Word: geneen
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Rohatyn has put together some of the biggest deals in history. His first supermerger was in 1968, when he helped ITT acquire Hartford Insurance for $2 billion. Throughout the 1960s Rohatyn worked with ITT Chief Executive Harold Geneen, who built the company into one of the first powerful conglomerates and the ninth-largest industrial firm in the U.S. at the time. The ITT-Rohatyn deals included Continental Baking, maker of Hostess cakes, and Avis. In recent years Rohatyn's handiwork could be found in the Allied-Signal merger and the acquisition of Electronic Data Systems by General Motors. "Felix...
...billion worth of properties acquired during the 1960s and '70s. These range from a cigar company to a former site of Madison Square Garden in New York City. Says Chairman Martin Davis: "I just don't think you can manage all these businesses well." The ITT conglomerate that Harold Geneen put together in the 1960s is also being dismantled...
...unites two companies with similar histories. Both Allied and Signal have been fueling growth through a string of acquisitions. Allied's sales have more than doubled since Hennessy became chief executive in 1979. He had previously worked for two celebrated conglomerate builders, Harry Gray at United Technologies and Harold Geneen at ITT. Geneen sent his former deputy a congratulatory telegram last week saying "Great work." During his tenure at Allied, Hennessy acquired nearly 35 companies. His most dramatic coup came after a long and nasty takeover battle: the 1982 purchase of Bendix, an aerospace and automotive-parts manufacturer...
Some business executives are skeptical. They believe that entrepreneurship cannot exist inside a large company on more than a token basis. Harold Geneen, the builder of ITT, contends in his 1984 book, Managing, that "entrepreneurism is the very antithesis of large corporations." Shareholders, he says, will never stand for the risks involved...
...that time, ITT was already mired in a slump. Profits were an estimated $462 million in 1984, down from a 1980 peak of $894 million. One reason for the poor performance was that the company's $8 billion debt, largely a legacy of the Geneen years, generated an annual interest bill of more than $600 million. In addition, ITT received a large portion of its revenues in foreign currencies. Profits were depressed because these currencies weakened against the dollar...