Hilton, William Barron

views updated

HILTON, WILLIAM BARRON

William Barron Hilton's (1927–) name has become nearly synonymous with the word "hotel." The son of Conrad Hilton (1887–1979), he was arguably one of the founders of the U.S. hotel tradition. Hilton struggled with tough competitors, like Marriott and Hyatt, but with the record and reputation of his own father. For several years Hilton was told that if business was good, it was because of the assets his father put together, and if business was bad, then it was William Hilton's own fault. However, Hilton's assumed control of the family-owned Hilton Corporation in 1979, after his father's death, and the company prospered to the point where, in the late 1990s, it ranked as one of the country's largest holders of real estate.

William Barron Hilton was born in Dallas, Texas, in 1927. His father, Conrad Hilton, was the legendary founder of the Hilton hotel chain. When William was eight, the Hilton family relocated to southern California in the midst of the hotel chain's enormous growth. Before growing into manhood the young Hilton watched his father go through two divorces.

As a young man Hilton showed little interest in taking up the family business. Instead, he joined the Navy and served as a naval photographer during World War II (1939–1945). After the war he started his own business selling orange juice products in California; he was soon the owner/operator of his own citrus distributorship. It wasn't for another five years that Hilton considered joining his father's business. When he did, in 1951, he started in the operations department of the Hilton Hotel Corporation, at the bottom of the corporate ladder. Hilton showed an early talent and initiative for the work in the hospitality business, and in 1954 he assumed the role of vice president of the corporation, with his father in the role of president.

Variety in business ventures seemed important to the younger Hilton. In 1960, while still vice president of the company, he turned his attention to establishing the Los Angles Chargers football team, a team of the American Football League. The following year he moved the team to San Diego, California, and served as its president until 1966.

That same year he took on the role of president and chief executive officer (CEO) for the Hilton Hotels. In 1970 he bought two Las Vegas hotels, beginning the company's involvement in the gaming industry. Gaming interests grew rapidly, and within 25 years they accounted for 46 percent of the firm's revenues.

With the death of his father in 1979, Hilton became chairman of the board of the company's operations. The will of the senior Hilton specified that the bulk of his estate go to the Conrad Hilton Foundation, a charity to aid Catholic nuns. William Hilton fought successfully to alter the terms of the will, and he obtained sufficient shares of Hilton Hotel stock to control 25 percent of the company.

Only after a long struggle did William Hilton come to be seen as the company's master strategist. During the 1970s, when other hotel chains plunged ahead with the development of luxury hotels and vacation resorts, Hilton sat back and watched his competitors' successes and failures before making any of his own moves. He was also cautious during the 1980s, when it seemed that everyone else in the business was either buying or selling.

Hilton made the move, finally, to sell off his less profitable hotels and retain choice properties like New York City's famed Waldorf-Astoria. He decided also to manage and franchise the rest of the hotels bearing the Hilton name. His cautious yet strategic maneuvers caused the company stock to rise while other hotel operations were seeing a downturn. William Hilton obtained the reputation of a cautious, prudent, and savvy strategist in real estate dealings.

During the 1990s, however, he became aggressive about the gaming industry and led the pack with construction of new casinos and proposals for gambling complexes. In 1996 Hilton began expanding internationally. His aim was to bring his total hotel room capacity to 100,000 by the year 2000—by 1997 he had already reached his goal. By the late 1990s the Hilton Corporation operated 16 casinos and 240 hotel properties, and in 1996 Hilton bought the Bally Entertainment Corporation for $43 billion.

At the close of the twentieth century, as owner of more than 25 percent of the company's shares William Barron Hilton was president of a vast hospitality empire employing 62,000 people. His personal wealth was estimated to be over $600 million, which made him a regular on Forbes magazine's list of the "400 Richest People in America" since 1982.