Wall Street Wednesday- Sumner Redstone

Morning.

There was an article in yesterday’s NY Post about Sumner Redstone reaching a settlement with his former live-in girlfriend.

Before I start, I won’t comment on Redstone’s appearance, other than the fact that old Sumner eerily resembles Hannibal Lecter after he cut the face off of Officer Pembry and wore it like a mask.

But I will comment on his former girlfriend. More specifically, after looking at the picture the Post chose to attach to the article, I can say that I THINK Sumner’s old slam-piece is a Republican. However, I KNOW that broad’s nose DEFINITELY leans to the left.

Holy shit… Unless you are either a prizefighter or a landscaper, the human nose should run North/South. This poor trollop is consistently pointing due East. That nose, coupled with a big fake rack (I assume)… If she was crosseyed, she’d officially be the most difficult person in the world to talk to face-to-kinda-face with.

But back to Sumner… Here’s the skinny on him, for the uninitiated:

– Born May 27, 1923, in Boston.

– His original last name was “Rothstein”, but his father changed the family name to Redstone in 1940 because the 1940s weren’t the best years to be a Jew trying to run a business, apparently… For perspective, Hitler died in 1945, so there was a fair amount of open anti-semitism floating around the atmosphere at that time.

– Conversely, if I didn’t join Barstool, and instead opted to remain in the world of finance, I had tentative plans to have my foreskin sewn back on just so a mohel could perform a traditional bris, after which I would’ve changed my last name from McCarthy to Lipschitz.

– Sumner is a Harvard graduate and served in the US Army from 1943-1945 (which is a year that should sound familiar).

– His family’s business was a theatre chain called National Amusements, where he assumed the role of CEO in 1954… He was soon credited with coining the term “multiplexes”.

– He was married twice and has 2 children.

– He was Chairman of the Board and later CEO of Viacom, who purchased both Blockbuster and Paramount in 1994 and then bought CBS in the largest media merger of the time (valued at $36 billion) in May of 2000.

– He was a buddy of mine.

– In January 2006, CBS Corporation and Viacom were divided into separate companies. Redstone became chairman of the board for both, but separate chief executive officers were appointed.

– In 2016, Redstone stepped down as executive chairman of CBS and was replaced by Les Moonves. Moonves was eventually accused of sexual misconduct and assault by over a dozen women, including an incident in 1994 where Les asked his executive assistant, Jessica Pallingston, for a massage and then forcibly pushed her head down into his lap in order for her to blow him, when she began shaking and said, “I can’t do this.”  Les didn’t push it any further, but later grabbed her breasts and had loud phone sex in front of her… All that has nothing to do with Sumner, I just felt like reminding you all that Les Moonves is a creepy fuck.

Sumner was no angel either, and I am certain the comment section will contain at least a handful of stories of how Redstone was a whoremaster for decades… #lifegoals

I mentioned a couple bullet points above that Sumner was a buddy of mine.  “Buddy” is probably a strong word, but I was the specialist clerk in Viacom and Viacom B during the Blockbuster and Paramount takeovers in ’94, and as a result, I got to talk to Redstone every day after the close.

I’m not sure if it is even legal to do nowadays, but back then it wasn’t uncommon for the heads of listed companies to chat with the specialists who traded their stock a couple of times a week.  Especially if there was some weird price action on any specific trading day.

Redstone was especially keen on Viacom’s performance during these takeovers and wanted an update on a daily basis.  As the Viacom specialist, my father-in-law and his front-line clerk (me) were more than happy to oblige.

Twenty-five years ago, the average person (or CEO) was not privy to the deluge of charts and headlines any slob can get today on his or her phone.  Therefore, Sumner would just check in and we would chat briefly about volumes, flows, any gaps that may have taken place, any chatter amongst the arb guys in the crowd, etc.

