REGINALD F. LEWIS (1942-1993) was a businessman and corporate attorney. He was the first black person to build a billion dollar company and also a prominent philanthropist.
Lewis was born December 7, 1942, in East Baltimore. His family encouraged him to “be the best that you can be” and stressed the value of education at an early age.
In high school, Lewis was elected vice president of the student body. He was also a hard-working student and quarterback of the football team, shortstop on the baseball team, a forward on the basketball team and was team captain of all three.
After graduating in 1961, Lewis attended Virginia State University on a football scholarship. An injury cut his football career short and he focused on school and work. While working as a photographer’s sales assistant, he generated so much business that he was offered a partnership. Lewis declined because he bad bigger things in mind for the future — a handwritten schedule he kept stated: “To be a good lawyer, one must study HARD.” And he did, graduating on the dean’s list his senior year.
In 1965, the Rockefeller Foundation funded a summer school program at Harvard Law School to introduce a select number of black students to legal studies.
Lewis was accepted and he made such an impression that he was invited to attend Harvard Law School that fall — the only person in the history of the school to be admitted before applying. During his third year at Harvard Law, Lewis discovered the direction his career would take as the result of a course on securities law. His senior year thesis on mergers and acquisitions received an honors grade.
Following graduating, Lewis landed a job practicing corporate law with a prestigious New York law firm. But within two years, he and two others had established Wall Street’s first black law firm — Murphy, Thorpe & Lewis.
Lewis wanted to “do the deals myself”, so he established TLC Group, L.P. in 1983. His first successful venture was the $22.5 million dollar leveraged buyout of McCall Pattern Company, a struggling business in a declining industry. Lewis streamlined operations, increased marketing and led the company to two of the most profitable years in McCall’s history. In the summer of 1987, he sold the company for $65 million, making a 90 to 1 return on his investment
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Lewis then purchased the international division of Beatrice Foods (64 companies in 31 countries) in August 1987. After closing the deal in December 1987, Lewis re-branded the corporation as TLC Beatrice International, Inc. At $985 million, the deal was the largest offshore leveraged buyout ever by an American company. As Chairman and CEO, Lewis moved quickly to reposition the company, pay down the debt and vastly increase the company’s worth. With revenues of $1.5 billion, TLC Beatrice made it to Fortune’s 500 and was first on the Black Enterprise List of Top 100 African-American owned businesses. It also became the first black-owned company to have more than $1 billion in annual sales.
Lewis chose to donate to his most cherished causes.
In 1987, he created the Reginald Lewis Foundation which donated $10 million to various non-profit organizations. He also made an unsolicited gift of $1 million to Howard University, an institution he never attended. His 1992 gift of $3 million to Harvard University Law School was the largest single donation in its history. The gift created the Reginald Lewis Fund for International Study and Research and the Reginald F. Lewis International Law Center.
He had also expressed a desire to support a museum of African-American culture. In 2002, the Maryland State Legislature allocated $32 million dollars for a museum of Maryland African-American history and culture. The Foundation donated $5 million to the endeavor to support education programs
and when the museum opened in June 2005, it was named the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture.
Unfortunately, Lewis never saw his desire come to fruition. He died unexpectedly at the age of 50 of a cerebral hemorrhage related to cancer on January 19, 1993, in New York. He was interred at New Cathedral Cemetery in his hometown of Baltimore. His headstone includes his personal mantra, “Keep going, no matter what.”
Once called “the Jackie Robinson of deal making”, Lewis took issue with that description. He responded by saying:
“To carry around the notion that if I fail it’s going to mean that no other black person will ever have a similar opportunity, or that if I succeed, it’s going to open a floodgate of opportunity for other black Americans, misses the point.
If our work is perceived as an indication of how we can function in a global, competitive situation, that’s nice. But I’ve always believed that anyway.”
“Why Should White Guys Have All the Fun?”: How Reginald Lewis Created a Billion-Dollar Business Empire was published in 1994, based on Lewis’ unfinished autobiography and interviews from his family, friends, colleagues and employees.
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