In this episode of Retaili$tic, Deborah Weinswig interviews retail legend Gilbert Harrison, who shares insights from his extensive career in investment banking and retail. They discuss the evolution of the retail industry, the impact of e-commerce, and the importance of understanding consumer behavior. Gilbert reflects on his journey, the founding of Financo, and the unique dynamics of successful retail operations. He emphasizes the need for passion in one's work and the significance of giving back to the community.
Video of this episode is here
Takeaways
Gilbert Harrison reflects on his 60th wedding anniversary and 85th birthday.
He founded Financo after realizing the potential in investment banking.
Retail fascinated Gilbert due to its growth potential and dynamics.
Successful CEOs possess unique vision and entrepreneurial spirit.
Investment banking requires understanding both numbers and people.
E-commerce has drastically changed consumer shopping habits.
The discount retail sector has evolved significantly over the years.
Mergers and acquisitions often fail due to lack of understanding of motivations.
Brand aggregators are reshaping the retail landscape but may lack entrepreneurial spirit.
Gilbert emphasizes the importance of mentorship and giving back to the community.
Chapters
00:00 The Genesis of Financo
02:24 Navigating the Retail Landscape
05:01 Investment Banking Insights
07:27 The Evolution of Discount Retail
09:45 The Impact of E-commerce
12:10 The Art of Deal-Making
14:35 Reflections on Leadership and People
16:57 The Future of Retail and Investment Banking
24:15 The Sad Fate of Stewart's Company
26:23 The Changing Landscape of Investment Banking
29:57 Confidentiality in Deal-Making
33:44 The Future of Retail and Consumer Preferences
35:35 The Rise of Brand Aggregators
37:39 The Impact of Brand Aggregators on Competition
39:57 Advice for Young Professionals
42:43 Building Confidence and Resilience
45:39 The Importance of Giving Back
Philip Moore (00:00)
Welcome to Retaili$tic, the official podcast of Coresight Research for December 23rd, 2025. This week, CEO Deborah Weinswig speaks with author and legend of retail, Gilbert Harrison. Gilbert was the founder of Financo and the investment banker behind some of retail's biggest mergers and acquisitions. But before we dive into this fascinating conversation, let me give you a quick sampling of some of the research our members are getting this week on Coresight.com.
We have an in-depth report on the new initiatives from innovators across mass merchandisers, warehouse clubs, and discount stores that U.S. consumers can expect next year.
We are publishing the penultimate installment of the Holiday Consumer Behavior Tracking Survey we've been fielding since Halloween.
We also have a couple of reports on the key retail festivals next year in both China and India. If you're not already a member of the Corsight Research Community, make a note to visit corsight.com and sign up. Now, here's Deborah and Gilbert.
Deborah Weinswig (01:09)
Gilbert, thank you so much for joining us today. We're so excited to have you. Maybe start off, where are you geographically?
Gilbert (01:15)
Right now I'm at my home in Palm Beach. sitting out at the pool, getting the sunshine before we go to Nevis tomorrow for our 60th wedding anniversary and my 85th birthday.
Deborah Weinswig (01:28)
That's saying a lot and that's all in one week. So that's a tremendous amount to celebrate but also to be appreciative for. let's start kind of at the beginning, right? I mean, when you and I first met, you were at FNANCO as chair and really a, I even at that time, you were a legend in the industry, I think for what you had created, for the talent that you had built and for the runway that you had. But maybe can we go all the way back to...
It was like 1971 from what I read when when Financo was founded. What was it that you were trying to do and what was the white space in the market?
Gilbert (02:02)
At that time, I was practicing corporate and securities law in Philadelphia and doing a lot of public offerings and mergers. These people would come in that said they were bankers, but really brokers, didn't have any idea of what was going on. And they were making $100,000 a pop and I'm making $25,000 as a lawyer.
six months away from being a partner where I'll be making $60,000. So myself and my original partner decided to leave the practice of law and start a boutique investment banking firm, which we named Financo. Very interesting. viewers probably may not remember it, but at the time, INA was one of the largest insurance companies in the world.
The person that was helping me decide upon a name said, let's do Financo because it has an interesting connotation. So that's where the name evolved. We left our practice of we financed ourselves to go for 18 months without doing a deal. And we're in business for three months. We sold an optical company to iTech.
which at the time was one of the largest optical companies in the world, located in Boston. And we made $180,000 fee. Put that in today's numbers and you'll probably have something close to $3 million. So we were often running.
Deborah Weinswig (03:26)
for your first meal.
And how did that deal come about and what did you learn from it?
Gilbert (03:31)
The came about from a client of mine in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania that knew that a friend of his was selling his business. we met them, researched the company, and decided on two or three different alternatives and went to iTech and they bought it. as a result of that, we did other deals in the optical industry.
including Lombard lenses, which we sold to American Sterilizer, working with hospital companies and so on. So it was an interesting segment long before we got to specialize in the retail operations where we've made our name.
Deborah Weinswig (04:08)
And what was it that was unique about retail and why hadn't somebody tried to do this before?
Gilbert (04:15)
Well, put it this way. I never really understood tech. I didn't understand high science. Retail was something that always fascinated me. As a young lawyer, I had clients in the retail business. We represented Alexander's, which was one of the largest department stores in the country. We represented Dej Bell that was a retail company. I took Shoe Town Public.
