Going Private

Oldtime fans who saw him in action still insist that Clint Frank was the greatest football player who ever strapped on a helmet. Frank, who won the Heisman Trophy in 1937 as a Yale halfback, has since run up a lot of points in another field: advertising. His Chicago-based Clinton E. Frank, Inc. had 1972 billings of $87 million.

Two years ago, Frank went public; the agency sold shares at $15.50 each. Lately those shares--along with those of many other publicly held ad agencies --have been thrown for a loss. The Frank shares have traded as low as $5, bid in the over-the-counter market. As a result, Frank wants to take the extremely rare step of going private again. If shareholders approve his plan next month, the agency will buy back, at the book value of $10.50, the roughly 350,000 shares owned by former employees and the general public.

Frank, now 57, argues that Wall Street does not properly evaluate agency stocks, and tends to overreact every time an account is won or lost. "We went public to provide liquidity," he says, "but how can you continue to have access to liquidity when there's no market for your stock?"

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