Subject: How Reginald Lewis Has Elbowed His Way Into an LBO Fortune
Date: Published: 10/15/92 (68 lines)
Source: Wall Street Journal. Copyright Dow Jones & Co. Inc.

    Self-Made Man:
    How Reginald Lewis
    Has Elbowed His Way
    Into an LBO Fortune
    ---
    Skilled and Forceful, He Also
    Is Difficult to Work With
    And Quick to See Slights
    ---
    A Legacy of Angry Partners
    ----
    By George Anders and Constance Mitchell
    Staff Reporters of The Wall Street Journal

    NEW YORK -- As a self-made multimillionaire, ranked as one of the
 400 richest Americans, Reginald Lewis is a role model, all the more
 so for being black.  He hobnobs with politicians, he gives millions
 to charity, and he is about to have a building named after him at
 Harvard Law School.  Each year, Black Enterprise magazine honors him
 as head of the largest black-owned business in America, TLC Beatrice
 International Holdings Inc. 
    What others who try to emulate him rarely see is how tough he has
 had to be to get where he is -- tougher, he suggests, than those who
 haven't had to climb so far or haven't had to constantly fight
 racial slights.  People who know him well say he is an iron-willed
 negotiator, with a fierce drive for wealth and personal glory.
 Charming when he wants to be, Mr. Lewis can abruptly turn furious if
 he feels he is being slighted at all.

[280 lines irrelevant to AIDS omitted.  -- sysop]
 
    Mr. Lewis's older daughter, Leslie, is a Harvard undergraduate
 who recently joined the TLC Beatrice board.  Mr. Lewis appears to be
 grooming her for an executive career, though not necessarily at his
 company.  She also is a director of Mr. Lewis's foundation, where one
 of her first assignments was to gather information about the global
 impact of AIDS.  
    Mr. Lewis has given more than $8 million to various educational,
 charitable and civil-rights organizations.  He made headlines
 recently with a $3 million donation to Harvard Law School, the
 largest gift from an individual in the school's history.  Harvard is
 renaming its international law center after him.  He has also given
 $1 million to historically black Howard University in Washington.
    Mr. Lewis has been seeking to settle suits relating to McCall's
 troubles after he sold it in 1987.  McCall ended up in bankruptcy
 proceedings, and the company's new owners and lenders blamed Mr. 
 Lewis for some of the problems.
    "They tried to smear me," Mr. Lewis says.  "It was a pure
 stick-up."  Such suits have become relatively common on Wall Street,
 as many highly indebted companies have ended up in financial
 trouble.  But while other deal-makers have generally settled such
 cases quickly for small amounts, Mr. Lewis has resisted paying any
 money, letting the case drag on.
    After years of battling for his fair share, colleagues suggest,
 Mr. Lewis may have trouble accepting the idea that he is a big
 winner now, and doesn't need to fight for every inch of turf.
    "He has achieved something of considerable substance, when it
 wasn't easy to do that," says Mr. Christoff, the banker who once was
 one of Mr. Lewis's closest friends.  "Clearly, there's some
 bitterness there."

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