And they were at the time a discount shoe operation. I took Levitt's furniture public so that I started to have a background in retailing and I understood it. It was very easy. The people were easy to work with. You could understand the business, understand the dynamics, understand how the various people able to achieve their success. The numbers
of retailing geniuses that had built up huge fortunes were amazing and still are amazing when you consider that not a simple business, but it's a business that has a lot of growth and a lot of potential.
Deborah Weinswig (05:14)
What did you learn from, you'd mentioned kind of various people's ability to achieve success. What were the common traits that you saw in those individuals that allowed them to have a different outcome than others?
Gilbert (05:26)
I think that the CEOs are the founders of companies and initially most of our work were with individually owned companies, private companies or public companies that were controlled by an individual or family. And what these people had was the unique ability and vision and entrepreneurship to be able to build a business. Having gone to the Wharton School and graduated from Wharton and then getting my degree
degree, I understood the entrepreneur because unlike Harvard, Wharton really trained entrepreneurs and I think it still does. So that this was the unique perspective that I learned from how these successful people and how they were able to make the money and build the companies that they did.
Deborah Weinswig (06:11)
And if you think, I mean, it was interesting. feel I'm an alum of University of Chicago and I remember going back to campus, let's say 10 years ago and everybody, said, the number one company that was hiring out of, know, I think when I was there, was McKinsey and then 10 years ago it was Amazon and now it's actually banks again. And so, right, I hey, what comes around goes around if you will, but what do you think the opportunities are today in banking?
And if Fnenca were to come to be today, right? Like let's just say fresh slate. How do you think it would be different? So two part question.
Gilbert (06:45)
Well, I think investment banking is unique because you have to have the foresight, the vision, the ability not only to work with numbers and to figure things out that way, but to understand people and be able to understand and negotiate with them and really to determine what are they after. When we're retained to sell a company, one of the first things we try to understand is
What is the reason why this person wants to sell? Is it because a simple reason they want to cash out? Number two, would they see the business slowing down? Do they see their competitors gaining traction? Do they realize that they need to expand geographically and they can't find the means to do it themselves? But understanding what motivates the company to employ us or another investment banker.
is key to understand how people are able to grow and what their needs are.
Deborah Weinswig (07:41)
Did you ever talk anybody out of doing a deal who came to you because they wanted to do something? Either-
Gilbert (07:46)
Yeah, a number of times. Number one, on a simple basis, ⁓ when we saw the company's expectations, we would do evaluation and we'll come up and say that business is worth such and such. If they came up and they said the businesses were two times or three times, we thought made sense. We would tell them we couldn't represent them and that it wasn't proper.
Deborah Weinswig (07:49)
Okay.
Gilbert (08:08)
Many times these clients would go to another investment banking firm that really didn't care. They would just highball a number, get the client ⁓ involved, and end up either selling the business at the price we set, or people sometimes came back to us and let us have a second try in our own terms. There was a uniquely interesting situation,
I'm just going to mention, but it was very funny when you talk about convincing people to it. The nephew of a crime boss had a legitimate company that was growing and very profitable. And he came to us at the legal firm. This is before I went into financo, is when I was practicing law, and wanted us to take his company public. We looked at the numbers and they were terrific.
But when we did the background check with him, we figured he would never get from the SEC scrutiny because of family members. It was difficult telling him that, but one of the things that I've always done and I've tried to do not only here but throughout my career is to be honest with the person.
We told him about it, he's doomed and screamed. He came back to us a week or two later and thanked me and was very kind about it.
Deborah Weinswig (09:20)
That's interesting and you mentioned I think wrote down the shoe town discounts shoes Can you talk about what the that industry was like then and and right now you have behemoths like in the off-price world like TJ and Ross and Burlington How is kind of off price or discount changed over the years and and what's your prediction on that market?
Gilbert (09:42)
I think you kind of look at three different things. I think you'll have to start by looking at the department stores. I did a paper for the International Department Store I think it was 1982 or But I looked back at the department store growth in the industry. In 1955, there was something like 83
independent department store chains. Today, when I look at it, there's probably nine. And even if you take a look at the recent Sachs-Niemanns merger, maybe it comes to eight. So the department stores made a mistake. They got out of being a general merchandise company and went really into apparel. And this bill gave the ability of other entities to grow.
and same-arised the big box retailers, the discount retailers, and so on. If you take a look at the discount industry, take a look at where Woolworth was back in the heyday and Kmart was, and then take a look at what Sam Walton came along to do and totally changed that whole industry to where basically
There's no discount department stores left except for one or two, and they've maybe changed their model of operation. Kohl's originally was a store. They're not, but everybody else, whether it was Bradley's or Gold Circle or whatever, are out of business. Target still exists, and Target is strongly, but it's not in the discount range.
In terms the off price retailers, I've a number of discounts, Lomans for one, Town for another. in my entire career, the best deal I did was merging Marshalls into TJ Maxx. At the time, was sort of floundering.
TJ's was growing, but it only had a billion dollar market cap. Marshall's, we sold for 550 million dollars. Three years later, TJ's had a market value of three billion dollars. And today, the last time I looked, and you can double check this Deborah, TJ's had a market value of over 160 billion dollars. Just take a look at what they've done and compare it to
Deborah Weinswig (11:53)
That's crazy.
