Unable to flip Sunbeam to a new buyer, as he'd done with Scott, Dunlap was stuck actually running the company. He failed spectacularly. Within two miserable years, the board fired him. The tactics he'd used to stave off losses--the company overstated its net income by $60 million, which was real money back (in 1998)--earned him a civil suit from the SEC and a class-action suit by shareholders. Dunlap eventually settled both and was barred from serving as an officer or director of any public company.
Bernie Ebbers - Worldcom
The ultimate corporate shopaholic, Ebbers bought an
obscure telephone carrier in the 1980s and went on a 17-year acquisition binge
that turned it into the world's largest telecom company. Alas, his passion for
dealmaking didn't translate into the savvy necessary for running the complex
business. When telecom stocks went south in 2000, the company's massive debt
was exposed. Ebbers tried to disguise it through fraudulent accounting. In
2005, three years after WorldCom filed for bankruptcy, he was convicted of
overseeing $11 billion worth of accounting fraud. He's now serving a 25-year
prison term.
Ken Lay - Enron
When it comes to bad CEOs, Lay was the complete
package: He was not only dishonest but disastrously inept as a manager as well.
Lay, who founded Enron and turned it into a $70 billion energy company, was
uninterested in the day-to-day tasks of running the business.
Consequently, he gave free rein to untrustworthy subordinates like Jeff
Skilling and Andy Fastow. He also signed off on a maze of convoluted
transactions that formed the basis of a massive accounting fraud that would
wipe out investors and bring down the corporation. Lay was convicted of
securities fraud in 2006. If he hadn't died soon afterward, he would have faced
as many as 30 years in prison.
THE STAT: Enron stock lost 99.7 percent of its value in 2001.
Angelo Mozilo - Countrywide
Meet the man who made subprime a household word.
Once a symbol of self-made accomplishment--a butcher's son who built the largest
mortgage lender in the country--Mozilo became blinded by success and began going
after the riskiest and most unsavory of borrowers to boost his company's market
share. In doing so, he legitimized a sector that would ultimately bring down
the economy.
THE STAT: Mozilo's once-secret, now-infamous "Friends of Angelo" program
provided loans on favorable terms to politically influential borrowers,
including Senators Kent Conrad and Chris Dodd.
Dick Fuld Lehman Brothers
When your hubris triggers a national financial panic, you're a shoo-in for top prize. Fuld's reckless risk-taking may have been typical of Wall Street, but his refusal to acknowledge that his firm was in trouble--and take the steps necessary to save it--was beyond the pale. Since filing the largest bankruptcy in U.S. history ($613 billion in debts outstanding), Fuld has been belligerent and unrepentant. Even Bernie Madoff said he was sorry.
Jay Gould (Railroad Magnate)
When it comes to unscrupulous behavior, Gould makes
(Michael) Milken look like a sweetheart. A railroad developer and speculator,
Gould sold out his associates, bribed legislators to get deals done, and even
kidnapped a potential investor. He duped the U.S. Treasury, pushing up the
price of gold and prompting a scare on Wall Street that depressed all stocks.
After hiring strikebreakers during a railroad strike in 1886, he was reported
to have said, "I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other
half."
THE STAT: When Gould died, his fortune was worth an estimated $67 billion in
inflation-adjusted dollars.
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