Corporate Makeover - Hardcover

Segal, Harvey

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670820997 ISBN 13: 9780670820993

Publisher: Viking Adult, 1989

Synopsis

Demonstrates how chronic mismanagement of America's top companies leads to the hostile takeovers and leveraged buyouts that are changing the face of today's economy and argues that the resulting reorganization is essential to improving the nation's industry

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Like an Arctic trader's tinned kippers that are "not for eatin' but for buyin' and sellin,' " American corporations have become pawns in a hot takeover-buyout-selloff game. This game, enriching investment bankers and autonomous management teams to the detriment of production, operations, inventiveness and progress, is only the beginning, according to economist Segal, of a vast "makeover" of the U.S. economy. In his penetrating study, Segal examines the nature of the corporation, its vulnerability to junkbond-financed assault and the significance of indirect corporate power being amassed by institutional investors (controlling pension plans, insurance reserves, mutual funds) who now own half of all corporate shares. Eventually, argues the author, major firms will be "tightly run" by a few top owner-managers, rather than by hired hands operating at will. Other trenchant bits: well-paid "outside" directors do little to protect shareholder interests; Japan and the U.S. complement each other economically (so why squabble?); the current nearly exclusive corporate hiring of Ivy League MBAs stunts creative management thinking.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

As mergers, leveraged buyouts, and hostile takeovers have become an increasingly prominent feature of Wall Street behavior, numerous social critics have lamented this unfortunate state of affairs and particularly castigate corporate raiders, investment bankers, and Wall Street speculators who apparently have fueled such developments solely for the purpose of individual profit. Segal, a trained economist and former vice president of Citibank, takes a contrary view; he says that, for the most part, these developments have been healthy for the U.S. economy and have resulted in corporations which are more efficient and better able to deal with international competition. This book is sure to generate controversy.
- Gene R. Laczniak, Marquette Univ., Milwaukee
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 1989
• ISBN 10: 0670820997
• ISBN 13: 9780670820993
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272