Word: viacom
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...still live in an era of buyouts. But diversification has largely given way to concentration. Gulf & Western was reduced to its media component, Paramount, and then taken out by another media company, Viacom. Geneen's successor at ITT was pressured by investors to break the company into pieces. By the time Geneen died last November, all that was left of ITT Corp. was a hotel company, which would disappear into a merger two months later...
...What happens when the CEO retires? Michael Eisner of Disney (who had a heart attack in 1994) and Sumner Redstone of Viacom (who is 75) have clashed repeatedly with potential successors, who then left. Both stocks have done well. But shareholders will get singed if these CEOs step aside suddenly. On the other hand, when Bank of America CEO Hugh McColl last month ran off his likely successor and agreed to stay on until 2002, the stock surged...
Those would include cable TV, where most of the wire has already been laid; Viacom and Media One Group just unveiled big buybacks. Airlines are in a good spot because even though traffic slows as the economy weakens, industry leaders like AMR and Delta can stop buying planes and weed out old gas guzzlers. Dividend-paying electric utilities tend to have appeal in a weak economy anyway, but with deregulation, some (Consolidated Edison, New England Electric) have shed capital-intensive parts of the business--generating power--to focus on transmission. In trying times, companies able to conserve cash should hold...
...various mediums of communication, coupling TV shows with books, magazines, and movies: witness Time's collaboration with CNN, the ever-growing mention of the Internet on TV shows or the recent AT&T/TCI merger. "The idea," a New York Times editorial asserts, "has always been that various divisions of Viacom or AT&T/TCI or News Corporation would work together to promote one another's product...
...reward for Antioco may be to lose his job. Blockbuster's past mishaps have wounded Viacom so deeply that the video giant is all but certain to get cut loose. Last week, underscoring that point, Viacom announced a $437 million charge to write down Blockbuster's old inventory. But the charge also clears the way for better results ahead. Redstone, who will release Viacom's second-quarter results this week, says Blockbuster's improvement should start to boost the parent company's earnings this quarter...