While he worked, Acheson went to school, earning a degree in aerospace science in two-and-a-half years. The worst grade he received -- a C -- was in small-business management.That was all right: In his final year of school, Acheson's 13-employee furniture company boasted sales of close to $400,000, with profits of almost $85,000. On weekends, he flew with the National Guard.
In 1973, Acheson sold the company to a furniture manufacturer that had been a competitor, and started a new glass-and-chrome-tubing modular furniture business. With a retail outlet in what was then the second-largest shopping center in the United States, this company set a sales-per-square-foot record for the center in its first six months of operation. In less than a year, Acheson opened another retail store. Before long, he had a nationwide network of partnerships, affiliations, and franchises. Studying nights and weekends, Acheson earned his MBA from Denver University in 1980, and in 1982 divested himself of the furniture company for an undisclosed sum.
Sometime during the high-inflation years of the mid-1970s, Acheson began a gradual transition from being a conventional businessman to what might be called a hands-on investor.
"Back then," Acheson remembers, "you could buy an airplane for a fixed price of $1 million with a $50,000 deposit and sell it in as little as 18 months for $1.5 million. High leverage. That's what it took to invest in airplanes and single-family rental dwellings." Acheson started investing in these rental homes in 1971. By 1979, through trading and refinancing, his real estate portfolio of roughly 20 homes was topping the $1-million mark. To help him manage it, he approached Mark Martino, a real estate broker whom Acheson knew to be honest and smart."I told Martino that anything he invested 20% in, I'd invest 80% in," Acheson says. "At the end of the year we split the profits. I don't think I've seen any of the properties he's bought for the past four or five years." Real estate is one of the few passive investments Acheson has maintained. Others include some limited partnerships in land, equipment leasing, and a warehouse. "I don't buy tax shelters," he says."I invest in property with good potential for capital gains."
While Acheson's passive investments bear only the ordinary trappings of success, his company portfolio bears the unmistakable mark of an entrepreneur. Western States Investment Corp., a holding company set up by Acheson in 1981, owns majority interest in Colorado AMC/Jeep Renault and in an affiliated body shop and carl-leasing company. It will also be the corporate umbrella for a company Acheson plans to set up that will offer accident, health, and life insurance for customers that buy new cars. Intervest Asset Management Corp., a company Acheson runs with a 29-year-old onetime truck driver named John Gunther, offers business-consulting and asset-management services, and publishes a market timing-based investment newsletter. Acheson is also a stockholder and board member of 14 other companies.
Where do deals come from? Acheson typically invests only through people he knows. "I'm shy with my own money," he says carefully. "I earned every dollar." Bankers are among his best sources, he says, because they know he is usually willing to get involved in management: "There is no one more ready to make a deal than a banker who is upside down."
One new networking group in Denver that has provided Acheson with a source of opportunities is the one-and-a-half-year-old Rockies Club. The club provides a forum for three groups: businesses soliciting funding; investors looking for deals; and accountants, attorneys, bankers, and consultants seeking new clients. The club is tied to a public venture capital fund called The Rockies Fund Inc., which provides second- or third-stage funding for emerging growth companies. By the Securities and Exchange Commission's requirement, Acheson, now on the fund's board, must give the fund first right of refusal on any investment presented through the club.
So far, that hasn't been a problem. "I am not interested in what the fund is interested in," Acheson says. "I like lowtech profits -- a company I can understand and can analyze to identify the problems. I like a company with a definable objective, a definable sales rate, with which I can make money slowly. I'll never see a 300-to-1 return; I'll never have a Genentech. But I've got a lot of little companies that are pretaxing well over seven digits."
As if to contradict that statement, Acheson reveals a little -- only a little -- about his current pet project, a start-up he and a few partners have funded. Based on remote-generated computer graphics technology, the company may be the closest Acheson will ever get to a Genentech. At the moment, the project is still under wraps, but Acheson says that a prototype system -- which will have such applications as financial printing, newsletter publication, and charts -- will be ready in several months. Acheson says only that, "This company could be very large, very fast. When it's ready to go, we'll be very vocal."
More in keeping with his past investments, Acheson has bought a majority interest in a turnaround situation involving a trade publishing company in financial straits. The owner, Acheson says, "had some backers, but now the money is gone and the company is upside down. I think he can turn the corner. If I can repair the balance sheet, help him with operational and budget problems, throw in some money, and take care of some of the other details that tend to bore entrepreneurs, I think the company can shoot around the other corner."
Acheson's friends nominated him to be Small Business Person of the Year for 1985, and he was one of two finalists from Colorado. "Gil never lets anything slip through the cracks," says Ralph Pucher, an attorney with the Denver firm of Calkins, Kramer, Grimshaw & Harring, who has helped Acheson structure many of his investments. "He's so efficient, and his insights so sound, that he's constrained only by his own limitations."
Acheson, for his part, claims that his main skill lies in identifying friends and associates to work with -- and to help make them rich in the process. "I've enjoyed success," he says, "because I always looked at people. The only way to keep track of a lot of companies is to rely on people who care as much as I do."
Gil Acheson says he doesn't have lofty goals for the future. At 39, he says he could have retired years ago without disturbing his lifestyle. But he has no plans for retirement, and, except for buying a new car when the side-view mirror breaks, he lives relatively simply. He enjoys fishing, spending time with his family and friends, and earning a living. "Some people sculpt. Others play the piano. I get a kick out of seeing companies become successful," he says with a smile. Then, with a sigh that exhibits a hint of self-doubt, he admits that he would like to be able to play the piano. He never thought he could. But he is trying to teach himself.
