Topic: Tom Hicks

Thomas Ollis Hicks, Sr. (born in 1946), is an American 'leveraged buyout' businessman living in Dallas, Texas. Despite Forbes Magazine estimating Hicks' wealth at USD 1 billion in 2009, Hicks was unable to pay off joint loans of circa £200 million the following year. Hicks co-founded the investment firm, Hicks, Muse, Tate & Furst, previously owned fifty percent of the English football club Liverpool FC, and is chairman of Hicks Holdings LLC, which owns and operates Hicks Sports Group, the company that formerly owned the Texas Rangers and currently owns the Dallas Stars and Mesquite Championship Rodeo.

The son of a Texas radio station owner John Hicks, Hicks was born in Dallas, Texas. He graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School, in Port Arthur, Texas, in 1964. Hicks is a brother of Sigma Phi Epsilon, received his Bachelor's degree in Finance from the University of Texas in 1968, and received his MBA from the University of Southern California in 1970.

Hicks became interested in leveraged buyouts as a member of First National Bank of Austin's venture capital group. Hicks and Robert Haas formed Hicks & Haas in 1984. The next year that firm bought Hicks Communications, a radio outfit run by Hicks' brother Steven – the first of several media companies bought or created by the buyout firm that involved Steven (Capstar, Chancellor, and AMFM).