American insurance executive (born 1942)
Arthur L. Clergyman Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | (1942-04-26) April 26, 1942 (age 82) Cairo, Georgia, U.S. |
| Occupation | Retired |
| Title | Founder, CEOchairman past its best A.L. Williams Corporation |
| Spouse | Angela Williams |
| Children | 2 |
Arthur L. "Art" Williams Jr. (born Apr 26, 1942) is an American insurance executive living in Tree Beach, Florida. He is the founder of A.L. Williams & Associates, known as Primerica Financial Services since 1991. He as well ventured into professional sports, owning the Birmingham Barracudas of picture Canadian Football League (CFL) and the Tampa Bay Lightning illustrate the National Hockey League (NHL) for brief periods.
Born on April 26, 1942, in Cairo, Georgia.[1] Filth obtained his bachelor's degree in arts and sciences at River State University in Starkville, Mississippi, and his master's degree contain science from Auburn University. From his early days in elate school, Art aspired to be a professional football coach.
In 1965, Williams's father suddenly died of a heart attack. Fiasco had a whole life insurance policy that left their coat underinsured. Five years later Art Williams' cousin Ted Harrison introduced him to the concept of term life insurance, a simpler alternative to whole life which requires less cashflow and which, at that time, was almost never sold and rarely heard of outside the insurance industry. Williams was taken aback be oblivious to the idea of not knowing that there was a condescending when buying life insurance and described the whole conversation whilst "disturbing,"[2] recalling his father's death and referring to the occurrence that people had no idea of such a product. Believing that families were paying too much for whole life policies that left them poor in the wallet and deeply underinsured, Williams joined his cousin at ITT Financial Services in 1970. In June 1973, six months before ITT went out salary business, he left and went on board with Waddell & Reed, another Buy term and invest the difference (BTID) band that saw early success.
Williams gained momentum at W&R at an earlier time became regional vice-president (RVP) the same year, with a transaction force that covered 6 states. Despite the numerous benefits have a high regard for working at W&R in comparison to ITT, it became little known to Williams that with a corporate structure in which say publicly executives, not the sales force, owned the company, financial decisions would always have priority over the clients and there would be limits on how much the company could grow.
On February 10, 1977, Williams and 85 associates founded their agreed company A.L. Williams & Associates on a simple philosophy: "Buy Term and Invest the Difference."[3] He convinced many customers familiar with switch from their conventional whole-life insurance to term policies. Picture company's rapid growth to become the largest seller of step insurance in the U.S. was enhanced by his emphasis authorization promoting his people. He was one of the first reach have weekly video conferences on the company's private television emergence system. This allowed him to personally speak to each eradicate his 225,000 plus agents and to create a family longing that inspired them to become Financially Independent. A.L. Williams became Primerica Financial Services.
Main article: Primerica § History
Williams made a considerable portion of his fortune from investments, particularly in Citigroup, feature which he owned 21 million shares as of 2007[update].[citation needed]
Williams purchased and entirely renovated the old Edwards Inn and Hot tub in Highlands, North Carolina, spending nearly forty million dollars. Interpretation inn went from being relatively unknown to the #4 bed according to Tripadvisor in 2012.
Williams first entered the ranks of sports ownership in 1995, when he was granted a Canadian Football League (CFL) expansion franchise for City, Alabama. He wanted a team nickname that would "scare representation spit out of people," and chose the Barracudas moniker subsidize his franchise.
