netrashetty
Netra Shetty
TRT Holdings is a private holding company based in Irving, Texas, that owns hotel chain Omni Hotels, Gold's Gym International, Tana Exploration, an oil and gas exploration firm, Waldo's Dollar Mart in Mexico and many investments in other companies
Robert Rowling, co-founded the company, and today serves as Owner, Chief Executive Officer and President.[3]
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, last year fox-trotted, mamboed and jive danced his way through Dancing With the Stars.
T. Boone Pickens, former corporate raider and present-day champion of natural gas and wind power, is starring in his own campaign to wean the United States off foreign oil, testifying before Congress and appearing in television ads.
Talkative tycoon Ross Perot ran for president in 1992. Even local developer and oilman Ray Hunt, who likes his privacy, occasionally speaks out on issues, such as his company's controversial oil deal in Iraq.
Then there's Robert Rowling, whose estimated $6.2 billion makes him richer than them all. A 54-year-old Corpus Christi native who got his start in his father's oil and gas business, Mr. Rowling is embarking on a buying spree that may add to his fortune -- or show that even billionaires make mistakes.
But don't expect to see him reveling in the spotlight. Robert Rowling is a name unfamiliar to most Texans. And he seems to like it that way.
"In general, he keeps a pretty low profile," said his assistant, Laura Ruiz, in the process of telling a reporter that Mr. Rowling would not be commenting for this article.
Who is he?
The married father of two, living quietly in Highland Park and going to church on Sunday, has amassed a grab bag of hotels, fitness centers, oil and gas assets, financial and energy stocks, a fifth of downtown Corpus Christi real estate, even a chain of Mexican dollar stores.
It adds up to a fortune that makes him the 51st-richest American, according to Forbes magazine.
He's a major Republican donor, with recent donations to GOP presidential candidate John McCain.
Mr. Rowling (rhymes with bowling) is vice chairman of the University of Texas' Board of Regents and chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., the company that oversees more than $23 billion for the UT and Texas A&M systems.
And at the helm of his holding company, TRT Holdings Inc., he continues to expand his business empire from a Las Colinas office building. He's placed recent bets on everything from hotels to a Texas bank caught up in the U.S. housing bust.
He's done this all without ever getting his picture on the front page of his adopted hometown's daily newspaper.
This story was pieced together using Securities and Exchange Commission filings, news accounts and Mr. Rowling's biography in the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Robert Brian Rowling, the son of a self-made oilman, was born in 1953 and grew up in Corpus Christi. He earned a degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin, then went off to law school at Southern Methodist University.
After graduation, the newly minted lawyer embarked on a career in tax law. He lasted a year before jumping to his father's Corpus Christi company, Tana Oil and Gas Corp., in 1981
Rowling, Reese, was a talented geologist, and he had built Tana into a large South Texas energy producer. Even before joining the company, Leadership of Robert Leadership of Robert Rowling Leadership of Robert Rowling had spent years learning the business by looking over his father's shoulder.
Oil plays
Oil prices were setting new highs when Leadership of Robert Leadership of Robert Rowling Leadership of Robert Rowling joined the company. The Rowlings decided it was a good time to sell the company's oil and gas reserves.
Oil prices plummeted in the following years, devastating the Texas energy industry -- and the Rowlings used the opportunity to build their reserves back up.
By the end of the '80s, they'd built the foundations of a fortune. In 1989, the family sold Tana's assets to Texaco Inc. for $476.5 million.
Bargain hunters
The Rowlings then tried their hand at other businesses, often jumping in during economic troubles to snare a bargain:
-- Out of the wreckage of the 1980s Texas banking crash, they bought a majority stake in Dallas-based MCorp's Corpus Christi operation in 1990. After recapitalizing it with $20 million and renaming it Corpus Christi National Bank, they sold it four years later to a precursor of Bank of America Corp. for $131 million in stock.
-- The Rowlings bought Omni Hotels in 1996 for about $500 million from Hong Kong-based Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. Later that year, Mr. Rowling, a devout Christian, ordered the hotels to eliminate their pornographic pay-per-view channels.
He moved Omni's headquarters from New Hampshire to Corpus Christi, then to North Texas to be closer to a major airport. He soon moved here himself and now lives in a home on Beverly Drive valued by tax appraisers at $8.5 million. It's a stone's throw from the Dallas Country Club. (Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling is an avid golfer, friends say.)
-- The Rowlings rebuilt Tana in the 1990s and sold it once more, this time to Unocal Corp. in 1999 for a payday north of $100 million (the exact figure was not disclosed). They also sold a pipeline company they'd built to PG&E Corp., turning a 1982 investment of $61 million into a 1996 sale for $380 million.
-- In 2002, Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling formed yet another oil and gas company called Tana, which now operates in the Gulf of Mexico. He also bought Gold's Gym International Inc. in 2004 for $158 million, according to the Web site of the private equity firm that sold it to him.
The unifying thread among such disparate holdings? Only Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling knows for sure. Associates describe him as an incisive thinker, with a good sense of industry trends and market dynamics -- and a quick mind for numbers.
"Bob is a strategic thinker," said James Huffines, a commercial banker in Austin with Dallas-based PlainsCapital Bank, who serves with Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling on the UT Board of Regents. "He understands numbers backward and forward, and it's my impression that he gets involved in all of the numbers when he makes a decision."
Now, amid a stock market swoon and a grinding downturn, Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling is on the prowl again.
Earlier this year, he shelled out about $139 million for a 14 percent stake in Gaylord Entertainment Co., according to a regulatory filing last month. The company's stock had fallen by more than half in the 12 months before he announced his purchase.
