Word: salomone
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
About two months ago, David Tendler, 43, the chairman of Phibro, first began meeting socially in a New York suburb with John Gutfreund, 51, the managing partner of Salomon Bros., and several members of his seven-man executive committee. The talks were cloaked in the extreme secrecy that has become the hallmark of the two companies...
From each firm's point of view, a corporate marriage was attractive. Phibro, founded in 1914, had just been spun off from its smaller and less profitable parent, Engelhard Minerals & Chemicals Corp. of New York. Though it has been making record profits, Salomon had recently lost about $40 million in the highly volatile bond market. Several senior officials at Salomon, which is one of the few remaining partnerships on Wall Street, were also anxious to leave the firm and cash in their share of the operation...
...companies were very complementary. Phibro reaped profits of $467 million last year by trading in about 150 commodities ranging from tobacco and cocoa to zirconium and Peruvian bird droppings. It now wanted to offer new financial services like raising investment capital for its trading clients. The 71-year-old Salomon Bros., on the other hand, wished to expand its operations beyond traditional bond trading and corporate underwriting. Strategic metals, grains and other commodities, after all, have in recent years been some of the best investments around...
...Salomon Bros, partners, though, still had to be convinced. On July 31, Gutfreund invited them for a long weekend to a conference center in Tarrytown, N.Y., 27 miles from Wall Street. Between lunches and dinners laced with vintage wines and intermittent sets of tennis, the partners added up the benefits and disadvantages of a merger. By selling out, most of them, like Henry Kaufman, the firm's well-known chief economist, would become millionaires several times over. Gutfreund stands to reap $25 million to $30 million as the biggest winner of the deal. But the Salomon partners would...
...Salomon Bros.-Phibro agreement continues the pattern of recent megadollar mergers on Wall Street that began with Bache's acquisition by Prudential Insurance and the American Express takeover of Shearson Loeb Rhoades. The combined Salomon Bros.-Phibro firm, though, will not be going after new customers for credit cards or insurance. It will be making corporate deals on an unprecedented worldwide scale...