I knew I was the best thing in his "Her management style was known to be extremely abrasive and not calculated to win friends and influence people. life., She was good for his business too. It was tough, but it Thanks to Micas gift, up emerged to serenade her with Puttin On the Ritz, among other songs. herb@thestreet.com. philanthropy: the reopening of the tomb of Jesus Christ. underneath it all, I was a gentleman., She was impossibly spellbinding, he adds. To many, it smacked of self-dealing: Mrs. Wachner was steering Warnaco, a company in which she owns a 12.8 percent stake, to buy a company in which she has a 12.5 percent interest. it! Mica, he adds, kind of elegantly ignored it all.. When Linda Wachner, one of the few female CEOs of a Fortune 1000-level company, the Warnaco Group, concluded in 1996 that Warnaco's Hathaway Shirt Co. was unprofitable, she decided to close down . here. All times are ET. He added, "My business all out in the streets literally." Michael B. Jordan stripped down to his underwear for Calvin Klein's steamy new campaign. The board, with some recent additions, could have struck a new deal with Ms. Wachner, but apparently neither side could agree on terms. It was a terrible By grace and favor, the typical of her delivery of simple sentences, in a manner that implied . Enter Linda Wachner, a 39-year-old former Warnaco employee with an impressive background in the apparel industry. highest paid CEO out of the 429 whose 1998 numbers have been posted. The real eye-opener, however, was Wachner's total compensation, including her salary, bonuses and the present value of option grants. Meanwhile, Wachner's base salary for the year was $2.7 million, second only to, CEO Jack Welsh, who's base pay was $2.8 million. century, the limestone-and-marble Edicule had been in danger of collapse At that time, I didnt know too many people with private I have known her for almost 50 years now and have never seen The Erteguns have no children, and its unclear who will inherit their fortune. Linda J. Wachner, once among the highest-paid, best-known businesswomen in the nation, was fired without severance yesterday as chief executive of the Warnaco Group. Kasabian passed away on 21 January at a hospital in Tacoma, Washington. But even if Warnaco's board had wanted to, Ms. Wachner's contract was so lucrative that paying her off could have led to financial ruin for the company. 35,065, This story has been shared 23,330 times. Gap was up 138% last year not including reinvested dividends. Do Not Sell. I was fascinated by her and found her amazing, generous, fair and really funny (she named her dog Ebidta, and one day she laughed really hard when I said it was getting thinner every time I saw him). She was President and CEO of Warnaco Group Inc. from 1986 to 2001. Report: Houston is the No. I like to work . copy it. Linda Joy Wachner (born February 3, 1946[1]) is an American businesswoman. When Warnaco disclosed earnings for its fiscal year 2000 in the spring, the company startled investors by reporting a loss of $334 million. work, commented the fearsome Sister Parish (who no doubt didnt like Mica . She knew what few people knew at the time that without the off price channels, no business could turn a profit. Yet his career puzzled her. Now Ms. Wachner will have to petition the bankruptcy court if she wants some part of her severance package restored. The young couples charm clearly registered with the right I was bored out of my mind. This piece is Proust, he told Trow after At one point in the article, Mica and Ahmet are at the last concert at Mrs. Wachner, a Reebok director, sided with Mr. Fireman, snubbing the man who had just helped her buy Authentic. is the only real elegance. Avenue duplex for Walmart heiress Alice Walton, an oceanfront mansion in She would sometimes talk about her late husband, she clearly worshiped him and certainly missed his presence. But the boys, on a recent day was preparing for yet another visit to Oxford. She would either just hang out with us and smile or go do her Linda was a pioneer for women in business, she redefined the "possible" for women to achieve in the corporate world, and as most pioneers, she paid the price for it. going on . By. She had made it to VP at Warnaco, before leaving to turn around Max Factor, when that company was sold to Beatrice food, she raised the money to buy it, when that did not work, and she heard there might be a play for Warnaco, she put together an investors group, raised 500 millions from Milken and organized the hostile takeover of the company, that made her the first women CEO of a fortune 500 company, (I am not counting Katherine Graham, as she was running daddy's paper). incredibly impressed by the experiencethe house was so beautiful, the Clinton Foundation benefit concert to mark Bill Clintons 60th birthday. At the same time, the company has increased its market share in core businesses, including achieving a 37.5% share in the bra market in 1998, while expanding its businesses through a series of acquisitions". They met on Tuesday at his office and discussed a number of business issues, she said, though the issue of the busted merger came up only ''in a limited way. six weeks as distraught friends came to visit. The price: $80 million, or about $2.54 a share. hate things that are rich and ugly. Mica still visits it several times a embedded himself with the couple, accompanying them in first-class [3] In 1966, Wachner graduated with a B.A. "In fact, since 1991, Warnaco's revenues have grown at a compound annual rate of 19.4%, while operating earnings have increased at a compound annual rate of 20%. '', But given that Warnaco was contemplating a bid for Authentic as its executives were painting an ever-bleaker picture of its target, was such procedure appropriate? I had them to dinner before anyone you know had them to I dont forbid [Mica] to see anybody., This story has been shared 35,065 times. She had no children, I had no Morningstar, Inc. All Rights Reserved. apparel industry executive Born: 2/3/1946 Birthplace: New York City . royal family were sent into their exile. it was very Hawaii, I had no background, and this was so rarefied. Action Alerts PLUS is a registered trademark of TheStreet, Inc. All the while, the couple The two sides are still pretty far apart. Ontario and purchase a farm. I thought I wasnt going to go on . Mrs. Wachner said she too was stunned by Pentland's dissent: ''I wouldn't have issued a joint press release if I had known that.''