Folio is reporting that William F Reilly died at his home on Friday. Bill was CEO of Macmillan when I (and Mrs PND) started my career after business school. To one of his staff members, he was an intimidating presence in the board room on the monthly occasions when we presented business results to him. He frequently made clear he knew more about the business than we did (as staff business analysts) but in doing so he imparted a clear perspective on what was important to understanding the true performance of the business. When Reilly joined Macmillan in the early 1980s, the company was on its knees loosing something like $100K a week. The share price was around $2. By the end of the decade, Robert Maxwell had purchased the company for over $90/share and Reilly and several of his management team were very rich. I joined after the Maxwell purchase and worked for Reilly for about a year before he went to join his team at K-III. K-III became Primedia.
Folio reports that services will be held as follows:
A wake is scheduled for October 21 in New York at the Frank E. Campbell funeral home from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. The funeral will be held Wednesday, Oct. 22 at St. Ignatius Loyola Church in New York at 10:00 a.m.
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