Those Brash New Tycoons

Traditionally, the South's business elite has been composed of people who made fortunes developing the region's natural resources: land, textiles, lumber, oil. They formed a closed clique that exercised great financial and political power. Today all that is changing. New business opportunities are cropping up as fast as, well, peanuts. There is a high demand for enterprise with a Southern accent, and to fill it, a brash new breed of entrepreneurs. Profiles of four:

FREEWHEELING J.B. For pleasure, Atlanta's J.B. (for John Brooks) Fuqua, 58, pores over corporate annual reports, seeking companies to acquire. His net worth of $50 million proves that he chooses well. J.B. learned how early, he recalls, after deciding that "the foundation of my fortune had to be use of other people's money."

The son of a small tobacco farmer in Virginia, Fuqua could not afford to go to college, but he did read "books, books, books" on radio and finance. At age 21 he persuaded backers to start a new radio station in Augusta, Ga., for him to run. J.B. soon talked the owner of a bottling company into selling out for a share of future profits. Wheeling and dealing, he was able to buy his own radio station in 1949; by 1953 he had branched into TV. The profits allowed him to use his spare time to serve four terms in the Georgia legislature.

Fuqua returned to corporate trading in 1965. Wanting to buy a company with a listing on the New York Stock Exchange, he purchased a metal-plating firm, only to liquidate it--except for its controlling interest in Natco, a Pittsburgh-based tile manufacturing company. Natco was renamed Fuqua Industries and became the corporate base for J.B.'s expansion program. By 1968 he had acquired more broadcasting stations and companies in photofinishing, mobile homes, lawnmowers and trucking, which all together rang up sales of $223 million. Next came a sewer-pipe company in 1970, but he sold it because the directors of the N.Y.S.E. did not like the fact that he owned most of the shares, leaving few in public hands. The sale netted J.B. $16.5 million, which helped finance his entry into the coal, oil and natural gas and real estate businesses. Nor has Fuqua finished. "I'm always chasing companies, dreaming," he says, moving steadily onward toward his first $100 million.

TOWBOAT JESSE. When Jesse Brent launched his career on the Mississippi in the late 1930s, riverboats accounted for just 2.5% of America's interstate freight. Now they carry 16%. Brent, a short, wiry man of 64, foresaw the boom and cashed in on it. His net worth stands at some $10 million --enough, he says, to buy "all the whisky and steaks I want," with plenty left over for philanthropy in his home town of Greenville, Miss. The wealth comes mainly from Brent Towing Co., whose 48 barges and 13 towboats make it one of the largest privately owned towboat companies in the U.S.

"The river is in my craw," Jesse says. Even before he graduated from high school, he helped his father run two packets carrying supplies from Vicksburg to plantations on tributaries of the Yazoo River. When new roads brought heavy competition from truckers, Brent had to switch to piloting Government boats at age 18. Deciding that the job would not get him ahead, he joined with two partners to buy a towboat. The three made $6,000 a month.

What Jesse wanted, though, was "a business that I could bring my sons into." He sold out of the partnership in 1956 and created Brent Towing to specialize in hauling oil, chemicals and other liquid cargoes. As river traffic picked up, Brent expanded the fleet and diversified the business to build, outfit and repair riverboats. Total revenues last year came to about $15 million, or enough, says Jesse, for the company to "get propositioned like a streetwalker." He has turned down all takeover offers, and, indeed, often helps other towboat men get started. "C'mon in," Brent cheerfully tells competitors. "Over the long pull, things look good "

HUNGRY HERMAN. The philosophy of Herman Jerome Russell is not complicated: "I am just hungry to do as much with myself as opportunity will let me." If the desire is familiar, the result is not. Russell started life as the youngest of a plasterer's eight children in Atlanta's seamy black Summerhill slum. Now 46, he is one of Georgia's top construction men. His Russell & Co., the corporate umbrella for separate companies that erect and manage buildings, plus some outside ventures will gross $150 million this year. He refuses to reveal his net worth, but a good guess might be $10 million.

Russell showed his instinct for economic adventure at age 16, when he bought a piece of land for $250 that he had earned working with his father. He built a two-family house on it: the rentals helped put him through Tuskegee Institute. After graduating in 1953, Russell returned to Atlanta. His big break came in the mid-1960s, when the city and federal governments expanded their financial aid programs for residential ' construction. Though Russell insists that his race did not win him any jobs, he always managed to get federal assistance on his projects. They include 2,800 apartments for people with low or moderate incomes, a 424-unit luxury development, and work on a complete new town called Shenandoah, 32 miles south of Atlanta--all of which are integrated. His companies also have had a hand in building office towers, a sports complex and Atlanta's subway system.

Aspirant black businessmen now look to Russell for financial help and advice. Politicians, including Jimmy Carter, seek his backing. Nonetheless, he prefers to stay out of the limelight. "I'm a behind-the-scenes-type guy," he says. "That way, I can cuss out anybody; I can sign my own check."

RESTLESS RAY. As Ray Banner sees it, there are two reasons for his success: he started with nothing, and he is short. A thin, brown-haired version of Mickey Rooney, he could not do much about his stature (5 ft. 6 in.). But at 51, Banner has parlayed fast-food franchises into a personal fortune of $25 million. From his headquarters in Nashville, Tenn., he runs 231 Shoney's Big Boy outlets in eleven states. He also owns the 19 Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises for central Kentucky and is starting new chains of his own. Most promising: Captain B's restaurants, specializing in seafood. His companies will gross $100 million this year.

The son of a Louisville paper hanger, Banner started working during high school as a machine-tool designer, became a clarinetist, next bought, with a partner, a grocery store in Louisville and, after selling the store, purchased a bowling alley, then a drive-in movie. Finally, in 1958 Banner seized the chance to buy the Nashville franchise for Shoney's Big Boy, a sort of Howard Johnson's featuring double hamburgers. His success with Big Boys led to another with Kentucky Fried Chicken. By 1971, when Shoney's Southern franchiser wanted to sell, Banner was ready to buy.

"Time is our competitor," he tells employees. They must serve food fast --or else the customer eats free. A stickler for cleanliness, Banner also has been known to startle (and please) customers by publicly apologizing for any slovenliness that he finds in his eateries. Now, as state liquor laws are relaxed, he plans to build more restaurants (he already has five) that serve cocktails and--surprisingly, at least for him--leisurely meals.

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