Word: british
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...besieged British conglomerate B.A.T Industries disclosed last week that it will sell its U.S. retailing operations, which include Saks Fifth Avenue (total stores: 46), Marshall Field's (24), Breuners (17) and Ivey's (23). B.A.T is reluctantly shedding the chains as part of a defensive strategy to fend off a takeover bid by Sir James Goldsmith...
What could be more American than Good Humor ice cream? Or the 60-year-old fizz of Alka-Seltzer? Or the Thermos bottle? Well, these familiar trademarks now belong to someone else: the Dutch and the British, the West Germans and the Japanese, respectively. So do such U.S.-born corporate names as Smith Corona, Brooks Brothers and Pillsbury (all British); General Electric TV sets and home electronics (French); Wilson Sporting Goods (Finnish); and Carnation (Swiss). Last year foreign investors acquired nearly 400 U.S. businesses, worth a total of $60 billion. That was 61% more than the previous year and represented...
...owners made little effort to understand the market they were entering, according to Manpower chairman Mitchell Fromstein. He even took offense at the Blue Arrow company newsletter, which he refused to distribute to his 1,400 U.S. offices because it was "poor in quality, provincial and British in nature with little articles about the soccer team in South Wales." Friction grew to the point that Blue Arrow tried to fire Fromstein, but in a battle for control he wound up in charge of the combined company. Local animosity toward Blue Arrow was so pervasive that Milwaukee's major league baseball...
...American companies. Last week the U.S. Department of Transportation persuaded Alfred Checchi, who led a $3.6 billion buyout of Northwest Airlines, to reduce the participation by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines in the deal from $400 million to $175 million. DOT officials said they would also scrutinize plans by British Airways to invest $750 million in the $6.8 billion employee purchase of United Airlines. Transportation officials said one concern is that foreign investors might share inside knowledge about U.S. airlines with their own governments, thus undercutting U.S. negotiations with other countries over air routes...
...Hoffman-Warren Beatty desert lark released in 1987, which lost $25 million. Three top-management teams have come and gone since CEO David Begelman was forced out in 1978 amid a financing scandal. Coca-Cola, which bought the studio in 1982 and still controls 49% of its stock, fired British producer David Puttnam (Chariots of Fire) in 1987 after barely a year at the helm, during which he accomplished little besides alienating Hollywood's establishment. Dawn Steel, the current film chief, has had mixed results during her brief tenure, and her future is uncertain. Coke plans to plow...