Word: geneen
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...1960s and 1970s, ITT was the most voracious of a new breed of corporate giants that came to be known as conglomerates. Under the leadership of Harold Geneen, Wall Street's original Pac-Man, ITT gobbled up more than 275 companies; at one time the corporation produced everything from hydroelectric turbines to Twinkies. At its 1980 peak, ITT had annual revenues of more than $18 billion and was the 13th largest U.S. corporation. But as the company became more and more bloated, its debt surged, while profits and the value of its stock sagged...
After taking over from Geneen in 1980, Chairman Rand Araskog tentatively began to shed some of the conglomerate's less profitable divisions; last week he announced that ITT was going on the corporate equivalent of a crash diet. In the coming months, it plans to sell more than a dozen subsidiaries with assets of $1.7 billion. That will be a 12% slash in the company's current assets of $14.1 billion. Officials disclosed only a partial list of the units for sale. They include Eason Oil, the Bobbs-Merrill publishing house and O.M. Scott & Sons, which makes Turf Builder lawn...
That "monster" was largely the creation of Geneen, who became ITT's president in 1959 and chairman in 1964. He took what was basically a telecommunications company and transformed it into a vast empire that Author Anthony Sampson dubbed the Sovereign State of ITT. Says Felix Rohatyn, who as an investment banker with Lazard Freres helped put ITT together: "Under Harold Geneen, ITT was a company that essentially knew no limits. He thought anything was manageable." The result was a corporation that in 1979 had 370,000 employees in more than 100 countries. Among its multitude of ventures...
...decision to streamline ITT was a long time coming, partly because Geneen was a long time going. He turned 65 in 1975 but was reluctant to retire. Staying on as chairman, he installed an heir apparent, Lyman Hamilton, as % chief executive officer in 1978. But after Hamilton started planning a big reorganization, Geneen sacked...
...When Geneen finally turned over the chairmanship to Araskog in 1980, he kept a seat on the board of directors. Says Robert Sobel, author of ITT, a 1982 history of the company: "Araskog wanted to sell a lot of companies at the outset, but Geneen seemed to think that selling anything that he originally purchased represented a slap in the face." Some Wall Streeters believe it was not until Geneen left the board in May 1983 that Araskog, a West Point graduate who grew up on a Minnesota farm, could assume full command. The clearest signal that he was committed...