Biography of Ted Field

Biography of Ted Field Ted Field’s career is distinguished by over 30 years of success as a businessman, with over 25 years of success as an entertainment executive. He was born in 1952 and is the son of Marshall Field Jr., founder of the Chicago Sun-Times and heir of the iconic Chicago department store Marshall Field and Company. The department store chain remained as one of the most trusted names in the US retail landscape until it was converted to the Macy’s brand in 2006 under Federated Department Stores’ ownership. From a young age, Mr. Field demonstrated an independent spirit as a successful auto racer and won the 24 Hours of Daytona sports car endurance race during his college years.

Ted Field managed Field Enterprises along with his half-brother Marshall Field IV until the sale of the Company in 1984. Ultimately, Mr. Field was destined to pursue his interests in media. The same adventurous and high performing drive that he displayed from a young age would propel him to a storied career in the world of entertainment, making him one of the most successful media executives of the last quarter century.

Prior to 1984, Mr. Field co-owned Field Enterprises, the family conglomerate, which controlled the Chicago Sun-Times, television stations including Kaiser Broadcasting and a large real estate company, Cabot, Cabot & Forbes. While presiding over Field Enterprises, Mr. Field was intimately involved in the operations of Field Enterprises’ assets including programming decisions for Kaiser Broadcasting. Mr. Field was also active in introducing new investment opportunities to the Board of Field Enterprises. However, the Board rejected a number of investment opportunities that would ultimately prove to be tremendously profitable (e.g., The Irvine Company), leading to the eventual dissolution of Field Enterprises and giving Mr. Field greater flexibility in his investment pursuits. Mr. Field received $260 million after liquidating Field Enterprises in 1983, after which he focused on pursuing his entertainment interests.

As an investor and businessman, Mr. Field has demonstrated a consistent ability to leverage his business and creative expertise to generate significant returns from the broad array of assets in which he is involved. In 1985, a consortium led by Mr. Field acquired Panavision, the leading provider of professional grade cameras and lenses for the film-making community. While owning Panavision, Mr. Field instituted a number of strategic initiatives to build shareholder value including the installation of a new leadership team, a doubling of the number of cameras offered and a reduction in prices. Mr. Field was able to monetize the business for almost 3.0x his initial $53 million investment when he sold Panavision to Lee International in 1987.

Mr. Field is also a successful real estate investor and has actively invested in partnerships formed for the purpose of acquiring control of public corporations. During the takeover boom of the 1980s, Mr. Field learned the art of corporate deal-making from Sir James Goldsmith and financed his greenmail raids on Crown Zellerbach and Goodyear Tires. Mr. Field often assumed active roles in these investments including Board and committee roles at Crown Zellerbach.

Mr. Field has demonstrated patience and discipline as an operator and investor, but also has an uncanny sense of timing when exiting his endeavors. He sold Field Enterprises and Panavision prior to valuation declines in their respective markets. He has the foresight to identify downturns in specific sectors of the market and the conviction to take the requisite actions before the herd. Over the past 30 years, Mr. Field has demonstrated this ability time and time again, including liquidating his real estate and stock holdings prior to the corrections in the broader markets.

Success in Music

In 1990, Mr. Field co-founded Interscope Records, one of the most successful record labels in history, and shortly thereafter entered into partnership with Time Warner’s Atlantic Records. In an era in which rap music was criticized and not taken seriously as a music genre, Interscope Records forever changed the music business and creative landscape when it formed an agreement to distribute music for Death Row Records. Interscope’s controversial alliance achieved instant international financial and critical success with the release of the landmark album The Chronic by rap artist Dr. Dre. Interscope Records went on to sign such top-selling artists as Eminem, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Nine Inch Nails, The Wallflowers, No Doubt, Limp Bizkit, Marilyn Manson and others.

Mr. Field worked closely with his artists and was intimately involved with all phases of the creative process, from the evaluation of audition tapes, to selecting what album track would be featured as a single, to the editing of music videos, to the selection of album covers, and to the overall marketing strategy of an album’s release. As an amateur drummer, he has always enjoyed attending concerts and sizing up bands. Mr. Field is highly hands-on, and throughout his leadership at Interscope Records was willing to be involved with the time-consuming and detail-oriented tasks of finding the next hit album. Mr. Field’s discovery and development of rap legend Tupac Shakur is a credible testament of his intuitive sense for talent. Mr. Field was able to select the unknown 18-year-old amateur artist from over 500 audition tapes. Over the years, Mr. Field has helped launch the careers of several successful bands including Nine Inch Nails, Bush and Smash Mouth. Mr. Field’s rigorous screening process allowed Interscope to focus its resources on those artists with greatest potential for stardom without unintentionally passing on “hidden gems” whose talent may not be apparent at first glance. In fact, few musical acts rejected by Mr. Field have gone on to produce hits. Albums produced under Mr. Field’s labels have sold over 300 million copies to date.

