Word: jovanovich
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...retire, you're finished," a crusty William Jovanovich often told his nail-biting subordinates. Yet last week, after 34 years at the helm of book-publishing giant Harcourt Brace Jovanovich (1989 sales: $1.8 billion), the 70-year-old iconoclast finally buckled. He passed his chairmanship to HBJ board member John Herrington, a former U.S. Energy Secretary. "The burden was too great, and Bill had had enough," explains another director. "He was also getting...
...Jovanovich had already been replaced as chief executive in December by his son Peter, 41, but last week's final farewell was abrupt -- and necessary. While the company faces no immediate liquidity crisis, its $1.7 billion debt is dragging it down. HBJ posted an operating loss of $242 million last year, and its stock has collapsed to $3 a share, from $19 in 1989. To shed ballast, HBJ sold its Sea World theme parks last year for $1.1 billion. But the company needs to sell even more assets, and the elder Jovanovich did not have the heart to tear apart...
...Jovanovich, the son of a poor immigrant coal miner, never owned more than 2% of HBJ's stock. This lack of control came to haunt him after he expanded the firm too rapidly in the 1980s. When the company's stock sank in early 1987, British publishing tycoon Robert Maxwell launched a hostile takeover bid. In a long and bitter fight, Jovanovich prevailed by recapitalizing HBJ with nearly $3 billion in debt, a large chunk of it in junk bonds. Maxwell, who called Jovanovich "a dumb Croat coal miner" who "killed" the company, has offered to buy some assets. "Maxwell...
Stocks have been slammed too. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a publishing company that borrowed $2.1 billion last May to repel a takeover attempt by British tycoon Robert Maxwell, has suffered a slump in its stock price from 5 to 2 just since Jan. 1. Time Warner, which has nearly $11 billion in debt from Time Inc.'s acquisition of Warner Communications, has seen its stock fall from 124 at the beginning of the year to 103 1/8 last week. The shares of Stone Container, a paper manufacturer that borrowed $2.2 billion to buy a Canadian competitor last March, have declined from...
FOUCAULT'S PENDULUM by Umberto Eco (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich; $22.95). Eco has woven together a novel that is even more intricate and absorbing than his international best seller The Name of the Rose. Beneath its endlessly diverting surface, this book constitutes a litmus test for ways of looking at history and the world...