How Raymond Plank Made a Fortune in Big Oil's Scraps

17 insights saved from this video by @business

@business· How Companies Win
Old assets can become valuable after breakthroughs arrive elsewhere. Long-term ownership keeps unexpected upside alive.
@business· How Companies Win
A $200,000 oil investment produced a $160,000 deduction and roughly $144,000 in tax savings at rates above 90%.
@business· How Companies Win
Apache Corporation turned a $250,000 investment in 1954 into $50 billion by mid-2008.
@business· How Companies Win
The opportunity was not a giant oil discovery. It was buying smaller wells from major oil companies.
@business· How Companies Win
Apache’s first important product was not oil itself. It was a tax-efficient investment vehicle for wealthy investors.
@business· How Companies Win
Oil-and-gas accounting uncovered kickback checks inflating investor costs, revealing both fraud and a new management opportunity.
@business· How Companies Win
Disney’s old film library became hugely profitable again when VHS, DVDs, and streaming revived decades-old movies.
@business· How Companies Win
A small plane turned distant meetings into same-day opportunities while costing the company only commercial-airfare equivalent.
@business· How Companies Win
A competitive edge can come from taking the hamburger more seriously than competitors do.
@business· How Companies Win
Apache solved its financing problem by attracting wealthy investors whose tax benefits made drilling risk easier to fund.
@business· How Companies Win
Plank’s edge was finance and tax expertise, so he hired oil specialists and learned by working closely with them.
@business· How Companies Win
When markets change, investigate the industry economics yourself and verify suspicious costs directly with service providers.
@business· How Companies Win
Plank kept competitors’ annual reports behind his desk, turning systematic study into a daily competitive advantage.
@business· How Companies Win
Major integrated oil companies sell mature or smaller assets to cut costs and redirect capital toward larger reserves and new exploration.
@business· How Companies Win
A business does not need to master everything internally. It needs to identify what it can do unusually well.
@business· How Companies Win
During Apache’s crisis, Plank wrote daily activity reports to keep the board informed and confident.
@business· How Companies Win
The human mind’s capacity for learning and personal growth is far greater than most people initially imagine.

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