BANKING AND FINANCE : Karcher Investor Looks to Ancient Wars for His Inspiration

As a student of battlefield strategy, William P. Foley II carefully picked the name of the investor group that bailed hamburger magnate Carl N. Karcher out of most of his financial woes and captured control of the Carl’s Jr. fast-food chain.

Foley, chairman of Fidelity National Financial Inc. in Irvine, called the group the Cannae Limited Partnership. The name goes back to the Second Punic Wars between Carthage and Rome.

Hannibal, already through the Alps and on the southeast coast of Italy, met the Romans at the seaside city of Cannae in 216 BC. His depleted troops from several nations were vastly outnumbered, but the Carthaginian leader had a new strategy: He put his cavalry on one wing, Libyan troops on the other and the Gauls and the Iberian infantry in the center, creating a crescent-shaped line. The Romans, stacked deep, rushed the center and tried to crush through. Although Hannibal’s center line sagged, it never gave way, allowing the wings time to encircle the Romans.

The Romans were jammed so tightly they couldn’t even raise their arms to fight. Hannibal’s forces slaughtered 50,000 enemy troops, inflicting the worst defeat ever on the Romans.

The Cannae Limited Partnership, with hefty loans from Imperial Bank and Wells Fargo bank secured by the deep pockets of Foley and other investors, was prepared to yield and bend as it plotted to gain control of Carl Karcher Enterprises.

With other allies outside the partnership, though, it also was encircling the company’s board to win a possible shareholder vote for control of the company.

The board, however, agreed to put Foley and another investor on its board and to give Karcher himself a role in the company as chairman emeritus.

So the symbolism of using the Cannae name was never fulfilled, and Foley said he is glad it wasn’t. Hannibal, after all, was soon routed and Carthage signed a peace treaty. Still pursued by the Romans, Hannibal eventually poisoned himself.

Lest anyone think Foley is wrapped up in symbolism, though, he called the company that acts as Cannae’s general partner Bognor Regis simply because he liked the name. It’s a city on the southeast coast of Britain.