Word: sigoloffs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...company's comeback is the work of Chairman Sanford Sigoloff, who has made a career of saving ailing firms through tough cost-cutting moves that have won him a nickname taken from the Flash Gordon comic strip: Ming the Merciless. When Sigoloff came to Wickes in 1982, he closed down several unprofitable divisions. After losses in 1982 and 1983 totaling $507 million, the company had net income of $296 million in its last fiscal year. To bankroll the Gulf & Western deal, Wickes has been issuing new stock and securities. About $500 million is in hand, and Sigoloff anticipates no trouble...
...toughest move was closing Aldens, the fifth-largest U.S. catalogue-showroom operator, and breaking the news to its 2,600 employees, many of whom had worked at Aldens all their lives. Sigoloff had sought a buyer for the business, but none could be found. Fearing reprisals for the shutdown, he hired bodyguards for Aldens executives, who even suspected that their food might be poisoned. Said Sigoloff of the closings: "You're paid to make those calls. You're a professional, and you don't fall in love with businesses...
...Wickes, Sigoloff blossomed into a star of television commercials...
Like other heads of revitalized companies, Sigoloff is nervous about the future. "We have put a Band-Aid on," he says. "But all of a sudden, if the economy stumbles, the customers may disappear...
...though, so good. Sigoloffs goal was to pay off the company's $1.6 billion debt by the third anniversary of the bankruptcy filing, or April 1985. He may beat that deadline handily. Wickes directors last month announced that an agreement to pay back creditors had been reached; the company is expected to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of the year. Said Sigoloff, now riding annual sales of $3 billion from a leaner Wickes, which focuses mainly on the home-improvement market: "Considering the size of the case and the complexity, it's probably a world...