Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Frederick Ross Johnson, OC (December 13, 1931 – December 29, 2016) was a Canadian businessman, best known as the chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco in the 1980s. [ 1 ] Early life and education
Those opposed to Johnson's bid for the company, Henry Kravis and his cousin George R. Roberts, were among the pioneers of the leveraged buyout (LBO). Kravis was the first person Johnson had talked to about doing the LBO and felt betrayed after learning that Johnson wanted to do the deal with another firm, American Express's former Shearson Lehman Hutton division.
Ross Johnson was the President and CEO of RJR Nabisco at the time of the leveraged buyout and Henry Kravis was the managing partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. The leveraged buyout was in the amount of $25 billion, and the battle for control took place between October and November 1988.
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
Self-made multimillionaire F. Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR Nabisco, decides to take the tobacco and food conglomerate company private in 1988 after receiving advanced news of the likely market failure of the company's smokeless cigarette called Premier, the development of which had been intended to finally boost the company's stock price.
As a result, in February 1989, RJR Nabisco paid executive F. Ross Johnson US$53,800,000 as part of a golden handshake clause, the largest such deal in history at the time, [8] as severance compensation for his acceptance of the KKR takeover.
For premium support please call: 800-290-4726 more ways to reach us
The event was chronicled in the book, Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, and later made into a television movie starring James Garner. F. Ross Johnson was the President and CEO of RJR Nabisco at the time of the leveraged buyout and Henry Kravis was a general partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts. The leveraged buyout was in the ...