Harold Clark Simmons was an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist whose banking expertise helped him develop the acquisition concept known as the leveraged buyout to acquire various corporations.
35 Facts About Harold Simmons
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Harold Simmons was the owner of Contran Corporation and of Valhi, Inc.
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Harold Simmons's parents were Baptists and both worked as teachers.
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Harold Simmons has BA and MA degrees in economics from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Harold 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.
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Harold Simmons conducted a widely publicized but unsuccessful takeover attempt on the Lockheed Corporation, after having gradually acquired almost 20 per cent of its stock.
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Harold 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 at the time pursuing control of Georgia Gulf.
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In 1997, Simmons made a $5 million investment in T Boone Pickens, Jr.
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Harold 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.
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Harold Simmons stated at the time that his tax deferral was only $80 million.
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In 1993, Harold Simmons was fined $19,000 by the Federal Election Commission for exceeding the legal limit of campaign contributions in 1989 and 1990 elections.
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Harold Simmons donated $100,000 to George W Bush's January 2005 inaugural ball.
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Harold Simmons was listed as a "bundler" for the McCain campaign on McCain's website, which meant that he had raised between $50,000 and $100,000 for the Republican candidate.
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Harold Simmons contributed to Representative Chet Edwards, a Texas Democrat.
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Harold Simmons has given more than $500,000 to Texas Governor Rick Perry, and more than $300,000 to Texas Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst and Attorney General Greg Abbott.
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Harold Simmons was a major donor to the American Issues Project, an independent conservative political group that ran ads critical of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.
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In 2012, Harold Simmons was fined by the Texas Ethics Commission for illegal campaign contributions to Texas state legislators in 2011.
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Harold Simmons had channeled his contributions through a political action committee, but he was the PAC's sole donor.
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Harold Simmons donated $100,000 directly to another Perry super PAC, the Restoring Prosperity Fund, before donating $5 million to American Crossroads in addition to Contran's donation.
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Harold Simmons has contributed to Restore our Future, a super PAC supporting Mitt Romney.
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In 1973, Harold Simmons was a significant contributor to the Dallas Civic Opera.
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Harold Simmons was a former board member of the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University.
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Harold Simmons has given $1.8 million to establish the Simmons Distinguished Professorship in Marketing, and $1.2 million for the President's Scholars Program.
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The Harold Simmons Foundation is the philanthropic arm of the Simmons financial empire.
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The contributions to the presidential bids of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama made by Serena Harold Simmons Connelly were privately made, not funded by the foundation.
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Harold Simmons donated money to help fund the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment at the University of Texas.
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Harold Simmons has previously given to UT athletic programs and the McCombs School of Business.
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In 2006, Simmons pledged $1 million to the George W Bush Presidential Library contingent upon its being located at SMU.
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Since mid-2006, Harold 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.
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The gift allocated $10 million for construction of a new facility, to be named the Annette Caldwell Harold Simmons Building; $5 million for graduate student fellowships; and $5 million for faculty support and an endowed deanship.
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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.
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Annette and Harold Simmons have been underwriters for 28 consecutive years to the Dallas Crystal Charity Ball Fashion Show and Luncheon.
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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.
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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.
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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.