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Firm Chairman Recalls The Charter Co. Legacy in Jacksonville

Stephen Busey, chairman of the firm, was featured in a recent Financial News & Daily Record article on The Charter Co. and the impact the company had on many businesses and industries in Jacksonville, Fla.

Busey served as lead counsel for Charter in its bankruptcy court proceedings and states that Charter’s most significant impact was the leadership legacy of Charter’s executives in Jacksonville’s business community well after the Charter era.

Before it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on April 20, 1984, The Charter Co. was Jacksonville’s biggest – and probably most interesting – corporation.

Charter ranked 61st in the Fortune 500 list of America’s largest corporations when it filed for Chapter 11, based on its 1983 revenues of $5.6 billion.

The company built by Jacksonville businessman Raymond K. Mason had, at one time, more than 180 subsidiaries under its wing, with interests including insurance, banking, convenience stores and popular magazines including Redbook and Ladies Home Journal.

However, oil was Charter’s growth engine. When oil prices started soaring in the 1970s, Charter’s stock flew with it and the company became a darling of Wall Street.

With operations in oil production, refineries, retail gasoline, publishing, broadcasting, insurance and real estate, the worldwide breadth of Charter’s business in the 1970s and early 1980s is unparalleled in Jacksonville’s history.

More information from The Charter Co. article can be found here.

 

 

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