Word: bergerac
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...some corporations are sure raking it in. April's shower of proxy statements reveals that a few fortunate chiefs are drawing record payments of salary, bonus and benefits: $1.7 million to Revlon's Michel C. Bergerac, for example, and $2.5 million to Warner Communications' Steven J. Ross. Alan Ladd Jr., the dollar scion of a departed Hollywood heman, collected $1.9 million last year as president of the 20th Century-Fox movie division, mostly in the form of a bonus for having had the shrewd sense (or good luck) to make Star Wars. Ford Motor had three...
High price is itself a selling point in cosmetics, a fact about which Bergerac is not the least apologetic. Asked if a $2.50 lipstick and a $6 lipstick are just the same product in a different case, he replies that the formulas are changed, but swiftly shoots back a question of his own. "Suppose they were the same and you knew it? Which would you buy for your wife if you wanted to impress her? If spending more makes you feel better, why not do it? How can you put a price on happiness...
...investors, happiness is rising sales and profits, and Bergerac has certainly given them that. Sales jumped from $639 million in 1974, Revson's last year, to $1.1 billion in 1977. Profits rose even faster, from $54 million in 1974 to $98 million last year. That includes international operations; Revlon manufactures in 25 countries and sells in more than 100. Bergerac is negotiating with officials of the Soviet Ministry of Food Industry, which has jurisdiction over cosmetics, to work out a deal to sell Revlon products in the U.S.S.R. "The market is clearly enormous," he says. Foreign cosmetics...
About a third of Revlon's sales come from its health-care business: drugs to control high blood pressure, antiacne soaps, diagnostic laboratories. Revson began diversifying into this field; Bergerac has pushed much further, mostly by acquisition. The products are related, he notes, and Revlon's pretax profit margins in health care (25.5%) are even higher than in beauty products...
...cosmetics industry, a gossipy and sometimes backbiting trade, the acquisitions have stirred talk that Bergerac intends to make Revlon another ITT. The president of one competing firm goes so far as to predict that in ten years Revlon will no longer be basically a cosmetics company but a conglomerate. Bergerac laughs off the idea, and his bubbling delight in the cosmetics business does make it seem farfetched. Some rivals and retailers also grumble that Revlon is cheapening its image by toying with the idea of selling in supermarkets. Bergerac replies that it is only testing that approach in Dallas, Denver...