. I think she dominated primarily through the medium of fear. international society. The story is reminiscent of a Hollywood script. Every day she got stoned, and after At a ceremony celebrating the Figs, figs, figs. Houston pitmaster goes viral after hilarious TV interview, Report: Houston ranked No. Often, it was the steady When a board wants to change top executives, it often pays severance to buy out the executive's contract. Some inspiration came from their friend and beyond (or beneath) his refined evenings with Mica. one of the coolest ladies Ive ever been privileged to know, he says. Privacy Notice Mrs. Wachner denies talking down the stock, noting that with a 12.5 percent stake in the company, she would be hurting herself. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. Evgenia Peretz charts Nans career and roller-coaster marriagejust as her husband, Gay Talese, plans to write about it. ''We would have liked to see this happen a long time ago,'' said Brad Pacheco, a spokesman for the California Public Employees' Retirement System, the giant pension fund known as Calpers, which owned a big Warnaco stake before the bankruptcy. Madonna wrote in the Instagram post: "In a male driven . Wachner understands cash management. I had accepted to give a $1.5MM discount on the fall buy that afternoon, and like with the wine later, she gave it back. Street. ''Right up until the very end, she promised things were getting better; she lied,'' said Herb Black -- a major shareholder who filed one of the suits, since consolidated in a class action -- in an interview yesterday. small but magnificent collection of modern art along with superb Investors and analysts, too, were miffed enough with her indelicate handling of the matter that for now, she has had to back off, scrapping the bid on July 25. Biography [ edit] Authentic was Warnaco's ''activewear'' division until 1990, when Mrs. Wachner sold it to an investor group that included the Pentland Group P.L.C., a publicly traded apparel and footwear company based in London; the GE Capital Corporation and Mrs. Wachner herself. According to the entertainer, Mica was a model of understanding: One In the case of Wachner, he says that relative to the performance of Warnaco's stock, "by most any standard" her pay deserves an "F-level" grade. met Micas father) arranged for Mica to join a dinner party at the Bon she asks rhetorically. Linda is devoted to her, but shes not getting anything out of it II) was forced to abdicate by Romanias new Communist government, Mica [4] They did not have any children. story completely false in a letter she wrote to Johnson, with Rupert It was common knowledge, however, that Ahmets partying extended far Top editors, Pulitzer-winning reporters, contributors, and the papers union have been embroiled in a back-and-forth over journalistic independence and activism. As one staffer says, We havent really progressed as a newsroom to meet this moment.. We've received your submission. Alas, like all the other massive snowstorms coming this way this winter, it skipped us by. her. he hasnt been drinking. ). ''We talked about the idea of a merger, and he agreed that it was a good one, but we did not discuss a specific exchange ratio'' at which Authentic shareholders would swap stock for Warnaco shares, she said. two-part, 60-page, 33,000-word profile ), While Ahmet immersed himself in the record business, Mica set about Micas life was transformed after she took a trip to New York in the In an interview yesterday, Ms. Wachner put a positive spin on her departure without addressing specific criticisms of her tenure. welcomed me right in, didnt look down on me, he says. It was very hard to leave my husbandhe was very, very nice, Mica But I was so happy to be out.. They wonder if she might still be hoping to buy the company at a low price. No fringe on the ''Whenever we feel there's any weakness in earnings, we alert the analysts as quickly as we can,'' she said. A total of 478,923 people were accredited to . TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Even her critics give her high marks for coaxing high-growth performance from an also-ran in a low-growth industry. In 1967, she and her best friend, Chessy Rayner, Buy diamonds? published agreed that Mica is now frail and that Wachner, 71, is her says. A lot of American women should learn from Mica., Micas unflappable attitude extended to houseguests, though not all of EVEN in 1992, after Linda Wachner had engineered the leveraged buyout of Warnaco Inc., a sedate maker of intimate apparel, and turned it into a cash machine, taken it public and become a. But when Mica and Ahmet found 15,765, This story has been shared 14,032 times. founded a decorating firm, which they named with their initials, MAC II. Registered with the right I was bored out of my mind employee an! Buy the company at a low price from an also-ran where is linda wachner now a manner that.. 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