By James R. Hagerty
As a high-school football player in Port Arthur, Texas, in the early 1960s, Thomas O. Hicks dropped a pass in a playoff game. His coach kicked him in the shins.
Football, he later told his son Tommy, made him tougher and more resilient. That helped later in life when the professional-sports business dealt him the financial equivalent of a kick in the shins.
Buying and selling companies -- including the makers of Seven Up, Dr Pepper, Chef Boyardee pasta and Bumble Bee tuna -- earned Hicks enough money to purchase both the Dallas Stars hockey team and the Texas Rangers baseball franchise in the 1990s, and to acquire a half share in England's Liverpool Football Club in 2007.
He had the thrill of hoisting the Stanley Cup when the Stars won the pro hockey championship in 1999. The Rangers reached the World Series in 2010, before losing in five games to the San Francisco Giants.
But both the Rangers and Stars ended up in bankruptcy proceedings; the Rangers were sold through an auction in 2010, and the Stars in 2011. Meanwhile, English fans were enraged when the Liverpool FC started losing. Debts piled up and the American owners didn't deliver swiftly on promises of a new stadium. Protesters wore scarves bearing a "Thanks But No Yank$!" slogan. Amid disputes between the owners, they sold Liverpool FC in 2010.
Hicks's experience in sports was emblematic of his career in business. During more than four decades as a private-equity investor, he swung from gushers of profit to sinkholes of red ink. At times, his firm was considered a rival of the buyout behemoths Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Blackstone Group. At other times, he lost hundreds of millions of dollars, notably during the internet-stock bubble of the late 1990s.
After every flop, "he'd bounce quickly back and move onward," said his daughter, Catherine Hicks Cosgrove.
Hicks died Dec. 6 at his home in Dallas. He was 79 and had been under treatment for throat cancer.
They called him Ice Pick
Thomas Ollis Hicks, the second of four sons, was born Feb. 7, 1946, and grew up in Dallas and Port Arthur, where his father, John H. Hicks, owned a radio station. His mother, Madelyn (Ollis) Hicks, was a homemaker.
Young Tom sprouted to 6-foot-3 and was so skinny when he first joined his high-school football team that he was nicknamed Ice Pick. On weekends, he had a different moniker, DJ Steve King, as he cued up Elvis and Everly Brothers tunes on his father's radio station.
Hicks studied marketing at the University of Texas and then earned an M.B.A. at the University of Southern California in 1970. After gaining experience in venture capital and investment banking, he began pursuing deals on his own or with partners and survived crushing losses on some oil investments. In 1984, he and Robert B. Haas founded the Dallas-based private-equity firm Hicks & Haas. (Haas died in 2021.)
Among other lucrative deals, that firm bought stakes in the makers of Dr Pepper and Seven Up and sold shares in the combined company for a big profit. In 1989, Hicks and Haas split up. Haas gradually wound down his investments and took up aerial photography and motorcycle riding.
Doubling down
Hicks doubled down on bigger deals in the 1990s as head of private-equity firm Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst. That firm scored with investments in radio stations and food brands, including Swanson frozen dinners and Vlasic pickles, but had losses on movie theaters, Argentine ventures and dot-com disasters.
Texas Monthly asked Hicks in 1998 why he kept making bigger deals once he had secured a large fortune. "This isn't about money," he said. "It's about having fun."
In 1999, Hicks told the Dallas Morning News, "My biggest challenge in life is that I am totally overextended." Six years later, after a particularly rough streak, he gave up his role as chairman of Hicks Muse and devoted himself to pursuing smaller investments with his sons. "I've had all the publicity I want to have," he said.
Hicks gave his children early training in business. He formed a partnership with his son Tommy to invest in baseball cards and let his daughter borrow the Stanley Cup to lure neighbors to her lemonade stand.
He is survived by his wife, Cinda Cree Hicks, six children and 14 grandchildren. An earlier marriage to Luann (Harrell) Hicks ended in divorce. His donations supported causes including education and Alzheimer's research.
"No matter the trials and tribulations he faced in life, he was constant in his generosity and love for his family," his children said in a press release.
Write to James R. Hagerty at reports@wsj.com.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 09, 2025 14:45 ET (19:45 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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