Word: itt
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...days of last summer, International Telephone & Telegraph Corp., America's biggest conglomerate, surprised investors by agreeing to sell a clutch of household names that it had acquired in recent years. Among them were home builders Levitt & Sons, Avis Inc. and Hamilton Life Insurance. To ITT insiders, however, the decision was no surprise. Chairman Harold Geneen chose to sell because the alternative was a costly antitrust battle with the Justice Department that would have tied up his company in courts for years, and might still have ended in divestiture...
...part of the price for peace, ITT also agreed to make no more major acquisitions in the U.S., an apparently crippling moratorium for a company that has relied heavily on mergers for its remarkable record of increased earnings for 49 consecutive quarters. But Geneen, a wily, English born accountant, had calculated the odds. In return for the U.S. companies that are on the block, ITT will get some $600 million. It will pump much of this into Europe. Thus, by restricting ITT in the U.S., the trustbusters helped to provide the company with both the funds and the incentive...
...from the Ranches. ITT has been growing fast in Europe, having acquired 16 firms in varied fields there this year. Telecommunications equipment accounts for about half of its European sales, and the company has expanded into automotive components, heating and ventilation equipment, and myriad other product areas. Last week the company named a new president for ITT-Eu-rope, which will have sales this year of about $2.7 billion, some 36% of the firm's global total.- He is Michel C. Bergerac, 39, who is almost as multinational as ITT itself. French-born "Mike" Bergerac is a naturalized...
Bergerac takes over ITT's European operation at a time when the monetary crisis has added to the uncertainty about the future of most Continental economies. Even so, Bergerac says: "Europe remains our choice for growth. It has the potential, the kind of well managed companies we like to acquire. Some of our rivals are hesitating about expansion, but that is ITT's opportunity...
That opportunity will be greatly enhanced by ITT's vaunted system of monthly European meetings. At these sessions, about 150 top managers from Europe and the U.S. review in detail the operations of each European company and product group. The European meetings cost ITT about $4,000,000 a year in travel, hotel, telecommunications, data processing and other expenses. Are they worth it? ITT men point to the record: since the meetings started in 1961, European profits have climbed...