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TIME: Almanac 1990
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1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso
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time
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010289
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01028900.014
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1990-09-22
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BUSINESS, Page 88MOST OF '88
TOP TRUMP TAMER
Switching from gabbing to grabbing, former talk-show host Merv
Griffin outmaneuvered developer Donald Trump for control of Resorts
International, the Atlantic City hotel-and-gambling company. The
megarich Merv paid $364 million.
COSTLIEST TYPO
When Prudential took out a lien against eight ships owned by
United States Lines, someone wrote down $92,885 instead of
$92,885,000. So when the shipping firm went bankrupt and sold the
liners for $67 million, it technically owed Prudential only
$92,885. The shipping company eventually agreed to give Prudential
the proceeds, but deducted $11 million as the price of the errant
decimal point.
MST $$$, BLDG W VU
The world's tallest skyscraper, Chicago's 110-story Sears
Tower, went on the block for an asking price of at least $1
billion. Fearing corporate raiders, the giant retailer decided to
sell the building to raise cash (its original cost in 1972: $200
million).
MOST FRILLS ON A GOLDEN PARACHUTE
Gerald Tsai, head of the Primerica financial-services firm,
grabbed $40 million in severance when he sold the company, whose
holdings include the brokerage firm Smith Barney, to Commercial
Credit Group. Part of Tsai's deal: 120 hours free use of the
corporate jet and a consulting contract that will pay him
additional income for time he spends working in the office on his
yacht.
CHEAPEST ROUTE TO BANKRUPTCY
Texas tycoons William Herbert and Nelson Bunker Hunt paid $1
each to ride the New York City subway when they came to town to
face a civil suit in U.S. District Court. A federal jury found that
the former billionaires, along with their brother Lamar, had tried
to rig the silver market in 1980 and assessed them damages of $130
million.
MOST ENDANGERED SPECIES
The last Playboy Bunnies in the U.S. folded their ears when
their warren in Lansing, Mich., closed for lack of business.
WEAKEST TAKEOVER DEFENSE
Pillsbury's "just say no" strategy failed to fend off British
consumer-products giant Grand Metropolitan. The Dough Boys also
tried a "poison pill" strategy that would have awarded current
stockholders a larger share of the company, making it far more
expensive to purchase. But a Delaware chancery court ruled against
Pillsbury's tactic, and it was gobbled up last week for $5.75
billion.
BEST CAPITALIST GIFT TO SOVIET WOMEN
Tambrands, the New York-based makers of Tampax, agreed to
manufacture the product as part of a joint venture with the Soviet
Union in what will be that country's first tampon factory. The
plant, near Kiev, is expected to produce as many as 150 million
tampons a year.
MOST BODACIOUS BIDDER
RJR Nabisco chief Ross Johnson and some colleagues offered to
buy out the company for $17.6 billion in a deal that could have
netted Johnson $100 million. The bidding eventually hit $25
billion, but RJR directors rebuked Johnson and awarded the company
to the Manhattan buyout firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. Last week the
House Energy and Commerce Committee announced a probe of the deal.
FASTEST-GROWING REPAIR BILL
The official estimated price tag to bail out the Federal
Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation, which guarantees the
deposits of the troubled thrift industry, jumped from $20 billion
at the start of 1988 to as much as $50 billion by year's end.