Gilbert (11:57)
where the department stores are trading at. mean, even when you take a look at dealers, which is a great chain, know, or Macy's, which is growing under what you would call new leadership, peanuts in terms of value, five, $10 billion compared to $180 billion. Ross certainly second to TJ's, but doesn't have anywhere near the value.
Deborah Weinswig (12:07)
That's how you do it.
Gilbert (12:20)
And interestingly enough, and I guess I can talk about it now since it's 40 years later, when Melville Corporation, which owned Marshalls, asked us to sell Marshalls, we thought initially that Ross would buy it because Ross was in the South and most of Marshalls were in the Northeast. So we thought it would be a perfect combination. But unfortunately, they weren't interested.
Deborah Weinswig (12:25)
you
Gilbert (12:43)
And as a result, TJs did an amazing thing. Perhaps one of the most unique things that I've seen and tried to get others to replicate in the past is they put together marshals and TJs. They decided not to close any of the overlapping stores because they felt that no more than 10 % of the traffic would target go into the remaining store. They combined the entire back of the house
which gave them huge synergies. today, most people don't know that Marshalls and TJs are owned by the same company. It was with the hundreds of deals I did, this was probably the most successful.
Deborah Weinswig (13:23)
Yeah, they've done an amazing job of keeping their individual branding because if you think about when, know, Federated acquired May and write all of those individual kind of hometown brands, if you will, all those department stores lost their brands. And I still remember one marketing trip I did when I was a city and I went to like Detroit and like Detroit, Michigan. I was going to, you know, kind of not not exactly on the beaten path from an investor perspective.
But I got to hear real people's stories and they were like, you know, I used to get like a paper bag and now I get a plastic bag. And so was like a lot of the little tiny things that added up for the consumer to then have them kind of flip to a different retailer. And I think it's really interesting what you're talking about because this Black Friday, we definitely saw a bit of a Renaissance with regards to the department stores. mean, everyone we talked to, right, it was unbelievable. People shopped earlier, they shopped more categories, more departments.
we've seen unfortunately a lot of either consolidation or other store closures, where do you think we are in the kind of like department store life cycle?
Gilbert (14:28)
To some extent, we've run out of companies to merge. When you take a look at Macy's, you have Dillard's,
Gilbert (14:35)
while Federated had all these different brands because they bought up all these independent what Alan Questrom, when he took over Federated and they merged Macy's in, was able to do, and it was a huge amount of flack that he had, was to convert all of these stores into one name.
which gave him, it took away the individual enterprise that the individual stores had, but it allowed Macy's to have an entire portfolio and brand in basically every state in the union. And when you take a look at the way they've been able to advertise the 4th of July, this Thanksgiving Day Parade, and other things to
advertised throughout the country. It was absolutely an amazing feat. Although
I had wished Macy's would be much stronger and hopefully what Tony Spring is doing now to try to rejuvenate things will work.
Deborah Weinswig (15:35)
definitely seeing kind of the green shoots, if you will. going back to, we're down to very few kind of more traditional department stores. I think the consumer still wants to, and actually, like Gen Z really enjoy shopping that way. So I think sometimes, last one standing, right, rewards go to them. So I think that was interesting. One-um.
Gilbert (15:53)
Yeah, but one of the things that we didn't really talk about, and that is how e-commerce has affected the industry. It's totally changed the way the consumer shops. And the department stores were not initially, nor was Walmart, the first company to get into doing e-commerce. And if you take a look at what Amazon has been able to create, it's unbelievable what Jeff Bezos.
has done. when you take a look at some of the demise that's going on with some of the freestanding specialty stores, department stores and other merchandising companies, shoe companies and so on, Amazon has taken their lunch away.
Deborah Weinswig (16:34)
They really are. I it was interesting. I went to order gifts for the holidays. I was like, you know, normally I'd be getting the best price here and there. I was like, I just didn't have the time. So I'm like, I'm just going go on Amazon. I'm going to pay a little more for shipping and handling. That's OK. And so right, like you're in your you're on the app and I'm like, I've got all the gifts. Right. And now I'm like, OK, I need like some apples and whatnot. So I did all in one place. It was insane. Once again, like living in New York.
But I like, I don't like eight ounces of cream cheese is like normally $4.99 branded. I got the Amazon brand for $1.49 and I'm like, who wouldn't do that like all day long? So it's like, they make it easy and they've got price. And I, you know, of course, personally love going into physical retail, but if you're short on time, et cetera, right, they can play a huge role in kind of like how you approach everything.
Gilbert (17:20)
forget about choosing the Amazon brand. What they've done with every other brand where they're able to sell it on their site is amazing. I mean, when I'm looking for something, the first thing I do is go to Amazon Prime. But first of all, they have the free shipping I bought a pair of sneakers online the other day, a cord for my computer online, air tags for the trip we're taking.
Deborah Weinswig (17:21)
Thank
Gilbert (17:45)
You can just get anything and they deliver it very promptly.
