Harbert Outperforming Falcone With 11% Return Suffers Asset Drop

Raymond Harbert, chief executive officer of Birmingham, Alabama-based Harbert Corporation, had a radical proposal for his father. It was 1992, and the company that had made his dad, John M. Harbert III, a billionaire was eking out small profits and was $300 million in debt. Raymond proposed selling the core construction business, which dated back to the company’s 1946 founding. The elder Harbert threw his son out of his office, an associate recalls.

Raymond, then 33, eventually persuaded his father to sell. Once the debt was extinguished, he presented his father with another big idea: shifting the family business into finance. John Harbert not only gave his approval this time, he loaned his son $3 million against his inheritance to launch the investment firm, Harbert Management Corp. Father, son and four lieutenants celebrated by draining a bottle of Sheep Dip scotch, a whisky that bills itself as “rich, warming, malty, young and sprightly,” Bloomberg Markets reports in its June issue.