TWA: Didn't stand a chance agains't their new Uncle

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MOUNT KISCO

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Aug 31, 2005
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Unless you've been living under a rock for this last year, you've must have read about Carl Icahn's challenges into the Corporate Board rooms at Time Warner, the Fairmont Hotels, Kerri McGee Oil, Mylan Drugs, Imclone, Blockbuster Videos, Hollywood Entertainment all just this year, 2005.

Needless to say Uncle Carl has been busy. He's a bit older now than his TWA days, but nonetheless it's classic Icahn. Sneak-in through the back door, take the family jewles and leave.

So it burns me when someone says that TWA failed because it had poor management. No; it failed because it had a selfish owner.

For fear of Frank Lorenzo, the TWA Unions embraced their new Uncle, ( a wolf in sheeps' clothes ) who later stripped the employees ( London routes to AA ) , while squeezing more and more concessions out of it's labor force.

NYTimes.com

December 12, 2005
AOL Co-Founder Calls for Split of Time Warner
By RICHARD SIKLOS
and ANDREW ROSS SORKIN

As Time Warner nears a decision on a big alliance with Google or Microsoft for its America Online unit, Stephen M. Case, the co-founder of AOL, has spoken out against the plan, aligning himself with the thinking of the financier Carl C. Icahn, who has pushed for a breakup of Time Warner.................../
 
Uncle Carl's game is buy in, declare the management incompetent or say they do not represent the shareholders, then squeeze the management until they take some action that raises the share price, get greenmail or find a way to take money out of the corporation. Over and over again he does this, successfully most of the time. He has no interest in managing or building up a company. Just get money out. A truse vulture capitalist.
 
The only difference between Icahn and Lorenzo was that Carl had far better lawyers and accountants.
 
<_< But really, if your talking about who did the most damage to TWA, Mr. Smart & Co. (Trans World Corp.) did a number on TWA long before Icahn! A lot of people don't realise that TWA,Trans World Corp.,(Parent Co.) owned: Hilton International Hotels, Spartain Foods, Century 21 realestate, Hardy's Burgers, and more, all paid for by TWA(the Airlines)money!!At that time by the way, TWA was bigger than aa! The idea originally was these companies would carry TWA, the Airlines, through hard times! A parent company was created to manage all of the above, but when times did get bad, the parant company spon the Airline off, took the companies TWA had paid for, sold them off, and pocketed the profits!!!And that was just the start, in my opinon of our down hill slide! And then Tillinghast,(one of our infamise CEOs)came along and tryed to breack out the Unions, and when he realized that he couldn't, got Lorenso make a run on TWA!! The Unions countered with Icahn, and the rest is history!!!
 
TWA was a badly-managed airline as far back as the late 50's, perhaps farther back. Their problems were widely known. Lots of folks made a poor choice when they chose to work there.
 
You'd better duck WW, your going to have a few canes, walkers, and false teeth thrown at you. :huh:
 
Who else remembers when Icahn took over TWA, he immediately transferred ALL ground equipment to a leasing company that HE owned! TWA then had to pay Icahn back to use tractor or ladder.
 
Hackman said:
You'd better duck WW, your going to have a few canes, walkers, and false teeth thrown at you. :huh:
Click to expand...
<_< Hey! Not from me! He's right! But at the time, we didn't know that! Number 1,2,&3 Airlines were: United,American,&TWA!!!If we'de know then, what we know now, it would have been a whole differant ball game!


Hackman said:
You'd better duck WW, your going to have a few canes, walkers, and false teeth thrown at you. :huh:
Click to expand...
<_< Hey! These old men can still turn a mean wrench! I know because we're still precived as a threat by TUL!!!! :lol:
 
Wretched Wrench said:
TWA was a badly-managed airline as far back as the late 50's, perhaps farther back. Their problems were widely known. Lots of folks made a poor choice when they chose to work there.
Click to expand...

The entire industry is just one big toilet now , some just went early with the first flush.
 
MOUNT KISCO said:
The entire industry is just one big toilet now , some just went early with the first flush.
Click to expand...


LOL. Wonderful comparison. Can I use that?

However, TWA management was so bad that there was a suit to get Uncle Howie out of there. Even high school kids knew he was daft.

.
 
MCI transplant said:
<_< But really, if your talking about who did the most damage to TWA, Mr. Smart & Co. (Trans World Corp.) did a number on TWA long before Icahn! A lot of people don't realise that TWA,Trans World Corp.,(Parent Co.) owned: Hilton International Hotels, Spartain Foods, Century 21 realestate, Hardy's Burgers, and more, all paid for by TWA(the Airlines)money!!At that time by the way, TWA was bigger than aa! The idea originally was these companies would carry TWA, the Airlines, through hard times!
Click to expand...

Correct me if I'm wrong, but the same goes for AA's Americana Hotels, Sky chefs, Security 76. The difference here is that AA had Robert Crandall and Al Casey as his mentor. Without Crandrall's vision, AA would now be a just a footnote in commercial aviation like PanAm.
 
MOUNT KISCO said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the same goes for AA's Americana Hotels, Sky chefs, Security 76. The difference here is that AA had Robert Crandall and Al Casey as his mentor. Without Crandrall's vision, AA would now be a just a footnote in commercial aviation like PanAm.
Click to expand...
<_< Did you know Crandall worked for TWA before aa?? But of course you did!! :p
 
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