Billionaires are usually creating value, either with their entrepreneurial initiatives (such as Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk) or with their capital.
In the case of Peter Buck, he created value with his capital.
Peter Buck was the first investor of Subway Sandwiches, when he lent $1,000 to his friend’s son.
Peter Buck gave a loan to a friend’s son. That loan was used to start a single sandwich shop. That shop grew into what’s today Subways, the world’s biggest fast-food chain.
Peter Buck was a nuclear physicist by training. He was helping to design nuclear power plants in 1965 when Fred DeLuca, the 17-year-old son of a friend, asked him for advice on how to pay for his college education. Peter Buck, who had fond memories of an Italian sandwich shop that his family had patronized when he was growing up in Maine, suggested he open something similar.
Peter Buck, whose initial investment of $1,000 grew into Subway, the world’s largest chain of fast-food restaurants, died on Thursday November 18. He was 90.
But first Peter. Buck drove Mr. DeLuca to Maine and took him to Amato’s, the sandwich purveyor of his youth, which now has franchises throughout Northern New England. Peter Buck gave him a $1,000 loan, and within two weeks Mr. DeLuca had opened Pete’s Super Submarines — named after Dr. Buck, who became his partner — in Bridgeport, Conn.
Mr. DeLuca, a native New Yorker, made radio ads for what he called “Pete’s Submarines.” It turned out that listeners thought he was saying “Pizza Marines,” and so, for clarity’s sake, the partners changed the name in 1968 to Subway.
The two soon started opening restaurants in other locations. Today Subway has nearly 40,000 restaurants worldwide. Though a few thousand of its shops have closed in recent years, Subway is still the world’s largest food chain by number of outlets.
Forbes has estimated Peter Buck’s net worth at $1.7 billion, and he is listed by The Land Report as the seventh-largest landholder in the country. His holdings include more than 1.2 million acres of timberland in Maine.
While immersed in high-level calculations for nuclear power plants, Dr. Buck was also helping to build the sandwich business. He even donated his own kitchen table to outfit the first shop, at a strip mall in Bridgeport.
The day the shop opened, on Aug. 28, 1965, he and Mr. DeLuca sold out of their foot-long subs, which they topped with Pete’s secret salad dressing and sold for 69 cents (about $6 in today’s dollars). Subway’s foot-long subs today range in price from $5.50 to $8.95.
Peter Buck said it took 15 years for the business to become profitable. But the two opened additional shops anyway, Mr. DeLuca told Fortune magazine, to “create the image of success.” They earned enough for Mr. DeLuca to go to college after all, at the University of Bridgeport. He graduated in 1971.
Mr. DeLuca died in 2015.
Dr. Buck was a major philanthropist, especially in the field of education and health care. He also donated a 23.1-carat ruby, named the Carmen Lucia ruby after his wife, to the gem collection at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History.
But mostly, he kept a low profile. He drove an old car, The Wall Street Journal reported, and ate at least five Subway sandwiches a week.