Deborah Weinswig (17:48)
Yeah, it's funny, my daughter wanted for the holidays this New York Times crossword puzzle book and like I just couldn't find it anywhere. And so I found it like secondhand. I'm like, I hope too much. The puzzles are filled out, but I got secondhand on Amazon. So I'm like, even though it's of like harder to find, right? You can find there. And so I think that as a model.
Gilbert (18:10)
Is eBay still a factor or has it really dried up?
Deborah Weinswig (18:14)
No, I mean, I think that eBay still plays. now 80 % of what they sell current, right? That's more working with large retailers and brands and whatnot. And only 20 % is more of this kind of marketplace. you think about, right? They probably on the, you know, kind of individual seller side, they're probably competing more with like a Poshmark where...
You know, that business still, I think it's great, it exists. I don't think it's necessarily as strong as we would have thought at this point. And, you as you start to see maybe some of these larger brands letting some of smaller brands use their brands, I mean, I think that could be some of the change that we see. But as of right now, mean, it's pretty unbelievable.
Gilbert (18:54)
By the
way, don't discount what Walmart has done. mean, Walmart was late getting into e-commerce. But if you take a look at the growth and what's happened there, it's phenomenal. And you really have to start with Kmart, which was the leader in its field in its day. The problem with Kmart is they would open stores, help shelter all over the place, wherever they got a real estate deal.
Deborah Weinswig (18:57)
yeah.
Okay.
Gilbert (19:17)
Many of their people were getting paid off, so they would just go to locations. What Rob Walton and his team did with Walmart is they really developed the stores around a concentric circle of a distribution facility. And they were able to grow phenomenally that way. So you've got to give them credit. And they got into e-commerce a little bit late, but they've done a phenomenal job with it.
Deborah Weinswig (19:40)
Also, sometimes when you're late, you can miss out on spending in places that are impractical. But I think that they've done such a great job on focusing on the stores, their associates. And so I remember, I think it was last Black Friday I went in, and it's like, you know, I there's all the words around like Wi-Fi. I'm like, yes, yes, yes. And I get to the register and they're like, Ms. Weinswig, would you like to use Walmart Pay? I'm like, I didn't even know I had Walmart Pay, right?
Gilbert (19:52)
Yeah.
Deborah Weinswig (20:05)
And so, and that was just the fact that I have Walmart Plus and I have a wallet there. But I was like, wow, this is amazing. And if I lived out in the burbs, it would be super easy to order from them. So yes, I agree that you've got these kind of two behemoths. how, like, as you think back, do you have a deal that you did that was so hard you were convinced it wasn't going to happen? What would that have been?
Gilbert (20:31)
Well, the hardest deal I've ever worked on, which I can't talk about right now, and maybe in our next effort, is a merger and an acquisition by a foreign company with a US company that I've worked with on for three five years. There's a sentence in my book.
that's saying, wait for my next hurrah. Well, the next hurrah is probably not happening because I've been unable to pull this off. If it happens, I'll be glad to do another interview because we go through an entire history of the frustrations of an investment banker where you have one side that clearly wants to do a deal and has the vision and the other side
Deborah Weinswig (21:00)
you
Gilbert (21:14)
that you can't move.
Deborah Weinswig (21:16)
No, that's, and maybe, you you talked about your book. I remember you signed a copy for me and I read it right away. It was educational, it was entertaining, and it was fun. So I think I lived it was one of those, I stayed up all night and read it. What was the impetus for you to write that and what was different than what you expected?
Gilbert (21:33)
I'll tell you, it was COVID and we were sitting, I was down in, we had come down from New York to Palm Beach and never went back. And I started to discuss maybe writing something for my family. And what turned out to be writing an autobiography for my family turned into doing something for three people, three reasons. Number one, for my family. Number two, for young investment bankers.
Deborah Weinswig (21:36)
Mmm.
Nice.
Gilbert (22:01)
understand the trials and tribulations of being a banker and how much you have to love it and the confidentiality. And the other is to talk about the changes in the industry and the history of what we saw in the industry. What I would do is I put together an outline. I started to search for somebody to collaborate with. Your friend, Stacy Burns, gave me several people that I talked to.
Deborah Weinswig (22:03)
you
Gilbert (22:25)
And there just wasn't the chemistry. mean, the same way in a deal, if the chemistry isn't there between the principles, ⁓ the same thing happened with me. It so happened that a friend of mine's son's roommate was writing books and doing things when I met him. And he helped me edit book. And what I would do is I would on my computer at three o'clock in the morning and write a chapter or write something down. Then I would send it to him.
then he would connect me and we would do a Zoom call for an hour. And this went on, you know, for weeks. And we put together the book. What he did was something I truly respect him for, is that instead of doing a chronological thing, this happened this year, this happened then, he moved things around. And when you talk, I I laugh.
But when you talk about the first sentence in my book, I, Financo was acquired by Lehman Brothers, and the first day I'm there, I had breakfast with Stephen Schwarzman. Stephen told me he was leaving to do something on his own. And I said, why are you leaving? And he said, why are you coming? Now, you know, I've done all right, but take a look what he's done.
Deborah Weinswig (23:34)
That's very funny actually. were there, like, you maybe talk a little bit about how important was the asset versus how important were the people, how important were the people on the other side, right? What allowed some of these deals to get done or not get done?
