Blair's best investment banking clients. The company specialized in electronic fund transfers just as the use of ATMs took hold.
Between 1986 and 1996, Concord's stock price had a better 10-year track record than Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp., racking up an average 60.6% annual return. William Blair handled the public offerings and was an adviser on its sale to First Data Corp. for $7.2 billion in 2003, netting fees of $20 million to $25 million.
Mr. Kiphart's personal stake in the company performed even better, at one point reaching more than $200 million. "That's why I can afford to be involved in all these charities," he jokes. His salary from William Blair helps, too. He won't say how much he earns but acknowledges it's at least seven figures a year.
In truth, Mr. Kiphart has been involved in charities longer than he's been rich. Inequity and class differences have bothered him for a long time.
His father was a maintenance man. "This was his Brooks Brothers suit," he says, pointing out a picture on display in his office of his father in coveralls, wrench in hand. His mother was a housewife. Although Mr. Kiphart attended Dartmouth College, where he received a degree in engineering in 1963, and Harvard Business School immediately thereafter (his roommate at both places was former IBM Corp. CEO Louis Gerstner), he's been keenly aware of those less fortunate.
After serving a year on a Navy minesweeper in the South China Sea, the Vietnam veteran noted America's great racial divide when he returned in 1967. "The problem with Vietnam," he says, "was that people like me were able to get out of it with a doctor's notice."
BRIDGING DIVIDES
Most of his charitable work has been geared to bridging those divides. As chairman of the board of Chicago's Merit School of Music, he led the campaign to raise $19 million to build a facility to teach music to inner-city kids. "He was one of the first to say let's raise our sights," Duffie Adelson, Merit's executive director, says of the campaign drive, which originally set its goal at $12 million.
Mr. Kiphart, who serves on the board of the Lyric Opera of Chicago, will take over in June as chair of the Erikson Institute in Chicago, a school for child development and learning. He's also taught Sunday school for more than 20 years at Kenilworth Union Church.
Although Mr. Kiphart spends 10% of his time on charity and the other 90% at William Blair, the two activities are intimately connected. A good investment banker is "a good peddler," he says.
And a relentless one. Mr. Kiphart's strategy at William Blair to drum up business was to scour neighboring states. He called on Wisconsin-based children's apparel maker Osh Kosh B'Gosh more than 30 times, and was beginning to believe the CEO, who told him "nothing is going to happen here." But when Osh Kosh decided to go public, the same CEO called him. "You were the one who hung in there," he remembers the CEO telling him.
MR. BUFFETT ON LINE ONE
Mr. Kiphart also represented International Dairy Queen Inc. in its sale to Warren Buffett, a job that came from repeatedly calling on Dairy Queen's then-leading shareholder John Mooty, a Minnesota lawyer.
That took years. The sale itself was easier. Mr. Kiphart made one call to Warren Buffett's secretary at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to find out who handled acquisitions. Mr. Buffett's secretary thought he should have been more prepared for the call. She referred to Mr. Kiphart (then in his 50s) as "Sonny" and chastised him for not reading Berkshire's annual report. But a few moments later Warren Buffett picked up the phone and told Mr. Kiphart he'd been thinking about Dairy Queen for a while.
"I'll have a bid letter to you in the morning," the legendary investor said. The rest is history.
Charitable giving and fund raising, Mr. Kiphart says, is much the same way. It depends heavily on relationship-building. And plenty of smarts. Knowing who cares about music and who cares about education leads to big donations, including two gifts that totaled $7 million for Merit.
Among other issues that concern him, Mr. Kiphart is also preoccupied with whether there is enough affordable housing in Chicago.
As he contemplates those, he'll continue to follow Bono on his mission to help Africa, though he admits he is little more than a valet on trips to meet legislators in Washington. On a recent trip, he says: "I think I said six words: Excuse me for bumping into you."
--Crain's Chicago Business
