How The Hilton Family Built An International Hotel Brand And Got Super Rich
Augustus Halvorsen Hilton was born in 1854 and moved to the US in 1870.
Augustus had seven children, including Conrad, who became the scion of the Hilton empire.
Conrad was born in New Mexico in 1887 and would become one of the most famous Hiltons for his business savvy.
Source: Albuquerque Journal
Conrad learned business in his father's grocery store. After college got into politics in New Mexico.
He most likely learned a couple of useful things about how to run a business. At this point, the family was occasionally renting rooms in their home.
In college, he joined Tau Kappa Epsilon, an international fraternity, and got involved in politics after graduation as a republican representative in the first New Mexico legislature, when the state was newly created.
Source: The Guardian
He was also a war veteran and served in the US army during WWI.
He served as a lieutenant in France with allied forces in the Quartermaster Corps, responsible for supplying fuel, food, clothes, and household items to the army. Quartermasters also identified and cared for dead soldiers.
He was discharged from the army in 1919 after his father died in a car accident.
Sources: US Army Quartermaster Foundation, Texas State Historical Association
After the war Conrad moved to Texas and bought his first hotel in 1919.
He tried to buy a bank but that didn’t work out, so he bought a hotel instead - the 40-room Mobley Hotel in Cisco, Texas in 1919. It was so successful that they turned the dining room into additional rooms to meet demand.
Sources: CNBC, The Guardian
The "first Hilton hotel" is now the Conrad Hilton Center.
It still has the old signage, and two rooms have been preserved since 1919. It hosts the Cisco Chamber of Commerce and a room for special events like weddings.
Source: Cisco Chamber of Commerce
He grew his holdings, and in 1954, Conrad made the largest purchase in real estate history at the time.
The Statler Hotel company sold for $111,000,000 and it was the biggest transaction ever in the hotel industry. He called himself "the innkeeper of the world."
He then added more jewels to the Hilton crown, like the Stevens Hotel in Chicago, then the world’s largest, and the Waldorf-Astoria in New York. Hilton also acquired an international gaming company and created the world's first international hotel chain.
Source: Ohio County Library, Marketing Week
In 1949, Conrad bought the iconic Waldorf Astoria hotel in New York.
It was his longstanding ambition to own the hotel, but at first its owner didn't want to sell it to someone who had other business interests. The New York State Realty and Terminal Company owned the land and was also concerned that he would run it down.
He lobbied with the company anyway.
After several months, Conrad found out that someone else was interested in buying the hotel. He decided to use his own money instead of Hilton Hotel Corporation's. One of the majority stockholders agreed to his proposal to buy 249,024 shares of stock at $12 a share.
In the end, he paid $3 million for about 69% of Waldorf and gradually increased his share to 10%.
The legendary hotel is a landmark building in New York and has hosted every president since Herbert Hoover.
Hilton has collected some even more impressive holdings since then — like the Conrad Maldives, which has a restaurant under the sea.
The hotel is spread across two islands in the Indian Ocean that can only be crossed by a 30-minute seaplane flight. There's also an underground wine cellar with 20,000 bottles.
Source: Conrad Maldives Rangali Island
And the Conrad Pezula, where a room could set you back $8000 per night.
Some rooms in this hotel in South Africa are built directly on the edge of a cliff. CNBC named the Conrad Pezula hotel "the best property in the world" in 2008 and Nelson Mandela was its first guest that same year.
Source: City Press
Conrad got divorced twice and married three times.
Actress Zsa Zsa Gabor was his second wife.
Gabor has had nine husbands - she divorced seven times and had one marriage annulled. She's quoted as once saying: "I am a marvelous housekeeper: Every time I leave a man I keep his house."
In 2009, it emerged that she lost $10 million through Bernie Madoff's company.
Conrad died in 1979 and left inheritances behind for his three children.
His two sons got $500,000 each, his daughter got a measly $10,000, and the remainder went to the Conrad N. Hilton foundation.
Source: The Guardian
One son, Richard started his own real estate firm.
USE THIS SLIDE TO TALK ABOUT ALL THREE KIDS. DON'T MOVE IT.
He joined the New York office of Eastdil Secured and later founded Hilton Realty Investment in 1984.
With Jeffrey Hyland, he formed the real estate firm Hilton & Hyland in 1993. Several of their salespeople were part of the reality TV show Million Dollar Listing.
Source: State of California,
Conrad's other son, William Barron Hilton I, took over the family business.
Barron contested his father's will and received 4 million shares of the hotel.
In 1966 he became Chairman of the board, president and CEO of the company. His charitable remainder unitrust received 6 million shares of Hilton, and 3.5 million went to Conrad's foundation.
Source: The Guardian
Barron has eight children and is Paris and Nicky's grandpa.
Barron's sixth child Richard is their father.
Paris, currently the most famous Hilton, came along in 1981 and started modeling as a teen.
Paris was born in New York and split her childhood between the city and Beverly Hills.
After seeing photos of herself in the New York Post's 'best dressed' fashion section, she signed with Donald Trump’s agency, T Management. She was part of New York Fashion Week, and modelled for various designer brands.
Source: Paris Hilton: A Biography
She really became a star, though, after her sex tape was published in 2003.
The footage with Ricky Salomon leaked on the internet and the following April, he sold the rights to an adult film studio. After several lawsuits, Salomon and the company agreed to pay Paris $400,000.
Her first big screen role was as co-star on the Fox reality series about socialites called This Simple Life. She’s since starred in about 13 reality TV shows and 22 feature films, and performed seven movie roles as herself.
She's also launched several businesses including a beach club in Manila, a jewelry line, and a perfume range.
Sources: IMDB, Entertainment Weekly
In 2007, Blackstone bought Hilton Hotels for $26 billion at the height of the real estate bubble.
The Blackstone Group bought Hilton Hotels for $47.40 a share, 40% more than its closing price the previous day. The deal included $7.5 billion in debt.
It was the second largest transaction Blackstone ever made, and gave them ownership of nearly 4,000 hotels.
Bloomberg called it "the best leveraged buyout ever."
Sources: Bloomberg Businessweek, The New York Times
In September 2013, Hilton filed for a $1.25 billion IPO.
The IPO raised nearly $2.4 billion from the sale of 117.6 million shares.
Hilton was initially priced at $20 a share, just above the midpoint of the expected range. The IPO was run by Deutsche Bank, Goldman, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley.
Source: The New York Times
The IPO raised $2.35 billion and was the largest ever for a hotel.
Its stock market value topped rivals including Marriot International and Hyatt Hotels.
Hilton had a market capitalization of $21.52 billion and opened at $22.41 a share on Friday.
Source: Bloomberg, MarketWatch
Hilton sold the Waldorf Astoria to a Chinese insurance conglomerate for $1.95 billion in October.
Anbang Insurance Group approached Hilton before the hotel was up for sale and beat out at least two other bidders for the purchase. It was the largest sale of a hotel.
Hilton Worldwide will continue to manage the 1232-room hotel for 100 years as part of the agreement. It was in need of an upgrade, and Hilton decided it was better to sell off the property than to pay for the renovations.
The Hiltons own several pads all over the world and a ranch in Costa Rica.
The family reportedly owns a ranch with its own landing strip in Costa Rica where police seized 400 kilos of cocaine in August.
In 2009, Paris bought a $3.2 million home in London just steps away from Amy Winehouse.
Some Hiltons reportedly still live on the original family farm in Norway.
Sources: The Mirror, People, Gawker
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