By the mid 1980s Gabelli was managing over $350 million in client assets and compounding returns at more than 35 percent per year. While Business Week was touting the "Death of Equities" on its cover, Gabelli was quoted as saying "I don't need a rising market to bail me out." Gabelli's firm was doing all its own research, usually with the idea of identifying firms that might be candidates for leveraged buyouts: those with characteristics such as a large amount of cash on hand, underlying assets such as real estate, or a large block of stock in the hands of a company founder with no children. He also looked for companies in industries where new competition was difficult and cash flow was high. Once Gabelli selected such a stock, he was willing to wait for years until it appreciated. He began buying Cowles Communications, Inc., for Example, in 1977 at $14 a share and eventually became its biggest stockholder. In 1984, the company (now Cowles Media Co.) was privatized at $46 a share, for a total payoff to Gabelli's clients of $33 million. Another media winner was Chris-Craft, whose BHC Communications achieved almost a sixfold pretax gain in income over six years in the 1980s and in the 1990s assembled its own network, United Television. The relentless Gabelli was visiting about 50 companies a year to gain information and meeting the managers of more than 100 other corporations annually, as well as getting together with other portfolio managers to discuss ideas and reading about 20 trade journals, two or three newspapers, and a number of industry and company reports. He also was writing research reports for his brokerage customers and portfolio-manager and other professional-investor clients. "I read annual reports instead of novels," Gabelli told Jerry Edgerton of Money in 1986. As a narrowly focused investor with large holdings in a few companies, he was able to bring influence to bear on company management.