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- <text id=89TT0810>
- <title>
- Mar. 27, 1989: Business Notes:Management
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Mar. 27, 1989 Is Anything Safe?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 75
- Business Notes
- MANAGEMENT
- Now for the Hard Part
- </hdr><body>
- <p> When Ross Johnson, flamboyant head of RJR Nabisco, lost his
- bid for control of the giant food and tobacco company in a $25
- billion leveraged-buyout brawl last year, he also lost his job.
- Last week RJR's new owner, the buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis
- Roberts, announced its surprise choice for Johnson's
- replacement: Louis Gerstner, 47, marketing maven and president
- of American Express.
- </p>
- <p> Gerstner, who was widely expected to succeed American
- Express Chairman James Robinson, 53, has never run a tobacco
- business. But KKR partner Henry Kravis chose Gerstner for his
- prowess as a strategic planner. Among other accomplishments,
- Gerstner launched the successful Platinum card. As chairman at
- RJR Nabisco, he will have to engineer the sale of about $8
- billion in assets to pay off some of KKR's buyout borrowings.
- But his compensation will be as tall as his task: as much as $45
- million over five years.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
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