Word: german
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Often, the dream is to fly: on skis (The Great Ecstasy of Woodcarver Steiner) or in an airship (The White Diamond) or in a U.S. Navy plane (Little Dieter Needs to Fly). That last film--about a German boy who arrived in America with the dream of flying, flew missions over Vietnam, was captured and tortured, and escaped--had so much natural drama that Herzog turned it into a "real" movie, Rescue Dawn, with Christian Bale as Dieter...
...former German telephone�monopoly Deutsche Telekom took a leap of faith across the Atlantic and bought an upstart U.S. mobile-phone company called VoiceStream Wireless for $46.5 billion. Telekom's management was excoriated for paying an exorbitant price for the smallest operator in a crowded market, dwarfed by giants Cingular, Verizon and Sprint. But the bet paid off. Today, the U.S. arm of T-Mobile, the German mother ship's wireless unit, is still ranked fourth, but it is the fastest-growing part of the $75 billion company and well on its way to becoming Telekom's largest revenue source...
Once a state phone and mail monopoly, the sprawling Bundespost had more employees than the German army had soldiers. In the 1990s, the government split it into three companies--Deutsche Telekom, Deutsche Post and the Postbank--and floated them on the stock market. The most successful, Deutsche Post, grew into a global logistics company. Again, the critical expansion was in the U.S., where it bought freight company...
Telekom's top shareholders--the German government, which holds 33% of the company, and Blackstone, which has 4.5%--have become unlikely allies in activism. Previously the government has been more concerned with preserving jobs...
When Blackstone bought Telekom shares last April, it committed to holding them for two years. So at the current price, neither the German government nor Blackstone is prepared to exit, a circumstance that is fueling rumors that Ricke could be replaced in December with a CEO with global chops who would aggressively cut costs and implement a viable strategy. A Blackstone spokesman confirmed that the company is unhappy with Telekom's share price, but declined to comment on Ricke's performance. Still, Ricke doesn't appreciate the interference, and his relationship with Blackstone boss Stephen Schwarzman has chilled so much...