Gilbert (23:48)
I told you, it starts first about understanding what their motivation is, whether it's from a buy side or sell side. Second of all, it comes from understanding the principles and understanding what are their objectives. It comes to the chemistry. What's the chemistry going to be like between me as an investment banker, but more importantly, the buyer and the seller, especially if the buyer wants the seller to continue.
⁓ One of the major things that is regretful is that lot of companies bought companies and frankly got rid of the principals and got rid of the entrepreneurs and they were never able to build up the business to where it should have been going forward. I can talk about a present day situation and that is I met Stuart Weitzman
because I knew him from Penn, he was in my wife's class at Penn. And Stuart probably had, was one of the most amazing entrepreneurs and footwear executives I ever met. Because what he was able to do, he was able to combine the merchandising skills that he got from his grandfather and father from being in the industry and the business training he got at work. He built up a business that I sold three times.
Deborah Weinswig (24:38)
Mm-hmm.
you
Gilbert (25:03)
Unfortunately, I wasn't involved in the last time when it was bought by Coach. And as public knowledge, they paid it, I think, $400 $500 million for it and brought it all off. was making $60 million of EBITDA when we sold it to Coach. And evidently, people at Coach...
Deborah Weinswig (25:08)
Mmm.
Gilbert (25:23)
decided not to keep Stewart and much of his management. They put in new managers, new CEOs. I think they had three or four CEOs. It was very sad. coach finally decided to sell it. And as you know, it was just bought by Kolaris. I'm not sure how they'll do with it, but they paid close to around $100 million, which basically was the price of the inventory that they acquired.
Deborah Weinswig (25:45)
I love you.
Gilbert (25:46)
a sad situation, one of the finest companies, and Stewart, as an entrepreneur, is very sad about it, because he would love to see his name continue.
Deborah Weinswig (25:57)
Is there, well, one thing I've always thought about in some of these deals, right, when I see them not go through, there's almost this self-sabotage. Have you seen that happen, and what usually are the traits around that?
Gilbert (26:08)
I think it's a combination of people overreaching, people being greedy, people not knowing what the other side wants, people maybe even waking up and saying what do I want this for? mean there's just so many different factors on why a deal falls apart. In this deal that I'm working on now, ⁓ it's a combination of all of these things and
And whether the owner of this particular company really wants to do a deal, or the CEO has tremendous insight. I mean, who knows? Who knows? But companies overplaying their hands is one of the major reasons why a deal doesn't get through. Or if it's done and they overpay for it, it may be bound for failure.
Deborah Weinswig (26:52)
Yeah, no, mean, you're completely right. And do you think that with this, like, I mean, what we're seeing in colleges today is, right, this new wave of kind of investment bankers, how do you think the industry will be different for them than it was for you?
Gilbert (27:07)
The main thing that I see is I haven't seen the entrepreneurs, whether it's what I was when I was working or what Steve Schwarzen was doing or what Jimmy Lee at JP Morgan was doing. You know, I can go through a handful and are there the people sure they're smart, they're trained?
Deborah Weinswig (27:07)
Thanks. ⁓
Gilbert (27:29)
But do they have the feel? Do they have the chutzpah? Do they have the drive? Do they have the love to be able to do it? I don't know. I've seen a lot of them, but a lot of them aren't. One of the interesting things is I was on the board of Wharton for 17 years. we saw a huge amount of people from Wharton wanting to enter into investment banking.
Deborah Weinswig (27:36)
Thank
Gilbert (27:52)
They would go because the money was there. When we went through a recession or a dry-dough crisis, the numbers would drop. But the number of people that were applying for these jobs were much more talented because it's really what they wanted to do, which goes into the love of what you're doing. I don't care who you are or what you're doing as a young person going into any type of business. I don't care if it was investment banking or anything else.
You really have to wake up in the morning and like what you're doing. If you don't do that, a disaster and your life is hurt. I miss the everyday. I don't have 50 people working with me. I'm a senior advisor to a couple of companies. I'm on the board of a great company Inter Parfums, which is based in Paris, which is just a phenomenal fragrance company and had built some tremendous brands. But all of these things are...
are things that I've done and I'm proud of. But I just tell anybody in this industry, you gotta love what you're doing. I think you also have to understand and respect the people you're working with, the chemistry, which I meant before, the confidentiality. You can't talk about a deal. It is absolutely, I mean, we've had situations, we had one situation where the chairman of the bank's wife
Deborah Weinswig (29:03)
Yeah.
Gilbert (29:10)
who was financing a deal went to the store manager, it was a retail store, and said, my husband is financing your company, you better give me better service. And of course nobody knew about it. mean, know, crazy things happened. We've had people, when I was practicing law, a very famous story is that a client was coming from New York and was on the Metroliner coming down and
The people sitting next to him were talking about the way they were going to kill this lawyer in a meeting that was at 11 o'clock. And my guy had a meeting at 10 o'clock, and he went in and told the lawyer the entire strategy. I mean, you can't talk. mean, the confidence is just so incredible.
Deborah Weinswig (29:45)
She's... No.
