Wayne Huizenga-- Part 5: Back to Waste Management and Then to Car Rentals and Sales

Wayne Huizenga sold Blockbuster to Viacom in 1994 for about $8 billion.

Still not satisfied to retire and live on all that money, in 1995, he got back into the trash hauling business by buying Republic Waste Industries Inc. for $27 million.Mergers and acquisitions soon followed.  He renamed the company Republic Industries as it branched out, buying Alamo Rent-A-Car and National Car Rental.

Republic, under Huizenga's leadership, then started AutoNation, a national chain of auto dealerships.  At its peak, it had 375 dealerships in 17 states.

Republic Services was spun off in 1998 to control the waste management portion of its portfolio, a sector that had grown to about $1 billion in annual sales.  he remained its chairman until 2002.

Quite a Man.  A Real American Success Story.  --Cooter

Wayne Huizenga-- Part 4: Bought the Blockbuster Chain and Grew It

He could have retired nicely, but that bored him.  With the money, he started buying dozens of small businesses like hotels and pest control companies.

In 1987, a business partner got him to check out Blockbuster, a small chain of video stores.  Video stores were usually small locally owned .mom and pop operations.  At the time, Huizenga didn't even own a VCR.  When he saw the Blockbuster stores it opened his mind to the idea.

The stores were clean and carried 10,000 titles, ten times more than most video stores at the time.  He loved the concept and thought it could become the McDonald's of video.  He and his two partners bought 43 % of the business for $19 million and he became chairman and president.

By 1991, the chain had grown to over 1,800 stores.

A Real Businessman.  --Cooter

Wayne Huizenga-- Part 3: Owned Waste Management, Inc.

Harry Wayne Huizenga was born in the Chicago suburbs on December 29, 1937, to a family of garbage haulers.  He attended Calvin College in Grand Rapids , Michigan, but dropped out and began his own garbage hauling business in Pompano Beach, Florida, in 1962.

He would drive a garbage truck from 2 am to noon each day, then go shower and go out and solicit new customers.  He eventually bought out several competitors expanding throughout South Florida.  In 1968 he merged with the Chicago sanitation company his uncles owned, creating Waste Management Inc. which eventually became the world's largest trash company.

That was his method of operation -- becoming the first national player in industries dominated by small and local operations.  he resigned from the company in 1984 and was paid $100 million in stock.

--Cooter

Wayne Huizenga-- Part 2: "You Just Have To Be In the Right Place At the Right Time"

He was one of the guys everyone else watched in the business world because of his knack of getting in on the ground floors of money-making endeavors.

He built Blockbuster Entertainment into the leading video rental chain by buying competitors and cracked Forbes' list of 100 richest Americans, becoming chairman of Republic Services, one of the nation's top waste management companies and AutoNation, the nation's largest auto retailer.

For a time, he was a favorite among South Florida sports fans as he went on a spending spree and his Marlins won the World Series in the team's fifth year of existence.  (Mortifying Cub fans around the world.)  But then that turned to disdain when he dismantled the team after that season.

--Cooter

A Very Interesting Man: Wayne Huizenga (1937-2018)-- Part 1: Blockbuster Video and Sports Teams

From the March 25, 2018, Chicago Tribune "Owned teams, trash haulers and video stores" by Steven Wine and Terry Spencer (AP).

"College dropout Wayne Huizenga started with a trash-hauling company, struck gold during America's brief love affair with the VHS tapes (I still use VHS tapes to record TV shows) and eventually owned three professional sports teams.

"Huizenga owned Blockbuster Entertainment, AutoNation and the world's largest trash hauler, and was founding owner of professional baseball's Florida Marlins and NHL Florida Panthers.  He bought the NFL Miami Dolphins for $138 million in 1994."

Died March 24 at age 80.

The Marlins won the World Series in 1997 and Panthers reached the Stanley Cup final in 1996, but, to his chagrin, the Dolphins never reached the Super Bowl during his ownership.

And, how he became so rich is quite a story as well.  He was what they call a self-made millionaire.

More On That In My Next Post.