Harold Simmons

Simmons was born in Golden, Wood County, Texas,[4] the son of Reuben Leon (1894 -1954) and Fairess Clark Simmons (1903-1990).[5][6] His parents were Baptists[6] and both worked as teachers. His father later became a school superintendent.[6] Simmons has BA (1951) and MA (1952) degrees in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.[7] Simmons holds a Phi Beta Kappa key.[8][9]

After completing graduate school in 1952, Simmons worked for the U.S. government as a bank examiner, then for a Dallas-based bank, Republic National Bank.[10]

In 1960, using $5,000 of his savings, and a $95,000 loan, he bought a small drugstore, University Pharmacy on Hillcrest Avenue, across from the campus of Southern Methodist University.[9] Before Simmons owned it, University Pharmacy was the site of a racially charged sit-in in January 1961, when its owner C.K. Bright sprayed insecticide over and around 60 students, only two of whom were black seminary students.[11] Simmons purchased the store and parlayed it into a chain of 100 stores, which in 1973 he sold for more than $50 million, to Eckerd Corporation. This launched his career as an investor when he used the proceeds of that sale to begin speculation in the financial services industry. By 1974, he had been indicted for and acquitted of wire and mail fraud, and involved in a pension-related lawsuit brought against him by the United Auto Workers.[12]

Simmons developed his "all debt and no equity" philosophy of capital management from having observed banks as a bank examiner, realizing that "Small banks in Texas were casual about getting the maximum use of their funds. . . banks were the most highly leveraged thing I saw. They borrowed most of their money and really didn't need much equity except for purposes of public confidence." Understanding that banks could be bought entirely with borrowed money, Simmons theorized that he should "buy a bunch, because one bank could be used to finance another. All debt and no equity."[13]

Simmons conducted a widely publicized but unsuccessful takeover attempt on the Lockheed Corporation, after having gradually acquired almost 20 per cent of its stock. Lockheed was attractive to Simmons because one of its primary investors was the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the pension fund of the state of California. At the time, the New York Times said, "Much of Mr. Simmons's interest in Lockheed is believed to stem from its pension plan, which is over financed by more than $1.4 billion. Analysts said he might want to liquidate the plan and pay out the excess funds to shareholders, including himself." Citing the "mismanagement" of its chairman, Daniel M. Tellep, Simmons stated a wish to replace its board with a slate of his own choosing, since he was the largest investor. His board nominations included former Texas Senator John Tower, the onetime chairman of the Armed Services Committee, and Admiral Elmo Zumwalt Jr., a former Chief of Naval Operations.[14][15] Simmons had first begun accumulating Lockheed stock in early 1989 when deep Pentagon cuts to the defense budget had driven down prices of military contractor stocks, and analysts had not believed he would attempt the takeover since he was also at the time pursuing control of Georgia Gulf.[16]

In 1997, Simmons made a $5 million investment in T. Boone Pickens, Jr.'s first fund BP Capital Energy Commodity Fund; by 2005 this had grown to $150 million.[17]

In August 1997, President Bill Clinton used a line-item veto to draw attention to the type of "special benefits" that investors such as Simmons employ to avoid paying capital gains taxes since the early 1980s. Simmons had formed the "Snake River Sugar Cooperative" of 2,000 beet farmers and classified it as a joint-venture, shared ownership co-op, to purchase his Amalgamated Sugar Company, for $260 million. At the time, Charles Schumer, serving as a Representative from New York, wrote a letter to Clinton stating that the measure before him for consideration would benefit Simmons with a $104 million tax deferral. Simmons stated at the time that his tax deferral was only $80 million.[18]

NL Industries, originally named National Lead Industries, Inc. has been involved in numerous lawsuits brought by the U.S. Department of Justice to force the company to pay funds into the Superfund to clean up contaminated sites at various sites around the country such as Granite City, Illinois,[35] and Depew, New York.[36]

In 1973, Simmons was a significant contributor to the Dallas Civic Opera.[37]

Harold Simmons was a former board member of the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. He has given $1.8 million to establish the Simmons Distinguished Professorship in Marketing, and $1.2 million for the President's Scholars Program.[38]

The Harold Simmons Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Simmons financial empire. Two of Simmons' daughters, Serena Simmons Connelly and Lisa Simmons Epstein, are its administrators. The foundation supports the causes of immigration rights, campaign reform, prison reform, handgun control, and reproductive rights.[39] The contributions to the presidential bids of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made by Serena Simmons Connelly were privately made, not funded by the foundation.[39]

Simmons donated money to help fund the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment at the University of Texas. He has previously given to UT athletic programs and the McCombs School of Business. By 2005, total donations from his family and foundation to the UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas exceeded $70 million.