No, it's interesting. There are certain restaurants in New York and other places all kind of flock to. I remember I was at the Langham. I mean, first of all, the restaurant was wide open. I don't know why they put it right next to these people. I was just waiting for somebody. And they're talking about a deal. So I literally went to waitress.
whatnot and I said, you have to move me. I just like, know, kind of recuse myself if you will, but I was like, you know, I've got to physically move because I don't want to have this. And I think you said something that's very important. I think that people treat it more lightly these days is this idea around like true confidentiality and actually what that means. Because people will be like, oh, I'm working with a very large company in the Southeast and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, yeah, I don't.
I don't know if you're supposed to be saying that.
Gilbert (30:36)
Well,
in you kind of understand, many of the times it comes from the junior bankers, not the senior people, and they want to brag about something. I mean, was funny, it was very funny today. I'm in Palm Beach and my wife and I are having lunch at the breakers, and at the table behind us, three investment bankers from a firm I know were talking about a deal. We just sat there sort of laughing.
Deborah Weinswig (30:44)
That is true.
Gilbert (30:59)
because she knew it wouldn't happen, you know? But those are things that go on, you know?
Deborah Weinswig (31:03)
crazy.
Yeah, it's interesting. There's a certain point in your career, well, maybe, where you start to become more hyper aware of that. So I remember I used to be on airplanes. You'd be talking about things. And then there was a switch where I was like, only talking in the bathroom, right, of course, before we take off. But it goes back to just being kind of much more careful. So one question on, I mean, I'm sure there's many amazing stories around some of the deals you worked on. But is there?
one where you had like a big reversal when the kind of bad counterparty became like the best partner or something like that because I always love it when things turn around at the end, right? Like it's like a fairy tale.
Gilbert (31:42)
There's a lot of, there are so many companies that didn't do what they should have done after a merger. I really don't like crashing anybody. It's, it's, it's, it's,
Deborah Weinswig (31:52)
⁓ I don't want a name. I just want like circumstance.
Gilbert (31:55)
Well, as I said before, they fire the entrepreneur. Other cases, they make a deal when they buy it, paying the entrepreneur based upon increased sales. So the guy builds the business, doubles the sales, but forgets about the margins and the profits aren't there, but he's still getting paid under his agreement. I can give you 20 other examples.
like that where stupid things are done. People don't want to pay what they should be paying. so they buy something, somebody that's mediocre and they're paying four or five times, as opposed to getting the star where they could pay 11 or 12 times. And the business ends up failing and never being able to grow. mean, other people, I think one of the things that we've seen
unfortunately, is a lot of companies, sometimes European and Asian companies have come into the United States and they don't understand the culture and they do it their way. mean, perhaps the most interesting thing is there was a company in France that bought the old Corvettes, if you remember Corvettes. mean, I'm told you're
viewers may not remember that. And the time, I was representing Leavitt's Furniture, and the CEO of Leavitt's Furniture came from Montgomery Ward. And they were contacted, Montgomery Ward was a great company before it fell apart. And we flew over on the Concorde to France to meet owners of Corvettes.
Because one of the stupid things that they were doing was they decided in France you don't have to pay your bills for 60 days or 90 days. In the US in a department store if you don't pay your bills in 30 days you're in trouble. And Corvettes suffered. We ended up not doing the deal. The interesting thing Corvettes was owned
Deborah Weinswig (33:42)
I'm sure.
Gilbert (33:49)
by Velo Industries, which was the largest textile company in France. We met to negotiate in the offices of Christian Dior, which they also owned. It turns out they went bankrupt and the receiver that was put in to the company was Bernard Hano. He liquidated everything but Christian Dior.
Deborah Weinswig (34:07)
You're kidding!
Gilbert (34:12)
I mean, you can read about it in his book, but I was there. He liquidated everything in the company, except for Christian Dior, which became the whole basis of the growth of LVMH. Incredible, incredible story. I don't know whether I put that in my book or not, it's a story, it's something I'll always remember.
Deborah Weinswig (34:28)
when you start to look at some of those decisions that were, you know, kind of truly changed the outcome of one of these retailers or brands. And I mean, for the most part, it's usually, right, M &A activity. And so as you think about kind of, as we go into the future, right, you talked a little bit about, you know, kind of online, offline. What do you think is the power of the store going forward? And do you think you see a change in ownership in terms of who owns retail?
Gilbert (34:55)
I think first of all, the consumers still want to touch and feel. If you take a look at the comeback of retail, you'll see a lot of these vacant stores, especially in New York, are all of a sudden filled again. Many of them are flagship stores for brands that are doing it for advertising. But the consumer wants to come shop. Sure, they can look online, they can take a look at what they want to buy, but they want to go into the store and actually buy.
So I think that don't underestimate what the consumer wants and how they react. think that's an important factor. I think consolidation that's going on in the industry has helped off a lot of competition. While in some cases it's given better prices, in other cases it just doesn't work. I mean, if you take a look at right now,
not in this industry, but what's going on with Warner Brothers, with Netflix and Paramount. know, the danger concern is, well, combining these two companies, whoever wins, is this gonna stifle competition? Is that gonna, you know, they claim that it's going to make the course less in terms of streaming, but it'll probably make it more. I mean, it's complicated. It's not easy.
Deborah Weinswig (36:01)
You just set up the
one question I haven't gotten to that I'd really love to unpack is what led to the WHPs and the ABGs and the Kilaris, like all these, I don't know want, I call them brand aggregators. I'm sure there's a better word for them or words, but it's like, felt like they kind of sprung up, and I was probably in Hong Kong when this was all happening, like sprung up out of nowhere. mean, know, WHP was like born out of the pandemic.
