00:00 Here's your Forbes daily briefing for Wednesday, January 17th.
00:05 Today on Forbes, the car dealership billionaire no one knows.
00:11 On a sultry November afternoon in West Palm Beach, Florida, Terry Taylor picks up the
00:16 phone in his waterfront office.
00:19 In a grizzled Southern drawl, he says, "I know you've contacted basically everybody
00:24 I know, so I figure it's time you hear from me."
00:28 After weeks of trying to reach Taylor, the elusive billionaire behind one of the largest
00:33 car dealership groups in the U.S., or anyone that knows anything about him, word has finally
00:38 made it back to the man himself.
00:40 Taylor, who admits his attempts at secrecy are by design, says, "I'll agree to answer
00:46 a few questions."
00:49 The 72-year-old has never sat for an interview.
00:51 In fact, he rarely sits for anything, skipping out on most meetings even with his own associates
00:56 and only agreeing to show up at conventions or conferences on the condition that he's
01:00 not introduced to anyone.
01:02 One source told Forbes, "He's like Batman.
01:06 You hear about him and you admire his work, but nobody has really ever seen him in real
01:10 life."
01:12 For four decades, Taylor has quietly built a sprawling empire in the shadows, though
01:16 there are more than a few signs of him if you know where to look.
01:20 After receiving a tip from a longtime source, Forbes began digging into Taylor and his company,
01:25 Automotive Management Services, looking through dozens of Florida business records and speaking
01:29 to eight people who know of him, including analysts, rival car dealers, and business
01:34 partners.
01:35 All told, Forbes estimates Taylor's net worth to be $1.9 billion.
01:41 Most of it is tied up in his estimated 75% stake in Automotive Management Services, which
01:47 owns more than 120 dealerships across America and is worth some $1.6 billion, by Forbes'
01:54 account.
01:55 But, like Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne, Taylor also has a penchant for the good life.
02:01 He spent at least $180 million on lavish homes, including $30 million for Tommy Hilfiger's
02:06 New York City penthouse in 2019.
02:09 He also has a $45 million private jet, with his initials, TT, on the tail.
02:16 It's been roughly half a century since Taylor first got into selling cars.
02:21 His father, Warren Taylor, opened a used Ford lot in Daytona Beach after returning from
02:26 a four-year stint in the Marine Corps.
02:28 Terry worked around the dealership in his teens, and Florida business records show he
02:32 was made vice president by 1975, when he was just 23 years old.
02:37 Not long after, his father decided to sell.
02:40 Taylor says, "It wasn't like a family business.
02:43 I wasn't handed anything."
02:46 Using money scraped together from working for his dad, Taylor went into the business
02:50 for himself, buying his first new car dealership, selling Fords, in Daytona Beach in 1982.
02:56 It didn't take long before Taylor was buying other dealerships in North Florida, this time
03:01 selling new models of Fords and Toyotas.
03:04 It can be relatively easy to parlay one dealership into many, according to Ray Socolo, who owns
03:09 13 dealerships in the New England area, so long as you earn the trust of the right people.
03:14 He says, "Once the brand manufacturer has a little more confidence in you and the bank
03:19 sees that you've demonstrated you can run a successful dealership, they're a little
03:23 more flexible with financial terms.
03:24 It's a bit of a domino effect once you have a few dealerships under your belt."
03:30 When Taylor began expanding outside of Florida in the mid-to-late 1980s, he realized he couldn't
03:35 manage all the locations by himself.
03:37 So he started partnering with his general managers to make sure his far-reaching auto
03:41 empire remained well-run.
03:44 As Taylor continued to buy up dealerships during the '90s, he often retained the sitting
03:48 general manager of a newly acquired dealership, offering him or her equity to continue to
03:53 manage the business on the ground while Taylor kept majority ownership.
03:58 There are now approximately 100 general managers across Taylor's network who each have stakes
04:03 of roughly 25 percent, this according to Taylor himself.
04:07 By the 2000s, Taylor had started to move upscale, with luxury car brands like Mercedes, Lexus,
04:13 and Porsche occupying a growing portion of his empire and his bottom line.
04:18 High-end dealerships often generate revenues twice as high as their consumer brand counterparts,
04:23 according to auto industry analysts.
04:26 For full coverage, check out Devin Sean Martin's piece on Forbes.com.
04:32 This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:34 Thanks for tuning in.
04:35 [music]
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