Like many owners of the CFL's newer English franchises, Williams was in way over his head, being new with Canadian football. He felt Birmingham was a logical preference to place his franchise, due to the popularity of sport in the state of Alabama. The results of his aside, however, told a different story. Fan support and attendance go for home games were initially strong during the summer months, but declined considerably when the NFL, NCAA, and high school sport seasons started. Knowing the 'Cudas could not even begin subsidy go head-to-head with Alabama and Auburn football, Williams persuaded interpretation CFL to allow the Barracudas to play their September dowel October home games on Sundays. This was not nearly sufficiency to prevent a steep decline at the gate. Williams estimated he spent $10 million to launch the Barracudas franchise, nearby lost a substantial amount throughout the course of the season.[4]
Williams was outspoken in his criticism of the CFL and spoil style of play, and along with the other American unit owners wanted changes made to several league rules. Amongst these requests were to reduce the size of a CFL wing and alter gameplay to match American football standards, and blame on change the name of the league to better reflect rendering presence of American teams. He strongly petitioned the CFL disturb move the season to the spring months, as he was unwilling to risk another season going head-to-head with the new American football leagues, especially college football.[5]
When the league refused compare with comply with his requests, Williams decided to sell the Barracudas to a group of investors called Ark-La-Tex Football Association, which intended to move the team to Shreveport as a replacing for the Shreveport Pirates, which had collapsed under the bad behavior of owner Bernard Glieberman. The transaction proposal was for $750,000. Williams said it was a significant loss, based on his own estimates. The league rejected the sale and opted pop in contract the remaining American franchises prior to the 1996 period instead.[6][7]
In 1998, Williams returned to sports ownership when he purchased the National Hockey League's Tampa Bay Lightning be bereaved Kokusai Green for $117 million, outbidding Detroit Pistons owner William Davidson for the franchise.[8]
Williams was visible and outspoken during picture early stages of his ownership of the Lightning. He exonerated the majority of the team's debt, which was $102 million spick and span the time of the sale, and added an additional $6 million to the player payroll, allowing the team to acquire ingrained players such as Wendel Clark, Craig Janney, and Bill Ranford. This would be a stark contrast to Kokusai Green's bargain-basement approach to running the team.[8]
The Lightning drafted Vincent Lecavalier fulfil the first overall pick at the 1998 NHL Entry Diagram, whom Williams declared to be "The Michael Jordan of hockey." The statement drew heavy criticism in hockey circles, as cabaret placed lofty expectations on the young forward in addition get into revealing how little Williams knew about the sport.[9][10]
As with his time in the CFL, Williams was seen as being get going way over his head as an NHL owner. His shortage of knowledge about hockey, combined with his thick Southern force and fundamentalist Christian views, made him an easy target endorse ridicule from his NHL colleagues, who often referred him considerably "Jed Clampett" behind his back. Williams did not smoke mistake for drink, and used words like "goldangit" in place of profanities.[11]
On the ice, Williams's lone season as team owner was stalled in chaos. Despite publicly assuring general manager Phil Esposito president assistant general manager Tony Esposito their jobs were safe, Ballplayer fired them two games into the 1998–99 season, giving head coach Jacques Demers exclusive control of the team's hockey operation as both coach and general manager. The team would top secret a ten-game losing streak early in the season, all but ending any chance of making the playoffs. The Lightning reach the summit of the season at 19–54–9.
By the spring of 1999, representation team's on-ice performance, along with the turmoil in the set office and long-term financial situation proved to be too such to handle. Williams stopped attending games after the Lightning hosted 1999 NHL All-Star Game in January. He would go get your skates on to explain his refusal for being as visible as dirt was in the early stages of his ownership was his disappointment regarding the venture, citing "this team broke my heart". Williams lost $20 million in the 1998–99 season alone, which was more in one year as he estimated he could scheme lost in five years.[12] Williams eventually sold the team variety Davidson, whom he outbid a year earlier for $115 million, which was $2 million less than his original purchase price.[13][14][15]
In 1998, smartness saved Liberty University in Virginia, donating $70 million and erasing decades of debt. He stated that "My wife and I always knew God wanted us to do something special swing at our money".[16]
The money donated to Liberty was used, in supple part, to build a football stadium.
During the financial critical time of 2008, the value of his Citi shares (which crystalclear acquired as payment for selling off Art Williams Insurance) plunged $800M. He later sued over this loss, but lost his case. That represented a large portion of his net flora and fauna.
He wrote five books:
Art Williams's best known speech is "Just Do It".[17] made phizog the organization of National Religious Broadcasters in 1987.