Word: aeg
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...idea of a uniform corporate look originated in Germany before World War I. Its pioneer was AEG, the nationwide electric company, which began as a manufacturer of light bulbs, soon made electric appliances and, by 1928, controlled mines, railroads, rolling mills and airplane plants. Peter Behrens, a painter, graphic artist and architect, who also gained a reputation as a designer of type faces and industrial products, created AEG's distinct, although by now somewhat antiquated rendition of its initials...
...problems of AEG-Telefunken, though, say as much about the shortcomings of one company's management and planning as they do about the changing fortunes of one of the world's great industrialized powers. After prospering in the high-growth years of the 1950s and 1960s, the giant company in recent years failed to keep pace with developments in new products and manufacturing and steadily fell behind other electronics manufacturers, especially in the U.S. and Japan. Although it was a pioneer in developing a commercially successful tape recorder in the 1930s, AEG-Telefunken eventually lost its lead...
...credit guarantees, bank loan write-offs and new bank credits amounting to $470 million. Events, though, were rapidly running against the troubled colossus. In June, President Ronald Reagan suddenly broadened the U.S. embargo on sales of American products for the planned Euro-Soviet gas pipeline, endangering a $260 million AEG-Telefunken contract to deliver to the Soviets 47 gas turbines that are being built under a U.S. license. Durr's ambitious program to restructure the company, called AEG '83, was stillborn when trade unions blocked the elimination of some 20,000 jobs. A British electronics firm early...
...that AEG-Telefunken is in receivership, a court-appointed appraiser will determine whether it can pay the legal minimum of 40% of its debts within 18 months and still remain in business. The Bonn government, which in the past has helped arrange mergers between troubled companies in the steel and automobile industries, has promised additional aid. Even if part of the firm survives, however, at least 20,000 jobs will be lost and dozens of factories either sold or shut down...
Many West German bankers and businessmen hope that the collapse of AEG-Telefunken will act as a spur for their country. They have long complained that high wages, low investment and excessive government regulation have sapped their country's economic strength. West Germany will need to return to bold innovation and good management if it hopes to succeed in high-technology growth industries of the 1980s. Those were the very areas where AEG-Telefunken failed...