{"id":289149,"date":"2021-07-02T04:03:35","date_gmt":"2021-07-02T01:03:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/donald-rumsfelds-brief-and-bizarre-stint-in-a-private-equity-war-zone\/"},"modified":"2021-07-02T04:03:35","modified_gmt":"2021-07-02T01:03:35","slug":"donald-rumsfelds-brief-and-bizarre-stint-in-a-private-equity-war-zone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/donald-rumsfelds-brief-and-bizarre-stint-in-a-private-equity-war-zone\/","title":{"rendered":"#Donald Rumsfeld\u2019s brief and bizarre stint in a private-equity war zone"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Donald Rumsfeld\u2019s brief and bizarre stint in a private-equity war zone<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n

The late Donald Rumsfeld was remembered this week for his rough-and-tumble stints in world politics. Less well-known is his similar history in leveraged buyouts.<\/p>\n

In 1990, the late private-equity tycoon Ted Forstmann saw Rumsfeld, who sat on his firm Forstmann Little\u2019s advisory board, as a big name who could help market an IPO for his company General<\/a> Instrument, at the time America\u2019s biggest cable TV set-top box maker.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s despite the ex-defense secretary, who died this week at 88, having no prior experience in cable or telecom, although he had previously headed GD Searle, the maker of Metamucil.<\/p>\n

After taking the helm, Rumsfeld moved General Instrument\u2019s headquarters to his home town of Chicago from New York, firing two-thirds of the New York office. In all, he cut $65 million in overhead, according to the 2009 book \u201cThe Buyout of America\u201d<\/a> by Josh Kosman (yes \u2014 that\u2019s the same author of this column you\u2019re reading).<\/p>\n

In 1992, Rumsfeld clashed with Forstmann, who wanted an IPO. Rumsfeld was concerned about losses, which persisted despite his cuts. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was very clear Forstmann felt that Rumsfeld just wasn\u2019t playing the game<\/a> that he wanted to play to maximize his investment,\u201d former GI exec Hal Krisbergh said in the book.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Former
Donald Rumsfeld moved General Instrument\u2019s headquarters to his home town of Chicago from New York, firing two-thirds of the New York office.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Still, they spoke to analysts about earnings growth, with Rumsfeld doing so grudgingly. The IPO was a modest failure, with the shares in the first day of trading closing 14-percent below expectations. <\/p>\n

Meanwhile, GI was working on a way to get more channels into a set-top box. It convinced John Malone, its biggest customer, that it could increase capacity to 500 channels from 85. <\/p>\n

Malone\u2019s TCI announced in December 1992 that within two years it would be selling 1 million of the boxes and signed a letter of intent to buy them.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Former
Ted Forstmann ousted Donald Rumsfeld (seen here speaking at a Pentagon dedication ceremony in 2008) from GI in 1993, irritated with him, in part, for spending too much time analyzing the Gulf War on CNN instead of running the business.<\/figcaption>
AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

A year or so later it was becoming clear GI wasn\u2019t going to make its delivery date.<\/p>\n

In 1993, according to a source, Forstmann finally ousted Rumsfeld, among other things irritated with him for spending too much time analyzing the Gulf War on CNN instead of running the business.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon was hired to clean up the company, and he did, and when that was done, I felt it was time for him to move on, and he did,\u201d Forstmann spokesman said through a spokesman in 2009.<\/p>\n

Rumsfeld was paid well for his time, with compensation that included $34 million in stock.\n <\/p><\/div>\n

If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

For forums sites go to Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

If you want to read more News<\/a> articles, you can visit our News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“#Donald Rumsfeld\u2019s brief and bizarre stint in a private-equity war zone” The late Donald Rumsfeld was remembered this week for his rough-and-tumble stints in world politics. Less well-known is his similar history in leveraged buyouts. In 1990, the late private-equity tycoon Ted Forstmann saw Rumsfeld, who sat on his firm Forstmann Little\u2019s advisory board, as…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":289150,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2021\/07\/rumsfeld-private-equity-stint.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[110824,110926,106544],"class_list":["post-289149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-7-1-21","tag-donald-rumsfeld","tag-on-the-money"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=289149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289149\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/289150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=289149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=289149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=289149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}