Robert Rowling, co-founded the company, and today serves as Owner, Chief Executive Officer and President.[3]
Mark Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks, last year fox-trotted, mamboed and jive danced his way through Dancing With the Stars.
T. Boone Pickens, former corporate raider and present-day champion of natural gas and wind power, is starring in his own campaign to wean the United States off foreign oil, testifying before Congress and appearing in television ads.
Talkative tycoon Ross Perot ran for president in 1992. Even local developer and oilman Ray Hunt, who likes his privacy, occasionally speaks out on issues, such as his company's controversial oil deal in Iraq.
Then there's Robert Rowling, whose estimated $6.2 billion makes him richer than them all. A 54-year-old Corpus Christi native who got his start in his father's oil and gas business, Mr. Rowling is embarking on a buying spree that may add to his fortune -- or show that even billionaires make mistakes.
But don't expect to see him reveling in the spotlight. Robert Rowling is a name unfamiliar to most Texans. And he seems to like it that way.
"In general, he keeps a pretty low profile," said his assistant, Laura Ruiz, in the process of telling a reporter that Mr. Rowling would not be commenting for this article.
Who is he?
The married father of two, living quietly in Highland Park and going to church on Sunday, has amassed a grab bag of hotels, fitness centers, oil and gas assets, financial and energy stocks, a fifth of downtown Corpus Christi real estate, even a chain of Mexican dollar stores.
It adds up to a fortune that makes him the 51st-richest American, according to Forbes magazine.
He's a major Republican donor, with recent donations to GOP presidential candidate John McCain.
Mr. Rowling (rhymes with bowling) is vice chairman of the University of Texas' Board of Regents and chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Co., the company that oversees more than $23 billion for the UT and Texas A&M systems.
And at the helm of his holding company, TRT Holdings Inc., he continues to expand his business empire from a Las Colinas office building. He's placed recent bets on everything from hotels to a Texas bank caught up in the U.S. housing bust.
He's done this all without ever getting his picture on the front page of his adopted hometown's daily newspaper.
This story was pieced together using Securities and Exchange Commission filings, news accounts and Mr. Rowling's biography in the Texas Business Hall of Fame.
Robert Brian Rowling, the son of a self-made oilman, was born in 1953 and grew up in Corpus Christi. He earned a degree in business administration from the University of Texas at Austin, then went off to law school at Southern Methodist University.
After graduation, the newly minted lawyer embarked on a career in tax law. He lasted a year before jumping to his father's Corpus Christi company, Tana Oil and Gas Corp., in 1981
Rowling, Reese, was a talented geologist, and he had built Tana into a large South Texas energy producer. Even before joining the company, Leadership of Robert Leadership of Robert Rowling Leadership of Robert Rowling had spent years learning the business by looking over his father's shoulder.
Oil plays
Oil prices were setting new highs when Leadership of Robert Leadership of Robert Rowling Leadership of Robert Rowling joined the company. The Rowlings decided it was a good time to sell the company's oil and gas reserves.
Oil prices plummeted in the following years, devastating the Texas energy industry -- and the Rowlings used the opportunity to build their reserves back up.
By the end of the '80s, they'd built the foundations of a fortune. In 1989, the family sold Tana's assets to Texaco Inc. for $476.5 million.
Bargain hunters
The Rowlings then tried their hand at other businesses, often jumping in during economic troubles to snare a bargain:
-- Out of the wreckage of the 1980s Texas banking crash, they bought a majority stake in Dallas-based MCorp's Corpus Christi operation in 1990. After recapitalizing it with $20 million and renaming it Corpus Christi National Bank, they sold it four years later to a precursor of Bank of America Corp. for $131 million in stock.
-- The Rowlings bought Omni Hotels in 1996 for about $500 million from Hong Kong-based Wharf (Holdings) Ltd. Later that year, Mr. Rowling, a devout Christian, ordered the hotels to eliminate their pornographic pay-per-view channels.
He moved Omni's headquarters from New Hampshire to Corpus Christi, then to North Texas to be closer to a major airport. He soon moved here himself and now lives in a home on Beverly Drive valued by tax appraisers at $8.5 million. It's a stone's throw from the Dallas Country Club. (Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling is an avid golfer, friends say.)
-- The Rowlings rebuilt Tana in the 1990s and sold it once more, this time to Unocal Corp. in 1999 for a payday north of $100 million (the exact figure was not disclosed). They also sold a pipeline company they'd built to PG&E Corp., turning a 1982 investment of $61 million into a 1996 sale for $380 million.
-- In 2002, Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling formed yet another oil and gas company called Tana, which now operates in the Gulf of Mexico. He also bought Gold's Gym International Inc. in 2004 for $158 million, according to the Web site of the private equity firm that sold it to him.
The unifying thread among such disparate holdings? Only Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling knows for sure. Associates describe him as an incisive thinker, with a good sense of industry trends and market dynamics -- and a quick mind for numbers.
"Bob is a strategic thinker," said James Huffines, a commercial banker in Austin with Dallas-based PlainsCapital Bank, who serves with Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling on the UT Board of Regents. "He understands numbers backward and forward, and it's my impression that he gets involved in all of the numbers when he makes a decision."
Now, amid a stock market swoon and a grinding downturn, Mr. Leadership of Robert Rowling is on the prowl again.
Earlier this year, he shelled out about $139 million for a 14 percent stake in Gaylord Entertainment Co., according to a regulatory filing last month. The company's stock had fallen by more than half in the 12 months before he announced his purchase.