Word: seagram
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Cunningham quits Seagram...
Mary Cunningham was talking to reporters again last week. The story this time: her resignation from Seagram distillers, effective this week after 21½ years with the company. In keeping with her status as America's best-known businesswoman, she wanted to tell her side, and the press wanted to hear...
...reason she quit, said Cunningham, 32, was to devote herself full time to Semper Corp., the venture-capital firm that she co-founded with former Bendix Chairman William Agee, 45, in June 1982, the same month the two were married. She said her job at Seagram, developing a strategic plan for its wine business, culminated last month with Seagram's announcement of plans to buy Coca-Cola's Wine Spectrum division for about $200 million. But Cunningham's efforts to take partial credit for the purchase were met with skepticism from some industry observers. Moreover, Seagram Chairman...
Industry watchers generally approved the move. Said Kidder, Peabody Analyst Roy Burry: "Combined with its already substantial wine interests, the buy will give Seagram's the critical mass of volume needed to market and distribute wines effectively." Paying off Coca-Cola will not be difficult. Seagram's plans to pay the $200 million purchase price in part with $120 million in annual dividends from its 50.3 million shares of Du Pont stock; the distiller acquired most of its 21% stake in Du Pont, now worth $2.6 billion, as a result of the 1981 battle to take over Conoco...
...gentleman in a gentleman's industry," said Emanuel Goldman, a partner of Montgomery Securities in San Francisco. It is expected that the tough advertising that Coca-Cola fostered will probably end. Meanwhile, wine prices are likely to start increasing, largely because of a predicted small 1983 harvest. Seagram's may be getting deeper into wine at the perfect moment...