Shamrock Holdings, or Shamrock, is a private equity firm founded as the Roy E. Disney family's investment firm; the Disney family remains its sole investor. Shamrock is a private corporation, and is fully owned by the estate of Roy E. Disney. Disney was the chairman of Shamrock, and Stanley Gold was its president and CEO. Shamrock assets include hotels and radio and television stations. Shamrock often takes an aggressive strategy, launching hostile takeovers. History Shamrock Holdings Inc. (SHI) was founded in 1978 as an investment company by Roy E. Disney. Shamrock then started buying television and radio stations. In the mid-1980s, SH moved into other industries. According to Reuters, in 1984 Shamrock held 1,428,061 (or just over 4%) of all Disney stock. Shamrock Capital Advisors is a successor company to SHI. After revealing that the company held 4.7% of Central Soya and agreements with two investment groups for another 5.9% in March 1985, the company offered to purchase the remaining shares with equity partners. SH closed on the purchase of Central Soya. In November, Shamrock began construction on Shamrock Plaza office building in Agoura Hills estimated to cost $5.1 million. In March 1986, Shamrock sold 1.6 million shares of the Walt Disney Co. on the open market dropping its share from 4% to 3% for tax planning and further business needs. In April 1987 its subsidiary, Shamrock Holdings of California, purchased a controlling interest in DBMS Inc. of Naperville, Ill., a software systems and services company. After the management team of Holly Sugar submitted a plan to take the company private, two shareholders - Shamrock (5.5%) and Brookehill Equities (11.8%) - filed separately with the SEC with the intent to possibly make a counter offer. In fall 1987, Central Soya, a soybean processor, was sold by Shamrock to Ferruzzi Group of Italy, making a profit of $125 million. In December 1987, the corporation attempted a buyout of Wherehouse Entertainment, who avoided the takeover by agreeing to be bought by Adler & Shaykin, a New York investment firm. Instead, Shamrock purchased Music Plus from Show Industries in April 1988 to begin its move into home entertainment retailing. In 1988 and 1989, it pursued Polaroid, ultimately failing to take over the company but winning concessions such as an advertising deal for its television stations. SH agreed in January 1990 to sell radio station KMGC-FM to Cooke Inlet Radio Partners for $22 million.