But if you look at the amount of retail they own now, it worries me that a lot of these folks are fighting with one arm tied behind their back. How do you think about that whole, I don't even want to call it an industry or ownership structure, how do you think about it? And what do you think the impact has been on retail?
Gilbert (36:45)
First of all, think what a lot of these, I don't want to talk about any particular ones because I got my own feelings about them, but they're basically buying dead brands, sick brands, trying to remake them, trying to leverage them in terms of bringing the operations into other foreign countries.
Deborah Weinswig (36:51)
Mm-hmm.
Gilbert (37:06)
where they get, I mean, they basically become a licensing company because don't operate stores themselves. They get somebody else to operate and they just collect the royalties. How long and how good they'll last? I don't know and I don't want to, I have my own feelings about it. But right now they're doing well. Their investors are doing tremendously.
I think ABG now has what? 10, 15 billion dollars of revenues. mean, it's humongous. But it takes a lot of the drive out of it. I mean, I'll give ABG credit because some things they've done well. I mean, a shame what happened to Brooks Brothers.
I can mention this. When I was retained by Joseph Bank before they were taken over by Men's Warehouse, which was a disaster, we were going to buy Brothers because it was a different customer, but ⁓ Joseph Bank had used their real estate and merchandising expertise really to grow the business.
Deborah Weinswig (37:54)
to say the least.
Gilbert (38:05)
were willing to pay about 800 million, owner wanted a billion four. We might've gone up to a billion dollars, we were at 800 million dollars, we didn't. And then Brooks Brothers went bankrupt, and ABG took it over for like 200 million dollars. I will tell you, I give them compliments on that because...
that the quality of the goods have not diminished, their shirts are excellent, they've done a great could have been something different, but I give them credit for their doing that. every situation is different.
Deborah Weinswig (38:34)
But do you think...
Do you think, like I've just started to, of course I were doing a big, for the banking industry. I was just interested, right? Because when I was in it, you saw so much activity the banks and like how did that change the industry? And so I just, right? Because if I think about the companies I covered when I was at Citi and Morgan Stanley and all of that, I mean,
Many of those companies don't exist anymore. And I was covering more big box, landscape has changed so much. then you have that, I look at it as like the, you're throwing, like the oil, right, is these kind of brand aggregators. And that's kind of changing everything in addition to some of these other exogenous factors. So maybe they all just become licensing companies.
But does that make the industry more or less competitive? And, you know.
Gilbert (39:27)
Oh, I think it's become
less I don't think the entrepreneur is there. You see the entrepreneur in tech, all right? You see what they're doing, but you're not getting the entrepreneur in retailing or apparel that you had before. It's a different industry. the entry is harder.
a huge amount of startups that are looking for money, but you don't know who's going to succeed. mean, one has to remember that forever many Ralph Lawrence or Calvin Klein's or Tommy Hilfiger's are out and have become a success. They've done it through the ability, through luck, through timing.
through financial abilities. But for every one of them, there's probably 100 that maybe could have been just as capable, but get nowhere. It's hard.
Deborah Weinswig (40:18)
That's a very good point. So, I feel like we just scratched the surface and we're already at almost an hour, which is crazy. But it's interesting. It's been great. In the past few weeks, surprisingly, I've had a few of my friends who have kids either as sophomores or juniors in college who are looking for summer internships, and everyone's finding it a bit difficult in banking right now. think a lot of like, I think that going back to I think that industry is kind of,
Gilbert (40:23)
It's been fun. It's been fun. Yep.
Deborah Weinswig (40:44)
had a bit of a resurgence, what would you tell people who are in college, recently graduated, where should they spend their time? How should they kind of find you what you talked about? How can they find what makes them tick and what they love to do so they get up every day, right, and they can't wait to get out the door?
Gilbert (41:05)
Well one of the things that's very interesting is that Wharton, they've established the Baker School of Entrepreneurship. really are helping a lot of these and undergraduates find their way into the industry and trying to into merchandising positions. And getting the companies...
to pay the going wages so that there are prices that are competing with the McKinsey's and so investment banking firm, though today, has maybe 20 or 30 or 40 people applying for every job that's open. that's what, and I mean, it's the same thing as getting into colleges. The number of people that are qualified
Deborah Weinswig (41:43)
Yeah. Yeah.
Gilbert (41:51)
compared to the positions just aren't there. So it's very, very hard. The individual that wants to do this has to keep persevering. You have to...
You have to accept your knocks, but get up and try again. mean, in my business, I'll give you one funny story before we end. Early in my career, I was written up in the Wall Street Journal and one of my mother's friends says, Jesus, what is your son doing? mother said, well, he's working on a number of deals.
So they said, how many deals do you close? How many deals do you work on? So maybe 50 deals a year. How many deals do you close? Maybe 10 deals a year. So the friend says to my mother, why don't you tell your son, just worry about the 10 deals and play golf the rest of the time. The fact is, you never know which of the 50 deals are going to be the 10 deals. I bet you gotta keep it. Look, this deal I'm talking about,
Deborah Weinswig (42:37)
works that way.
