Word: stallkamp
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There are lots of details that can strangle a $48 billion merger--different accounting practices, the need to rationalize information technology, patent ownerships--and Tom Stallkamp thought he'd worked through them all. As president of Chrysler, he had helped orchestrate the American company's merger with Germany's Daimler-Benz. But last November, as the new outfit, DaimlerChrysler, approached the date it would debut on the New York Stock Exchange, the whole thing stalled seemingly over whether the company would use American- or European-size business cards. The more tradition-bound Germans dug in their heels, not surprisingly...
...odds, and the human costs, the whole thing just might work. Bolstered by a sizzling auto market in the U.S., the new company is raking in profits even as its executives redefine the boundaries of their businesses. At New York City's tony Le Cirque 2000 two weeks ago, Stallkamp and a chorus line of executives trotted out their achievements: more than $1.4 billion in savings, a healthy stock price of $94 and 34 new products already on the drawing boards. "Nobody's done this before," crooned Stallkamp. "But we're feeling pretty good about where...
...Schrempp feared it would touch off a xenophobic outcry in Washington. Eaton did not want to seem as if he'd just sold out. But Eaton blundered. He announced last May that he would step down as co-chairman within three years and turn the company over to Schrempp. Stallkamp, sensing what the consequences might be, pleaded with him not to say it, but Eaton wasn't swayed. "I believed strongly there should not be two CEOs," he explains. "But I probably made a mistake in saying I would leave...
Eaton, now a lame duck, had basically surrendered Chrysler's power base. As Stallkamp had feared, the announcement undercut the Americans' influence with the Germans. He "abdicated," in the words of a DaimlerChrysler official. At a top-management seminar in Seville, Spain, last December, Eaton delivered a passionate speech on the new company and how its leaders had to band together to make it work. The oration left even Schrempp uncharacteristically at a loss for words. But by February the Germans were referring derisively to the speech as "Eaton's farewell...