DEALMAKER HENRY SILVERMAN: HFS STANDS FOR GROWTH

You may never have heard of him, but if you've bought a home, rented a car or stayed in a hotel recently, you have probably encountered the handiwork of a high-powered, low-profile tycoon named Henry Silverman. Once a top Wall Street dealmaker, Silverman now runs a superfast-growing company called HFS that owns a collection of brands from Howard Johnson to Century 21 to Avis that have made it the world's largest and most aggressive franchiser. "You'd have a lot of difficulty finding another company this size that is growing this fast," says Smith Barney analyst Michael Rietbrock. How fast? In 1995...