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David Mahoney is not just some faceless Mr. Big of business. The chairman of the Norton Simon conglomerate (fiscal 1982 sales: $3 billion) likes to bask in high-wattage limelight. He poses for profiles in magazines like Vogue and Success and appears in TV commercials for his Avis rent-a-car subsidiary. At his black-tie 60th birthday party last month, he and his wife Hillie, a former Miss Rheingold, played host to dozens of famous friends, including Estée Lauder, Alan King and Henry Kissinger...
...while the public is seeing lots of David Mahoney, it may soon see much less of his company. Mahoney last week proposed to make Norton Simon (Hunt's ketchup, Max Factor cosmetics, Johnnie Walker Scotch) a private corporation. He and a group of Norton Simon executives and other investors offered to buy all the firm's outstanding stock for about $725 million. If company shareholders and directors accept the plan, Norton Simon will apparently be the largest company ever to have moved from the New York Stock Exchange into private hands...
...offer of an estimated $29.50 per share, however, brought wails of indignation from Wall Street investors. They accused Mahoney of exploiting Norton Simon's depressed share price, which results from the company's recent lackluster performance, to shortchange shareholders. In anticipation of a sweeter deal from either Norton Simon or another suitor, the company's stock traded feverishly last week, closing...
...marketing. He started his own ad agency at 28 before becoming president of the Good Humor ice cream company and later a top executive at Colgate-Palmolive. In 1969 he won an executive-suite power struggle to become chief of the diversified empire put together by California Businessman Norton Simon, 76, who now owns only a token interest in the firm...
Mahoney reshaped the company by selling off more than 20 businesses and buying up firms like Max Factor (1973) and Avis (1977). His ability to produce profits, though, has been less inspiring. In the first quarter of this year, Norton Simon's operating profits fell 62%, to $8.9 million...