My wife actually met Sumner years before I had the opportunity because her dad, my boss (reminder-I was banging the boss’ daughter), traded Viacom for years before I started as his clerk.  And before Annie had met Sumner, her dad pulled her aside and told her not to offer to shake hand because his right arm was damaged in a fire.  A fire that left him hanging out of a hotel window, waiting for the fire department to arrive.

My father-in-law had a similar warning for me when I met Redstone, but I haven’t thought about it since then, so I just Googled “Sumner Redstone’s right arm” just to check to see if Ric was fucking with me a quarter of a century ago, and sure enough, I just read that on March 29, 1979 , Redstone suffered third-degree burns over 40% of his body in a hotel fire in Boston. He survived by climbing out a window on to a ledge and hanging on until firefighters rescued him.

In the prologue to a 2001 memoir, Redstone recalled the horror of surviving a burning hotel in Boston: skin searing from his legs as he hung from the third-story window above the Copley Plaza.

“The sound of the inferno was terrifying,” he and his co-author wrote. “The heat and flames roaring out of the room burned off my pajamas and peeled away my skin. My legs had been burned to the arteries, now my arm was charring. The pain was excruciating but I refused to let go. That way was death.”

So apparently my father-in-law wasn’t fucking with me… I am disappointed by that, for some reason.  A 25-year lie would’ve been a sweet legacy.

When my wife and I married in 1999, the first leg of our honeymoon took us to Elbow Beach in Bermuda.  When we arrived at the hotel, there was a large corporate conference going on there, and from the signs in the lobby, I was able to surmise it was a Viacom event.

I told the concierge as we checked in that I was an old friend of Mr. Redstone, and to “have Sumner give me a call when he had a moment.”

He never called, but he did tell the desk I was one of his guests, and we were moved from the Honeymoon Suite to a larger set of rooms, and Viacom wound up footing the bill.

Here’s why I am telling you all this.  It is not some kind of “weird flex”, as the kids call it, because I haven’t spoken to Sumner since the mid-90s.  Truth be told I never even thanked him for the room because I had moved on from the floor of the AMEX a year before I got hitched.

I mention this because, at the end of every phone conversation I had with Mr. Redstone, I would end by telling him exactly where his stock had closed and he would then say good-bye to me in one of 2 ways depending on whether it closed higher or lower.

So I would either say, “Viacom closed at 35 and an eighth*… Up a quarter on the day, Mr. Redstone.”

And he would then always reply, “Thank you, Michael.” (the stupid “Large” nickname hadn’t kicked in yet) And he would immediately hang up without saying goodbye.

OR I would say, “Viacom closed at 34 and a half today… Down five eights on the day Mr. Redstone.”

And he would always reply, “Fuck you, Michael.” And hang up even quicker.

If someone else spoke to him on days I was unavailable, he had more traditional closing pleasantries. But with me, it was only ever, “Thank you” or “Fuck you”, and either of those made me smile every time.

Fast forward 25 years and I am reading the NY Post article I attached above, and I see at the age of 95, Sumner has lost his ability to talk.  The article explains…

According to reports, he communicates with an iPad loaded with recordings of his voice from past interviews and with buttons for “yes,” “no” and “fuck you.”

Which is fucking perfectly in-line with how I remember him.

At 95, I am aware that the last time I met Mr. Redstone is probably the last time I will meet Mr. Redstone. But if our paths do cross again, I will make sure to thank him for taking the time to talk to a young clerk and for hooking my wife and I up with our Presidential Honeymoon Suite.

And if I did get the chance to thank him, I would wait patiently afterward until he finds the correct button on his iPad, and I hear a robotic voice utter from the speaker…

“FUCK YOU, MICHAEL.”

Take a report, you dirty old man.

-Large

*I am so fucking old that when I started trading, stocks traded in 1/8th of a dollar increments.  If you were trying to buy something at $12 1/2, but someone bought it ahead of you, you had to pay up to $12 5/8… Every time a stock moved, it moved 12.5 cents.  Now they move in penny and sub-penny increments because investors are spoiled.

**Just found this on my desktop…