In 1993, Mr. Field sold an initial interest in Interscope to Time Warner for $25 million. In 1995, Time Warner became increasingly uncomfortable with the negative stigma associated with rap and looked to exit its investment in Interscope. Mr. Field then repurchased Time Warner’s interest and resold to Universal Music three months later at a significant multiple of his purchase price. In 1999, Mr. Field entered into binding agreements with Seagram’s Universal Music unit to sell the remaining stake on an enterprise value of $500 million. In all, Mr. Field received close to $300 million in proceeds on the Interscope deals on a personal investment of approximately $18 million.

Following the sale of Interscope Records in 1999, Mr. Field presided over the complex merger between Interscope Records, Geffen Records and A&M Records – making the combined entity a formidable force at Universal Music that continues to thrive to this day. This integration of three distinct labels was an example of Mr. Field’s significant operating skill through all stages of a company’s growth. During the integration, Mr. Field was willing to take on detailed tasks that other entertainment moguls were less inclined to be involved with, including the evaluation of nearly 200 bands in deciding which acts would be retained by the combined entity. Mr. Field continued to oversee Seagram’s combined Interscope entity until 2001, which at the time posted a 27% share of the U.S. market for recorded music, ranking as SoundScan’s second best-selling label in the nation, behind Sony’s Columbia Records. He left Interscope to return to his independent roots as an entertainment entrepreneur.

Success in Film

Mr. Field is one of the rare entertainment executives to have been successful in both music and film, a testament to his remarkable range of creative and project management abilities. Mr. Field founded Interscope Communications to develop and produce films in 1984. He produced his first hit, Revenge of the Nerds, the same year and went on to become one of Hollywood’s most successful entertainment executives and entrepreneurs with an exhaustive track record of proven success in film alongside his success in music. He has produced over 60 major theatrical motion pictures generating nearly $7 billion in worldwide revenue. Films produced by Mr. Field have grossed an average of $117 million, on cost of $26 million. A key indicator of a film’s success is the ratio of domestic box office receipts to production costs where Mr. Field’s average of 1.3 compares favorably to the industry average of 0.8, proving that he has consistently out-performed his Hollywood contemporaries.

In addition to the long list of box office hits, Mr. Field has also been involved in successful movie projects for television including A Mother’s Courage: The Mary Thomas Story, for which he won an Emmy for Outstanding Children’s Program in 1990.

Career Success Factors

Part of Mr. Field’s ability to develop and capitalize on unique, original hits lies in his independence from major conglomerates. Mr. Field’s success and extensive personal and professional network make him one of the rare entertainment executives able to operate independently yet consistently maintain a high “studio” level of success. Arguably, no one in the history of entertainment has achieved Mr. Field’s level of success in both music and film. Mr. Field’s ability to work successfully with the studios as an independent throughout his career is a reflection of his stature within the industry.

Mr. Field does maintain strong relationships with the majors, who co-finance and distribute his projects. His independence affords him the ability to ensure he releases each project with the studio that will do the best job, as well as maintaining creative control of the project prior to involvement by the majors. Furthermore, it provides him the flexibility to capitalize on projects not actionable by the majors for political or bureaucratic reasons. Mr. Field’s vast network currently generates a robust pipeline of entertainment-related deal flow to satisfy Radar’s development objectives.

This independence also positions Mr. Field favorably with talented up and coming artists, who often prefer not to partner with a major studio to avoid the perception of “selling out.” Mr. Field has demonstrated an ability to relate to, and remain in touch with, young talent and fans. He is still actively involved in the fast-paced industry social scene, with his finger on the pulse of youth-inspired entertainment culture. Talent is drawn to Mr. Field, regarding him as a vanguard of popular culture with the dual benefits of a credible platform and independence from the majors. Independence has also allowed Mr. Field to structure creative deals. To sign Nine Inch Nails, Mr. Field offered lead singer Trent Reznor his own label, Nothing Records, for which he could sign up acts as an extension of Interscope Records.

Mr. Field is known in the industry as an innovator in his success and willingness to go outside of traditional entertainment themes. He does not shy away from controversy in acting on emerging opportunities that he believes will be successful. At Interscope Records, Mr. Field ushered in the modern era of rap with the label’s venture with Death Row Records. In film, Mr. Field spearheaded the return of the horror film genre with the production of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in 2003. Similarly, Mr. Field’s subsequent dismissal of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II at a time when several horror films had flooded the market demonstrates his ability to identify consumer fatigue. Mr. Field is highly risk-averse because he understands how difficult it is to predict hits. He is highly selective in his investments, and his strict budgeting and lean operating structures have contributed to consistent outperformance against industry profitability benchmarks.

Personal

Mr. Field has been distinguished in the world of auto racing since his college days. In 1975, he founded Interscope Racing, a successful team that fielded cars in many different categories including Indy prototype sports cars and even F1. He gained brief notoriety in 1979 as a member of the three-man team that won the 24 Hours of Daytona endurance race, setting a track record.

Mr. Field is also an accomplished chess player, and was known to have matched wits with some of the greatest chess players of all time such as Boris Spassky and the late Bobby Fischer. Mr. Field also enjoys playing tennis and spending time with his eight children. He has lent his support to such nonprofit organizations as amfAR, the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association, the Sundance Institute and the Rape Treatment Center. Mr. Field has been listed in the Forbes 400 several times, most recently in 2004.