Word: bidness
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...stunning rebuff to Johnson, the board awarded the food-and-tobacco giant to Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, the leveraged-buyout specialists. Underdog KKR won even though the firm's final bid of about $25 billion in cash and securities, or $109 a share, was a bit less than the $25.4 billion, or $112 a share, that Johnson and his handful of top RJR managers had offered as their last stab. (The largest previous deal was Chevron's $13.3 billion takeover of Gulf in 1984.) "It was destined to happen this way," said a source close to the bidding. "The board could...
Board members first showed their unhappiness in October when Johnson and KKR began publicly brawling over a possible joint bid. Angered by the spectacle, the directors called for outside offers. KKR, headed by Kravis and his cousin George Roberts, 45, made its own bid, and so did a team composed of the First Boston investment firm and Chicago's billionaire Pritzker family. The Pritzkers topped the first round of bidding with a preliminary offer of $27 billion, or about $118 a share for RJR stock that had traded for just $56 on the eve of the battle. The Johnson group...
...flying back to his home in San Francisco. But Kravis and Roberts stayed in close touch with their team in New York City as it prepared the final attack. When the directors met last week on the 35th floor of a midtown Manhattan skyscraper to open the final bids, they found that Kravis and Roberts had pumped their offer up to $106 a share, while the apparently complacent Johnson group bid only $101. A board adviser also noted that "KKR had the sounder financial structure." The First Boston team, meanwhile, withdrew from the competition after failing to demonstrate that...
...legal advisers swiftly drafted a letter to RJR chairman Charles Hugel, who heads the board but holds no managerial post in the company, declaring they were "astounded" that the directors "would go off into the middle of the night to negotiate." Hugel explained that the KKR bid simply was much higher. By 2 a.m., however, Johnson's advisers persuaded him that his chances were still alive. Armed with a new bid for $108 a share, Johnson arrived the next morning at the East Side law offices where the special, bid-selecting panel of five directors was meeting. He demanded...
Lawyers for the board gave Johnson and his small coterie of advisers 15 minutes to sweeten the latest offer. At about 1:15 p.m. on Nov. 30, Johnson, chain smoking, submitted a bid of $112 a share and then settled into a tiny % office to await the verdict. The directors still favored Kravis. "KKR was going to have to sell fewer businesses," a source close to the board said, "and there was more protection for RJR employees under the KKR offer." Moreover, the informant added, while the Johnson group said it would reduce its initial stake in RJR after...