In 2006, Simmons pledged $1 million to the George W. Bush Presidential Library contingent upon its being located at SMU.[40]

In 2006, Harold Simmons made a grant to the Young America's Foundation to establish the Harold Simmons Lecture Series, which enabled former U.S. Senator Zell Miller to tour college campuses during the 2006-2007 school year to promote "his message in defense of America from foreign and domestic threats to our freedom."[41]

Since mid-2006, Simmons has given funds to a chronic kidney disease research team led by Dr. Kamyar Kalantar-Zadeh to examine predictors of longevity in chronic kidney disease. Subsequently, the "Harold Simmons Center for Chronic Disease Research and Epidemiology" was created, first in "Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute" at "Harbor-UCLA Medical Center" then in UC Irvine Medical Center at University of California, Irvine School of Medicine, in Orange, CA, which has published a large number of scientific reports and articles.[42]

In 2007, Oprah Winfrey announced that Harold and Annette Simmons, her neighbors in Montecito, California, had contributed $5 million to her Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in South Africa.[43]

In 2007, Harold and Annette Simmons announced a $20 million gift to Southern Methodist University to provide an endowment for the university's School of Education and Human Development. The gift allocated $10 million for construction of a new facility, to be named the Annette Caldwell Simmons Building; $5 million for graduate student fellowships; and $5 million for faculty support and an endowed deanship.[44]

In 2008 the Harold Simmons Foundation made a donation of $5 million to the Dallas Zoo, the largest single private contribution in the zoo's 120-year history.[45]

Annette and Harold Simmons have been underwriters for 28 consecutive years to the Dallas Crystal Charity Ball Fashion Show and Luncheon.[46][47] The Crystal Charity Ball has distributed more than $82 million to children's charities since 1953.

The Harold Simmons Foundation is a major donor of over $500,000 to the Dallas Women's Foundation which commissioned a study of women's economic security in the 12-county Dallas-Arlington-Fort Worth metropolitan area.[48]

The Harold Simmons Foundation issued a $50 million challenge grant to the Parkland Memorial Hospital Foundation, to aid in fundraising to build a new public hospital, one of the largest private gifts for a public hospital campaign in the nation.[49]

The Harold Simmons Foundation made a gift to the Legal Hospice of Texas, a nonprofit law firm providing compassionate legal services at no charge to low-income individuals who are terminally ill, in 2010 and 2012.

Charles Cameron Sprague Community Service Award Annette G. Strauss Humanitarian Award 2002 Angel of Freedom Award,(Harold Simmons Foundation) Human Rights Initiative

Simmons has been married three times:

• His first wife, Normagene Fairchild, divorced him in 1959, leaving him with custody of their two daughters:[50]
  • Scheryle Simmons Patigian (born 1953)[50]
  • Lisa Simmons Epstein (born 1956)[50]
• His second wife was Sandra K. Saliba.[51] Sandra would later become Braniff Airlines first female pilot. They divorced in 1980.[51] They had two children:
  • Andrea Leigh Simmons Swanson (born 1965)[50]
  • Serena Sha Simmons Connelly (born 1970)[50]
• In June 1980, he married his third and last wife, Annette Caldwell Fleck (born 1936), an interior designer with two children from a previous marriage.[50] She is a native of Tyler, Texas and a graduate of Southern Methodist University.[52] After graduating, she taught second and third grade in Dallas and at Clark Field, a U.S. air base in the Philippines.[53] In October 2004, Mrs. Simmons was featured on the Oprah! television show, giving a tour of Simmons' boyhood town, Golden, Texas, during its sweet potato festival.[54] In another episode, "Annette's Tea Party," Mrs. Simmons entertainment style was a feature.

• John J. Nance – Golden Boy: The Harold Simmons Story, ISBN 1-57168-747-5

• Forbes 400 list, Forbes magazine
• SEC info
• Contran Corporation
• Valhi, Inc