Not well-regarded here in Pittsburgh. His hostile takeover activity cost the area a lot of jobs in the late 70’s.
That was almost 40 years ago. And considering how PA’s economy has benefitted from fracking, I suspect Pickens will be kindly remembered.
Hostile takeovers are brutal, but they are all about efficiency. If he hadn’t done that, the inefficient businesses would have gone under and ALL the jobs would have disappeared. You can count on that.
I’ve been in companies purchased by private equity firms and they get really strict about cost control. In the end, the downsized companies emerge leaner, more profitable, and more competitive and thus more likely to stay in business. Of course, some PE firms raid companies, bleed them dry, and hang them out to dry.
It’s called free enterprise. It’s tough on the receiving end, but you have to learn to adapt.
-PJ
Usually, a company that is a target for a hostile takeover has problems. Often, these problems can be solved by trimming the excess labor foisted upon the business by unions that, sadly, don’t consider the “bottom line” to be important.
Mergers result in the same “trimming.” Is it good for those let go? No. But the bottom line is important to those who have invested their money. Those stockholders are who management and labor work for. The hard fact of life.
Capitalism, it is our system.
“Not well-regarded here in Pittsburgh. His hostile takeover activity cost the area a lot of jobs in the late 70’s.”
I am sure that unions and their strikes had nothing to do with that ...