Inside A $15 Billion Dynasty
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Deck: How the Ingrams built one of America's top private fortunes
Deciding whether to take a family business public is tough even in the best of times. But as Martha R. Ingram and her three grown sons sat in Ingram Industries Inc.'s boardroom two years back pondering such a decision, they were reeling from the death of E. Bronson Ingram--husband, father, and corporate chief--who had been buried the day before. Ingram was an old-style patriarch, at once beloved and imposing. But in minutes, his heirs junked his master plan. Instead of taking the entire company public, they decided to spin off a part to investors and keep the rest private.