Gilbert (42:46)
I feel like I've knocked down on. But I'm up and trying and maybe I'll be able to resurrect it. Maybe something else will come along. I don't give up. And that's the biggest advice I can give to anybody that wants to be in this industry because they'll have a lot of disappointments that are not in your control. Remember, if you're a banker, a financial analyst, a consultant, you can give advice, but it's their money that's going to do it.
And while you want them to do it, there's no way that you can, you know, people, if you push too far, too much, they'll say, all you're doing is after the commission or the fee, as opposed to realizing that it's something that's important. This has been fun.
Deborah Weinswig (43:24)
That's a good.
No, this is been great. So OK, so last question. What do you think from let's just call it your formative years? So whether those were young child, maybe high school or college, what was it that gave you the confidence? Because right when people are telling you no so much that that can write, some people would that would really affect them in a way that they wouldn't be able to continue to move forward. What? Where do you kind of pull that confidence from?
And obviously, which is what's made you so successful, but what do you think that that was?
Gilbert (43:56)
think it's a combination that made me think a combination of a couple of different things. Number one, in high school, I became part of a junior achievement, which was an entrepreneurial. I sold tie pins in I was editor of my high school paper and an editor at the Daily Pennsylvanian and in fact, interviewed President Kennedy.
I almost when I went, I started in law school, my father had some financial problems and I started doing some work to earn money. And it was the time that cheap fairs and group fairs were coming into practice. And I ended up with a travel, I worked with a travel agent. We organized 600 students going on charter flights. I got all my friends at different universities.
to bring in their people. sent 600 people to Europe. People got paid. I got, besides a free flight, I made $10,000 as an entrepreneur. This is two years later when I started to practice law, my salary so $7,200. And when I got married, it went up to $7,500.
Deborah Weinswig (45:08)
You
Gilbert (45:09)
I almost flunked out of law school. the dean asked me, do want to finish your law training or do want to continue doing the entrepreneur? And I decided to continue as a lawyer. And from the bottom of my class, I ended up in the top of the class. But I had that drive because my father was having financial problems. I wanted to succeed. And drive is drive is drive.
You gotta make sure that this is what you wanna do and how you wanna do it, and you gotta keep going. But I think people at an early age know what their abilities are.
Deborah Weinswig (45:43)
Yeah, well, it's knowing what your abilities are. And then I think also, do you like what the opportunity with which you can match your capabilities, if you will? And I think that that is, you know, can be some of the challenges. And, you know, it goes back to, right, as I'm increasingly, once again, advising my friends' children on either
where to go to school. And I'm like, you and you've
Gilbert (46:10)
I do it,
look, at seven o'clock, my grandson is gonna find out he's on the waiting for an early decision at work and I don't know what's gonna happen. you know, I'm advising grandchildren, friends on college, on careers, I get these conversations all the time and I'm more than happy to meet any young person and talk about how I can help them. That's just me and it's the way I am.
Deborah Weinswig (46:36)
I that's great. think all of you listening should take Gilbert up on that because he truly has an unbelievable perspective on the industry, on what's changing. And Gilbert, I still don't know how you kind of stay on top of so many things. It is really unbelievable. Thank you for joining us. This is just a pleasure and we look forward to really doing the book.
Gilbert (46:53)
I went with this one. One other thing that's important
is that if you're successful, you have to give back. You have to give your time. You have to be involved with charities. You have to do good. And that's very, very, very important. And we didn't talk about that. I could go on with that for another hour. All right?
Deborah Weinswig (46:59)
yeah.
I think that's, and I will tell you, when I started off in Wall Street at Morgan Stanley, I was part of something called Student Sponsor Partnership. And what was so interesting is you had money people and you had time people. I was a time person and I was matched up with a money person who was great, right, as a younger person in the organization. And what you learned about...
senior leaders who are very philanthropic and how that really kind of fueled their creative, like they were different and I really, you know, kind of, I felt like I learned so much from that. And so, right, giving someone that gift when they're early in their career, I think that also changes them as well. So I think that's an excellent point Gilbert and definitely one people who are listening to this should really think about. So do you have a favorite charity?
Gilbert (47:37)
Yes.
Well, I'm involved with Penn. I'm involved with UJA, Jewish Appeal. I was on the board of the Southampton Hospital and There are just so many opportunities, but the Wharton School, was on the board for 17 years, was very important, Jewish charities, and I was chairman of the merchandising
at UJA. I was part of the original bond group, young professionals for Israel bonds. mean, a lot have been Jewish charities, but certainly school charities are very important as well.
Deborah Weinswig (48:33)
Absolutely. Thanks again for joining us, Gilbert, and happy holidays.
Gilbert (48:36)
Thanks, the same to you, and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks, Deborah. This was fun. Bye-bye.
Deborah Weinswig (48:39)
Thanks. Thanks.
This is great. Take care. Thanks, Gilbert.
Philip Moore (48:43)
Thanks Deborah, and thank you for joining us this week. Corsight Research serves our members with leadership communities, data resources, events, event coverage, strategy sprints, proprietary research, and more. We have some very exciting additions coming in 2026, so visit us at corsight.com and register so you don't miss
Have a wonderful Christmas and New Year, and we'll see you again after the holiday break.