If I Owned The Circus

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In 1969 Irvin Feld decided to turn Ringling Bros. and Barnum ' Bailey Circus into a publicly owned company, figuring that "every person in the world would want to own a share of stock." He wasn't too far off the mark. During the week of December 1970, The Wall Street Journal noted on its front page that the most popular Christmas gift item around that year was a share of stock in Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. In typical fashion, Feld promoted his company with relentless zeal. "I had an annual report for regular people and an annual report for kids," he recalls. Even the stock certificates were printed in four colors "The SEC raised hell with me " he says. But he didn't mind. "We had thousands of one-share stockholders."

Public ownership gave the company the money it needed to carry out Feld's ambitious plans, but it also opened the door for a takeover. Once you are public says Feld today there is really not much you can do about it if someone wants you. In 1971 the Felds sold out to Mattel Inc. for $50 million in Mattel stock. "I had never been a millionaire before, so that was enticing," says Irvin.

Ringling Bros. became part of Mattel's entertainment division. Feld's contract as chief executive officer gave him full authority to run the company as he saw fit, and he say's Mattel never iuterfered with his authority. "But they could still call meetings and subject you to questions, or say, 'We think you can save $2 million a year by having a cheaper show. Reduce this. Reduce that. If you have 20 fewer people you can have fewer train cars. You'll need less this, you'll need less that,' " he says. "It was worrisome.

"Big corporations don't understand the shrinking bottom line," adds Feld. "They say each year you have to have a 15% improvement in revenues, a 12 1/2% improvement in profits. You can't do this in show business and survive." Among other things, the parent company suggested raising ticket prices to $10 or $12 a head. "It went in one ear and out the other," says Feld. To him, that kind of philosophy runs against what the circus is all about. "To me we're in a service to humanity, an I'm not going to price myself out of existence. The circus is for the masses, not the classes."

Adds son Kenneth Feld: "The manufacturing corporation doesn't understand that every week we start a new business. We go in with zero and have to do as much business as we can in that market during that week. If you have four shows, it's four new businesses. From their point of view, it's the same as going to Las Vegas and plunking down $100,000 on a craps table and hoping the dice will come up the way you want them to."

Both Felds insist that the circus has always turned a profit under their management, although Mattel's entertainment division showed a loss of $1.1 million in fiscal 1982 (in contrast to a profit of $5.3 million in 1979). Other parts of the division accounted for the losses, says Irvin.

"The good Lord never meant for the circus to be owned by a big corporation," Irvin Feld says today. And apparently Mattel's management agreed with him. This March father and son "hocked everything we owned" and bought Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey back from Mattel for $22.8 million, less than half what it paid for the operation 11 years earlier. "I began thinking about buying it back the day after I sold it," says Irvin. "Now Kenneth and I can operate as we see fit. The weight is off our shoulders."