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AL Dunlop was proud of the fact that he was at the bottom of his West Point class (he did graduate). A frightening thought worthy of Dr. Strangelove is that as an officer he was assigned to a missile silo and the missiles were armed with nuclear weapons.

He was chosen to turn around Scott Paper company. Within six months he had dismissed 11,200 employees including 50 percent of all managers and 70 percent of all corporate staff and paid off a significant amount of Scotts long term debt. He then sold the company to Kimberly - Clark making over $100 million from his stock options.

In the spring of 1995 AL Dunlop gave a talk at the Johnson School in Professor Biermans finance course. He received a standing ovation for his talk which stressed that managers should increase shareholder value.

That night there was a dinner in his honour at Renees attended by Charles Elson (law school professor and friend of AL), Bob Gibbons, Jerry Hass and Hal Bierman (the last three were Johnson School professors). It was a dinner from hell. Dunlop insisted on using profanity continuously and incorrectly and insulting each of the professors in sequence. Attempts at peace making were turned into profane tirades. He was actually an unintelligent, dislikeable and uninformed man.

The next day a group of students came to Professor Biermans office and advocated AL Dunlop for Dean of the School. Bierman suggested that they approach the tenth person they met in collegetown and offer the job to that person since he would perform better.

July 18, 1996 Dunlop (now 59) was made Chairman of the Board of the Sunbeam Corporation, a company in need of help. On July 17, the stock price was $12.25. By July 19, the stock reached a price of $19.50. This was the biggest gain prompted by a chief executive announcement in the history of the New York Stock Exchange. Professor Bierman took it as a matter of honour to sell the stock short.

Sunbeam paid Dunlop a salary of $1 million a year, 2.5 million options to buy at $12.25 and one million shares of restricted stock(worth $18 million). The total package has a value in excess of

$38 million.

By August 8, he had dismissed the president of Sunbeams household products group, the chief financial officer, the chief operating officer North America, and the vice president of strategic planning for North America. Sunbeam had 60 staff people at its Fort Lauderdale headquarters. The market expected headcount reductions. Dunlop sent the following press release I set as an initial goal the quick appointment of a highly focused management team to provide leadership in the transition to the Sunbeam Corporation. He also stated if you cant rum a company around in a year, you cant do it at all.

In November 1996, Dunlop announced a major restructuring. Headcount will be reduced by 50% to 6,000. Some of the reductions will be the result of divestitures.

In January 1997, Sunbeam sold its clock, timers, and thermometer units to CIT Group Holdings for $8 million (the units generated $20 million in annual revenues).

By the first quarter of 1997, Sunbeam had a positive (but small) profit, Sales were almost as high as in 1995 but not as high as the first half of 1996. But some critics pointed out that there were last minute sales drives in the first quarter of 1997, including deliveries when the orders had been cancelled because of failure to deliver in time.

Dunlop said we are definitely on schedule and we will probably deliver better results than we expected . The stock price broke through $30. Professor Bierman sold short more shares.

By December 1997, the stock price reached $41. Professor Bierman covered his short position having lost all faith in the efficiency of the stock market.by the end of 1997, the stock reached a high of $50 7/16 and the company reported net earnings of $109.4 million ($1.41 per share) for the year.

In the fall of 1997, Dunlop hired Morgan Stanley to sell Sunbeam. The $50 stock price precluded any bids. Dunlop decided if he could not sell then he would buy.

In March 1998, Sunbeam purchased Coleman Corporation for $2.2 billion and Signature Brands and First Alert for $425 million. Now Sunbeam had over $2 billion of in debt and its net worth was a negative $600 million.

By June 8, 1998, the business press wondered whether Dunlop had manufactured Sunbeams 1997 earnings by accelerating the bookings of sales and various accounting tricks .one author estimated the inflation in profits to be $120 million. This estimate was probably too low.

On Saturday, June 13, 1998, Albert J. Dunlop was fired by Sunbeam. The motion to remove Dunlop was made by Charles Elson, Dunlops good friend and staunch alley in the pursuit of shareholders rights. Elson was an honourable person who voted on behalf of Sunbeams shareholders and against his friend. Sunbeams stock had fallen to $18.0625 on Friday, June 12. The stock continued to fall to $11.25 by June 29. The stock price decline continued with the stock price falling below ten in July (Biermann was right, if poorer).

On April 22, 1999, Sunbeam reported a loss of $898 million for 1998. Its warehouses were full of finished goods inventories. The stock sold for $5.375.

Finally, AL Dunlop announced that he was ready to another corporation.

Required:

1. AL Dunlop was a great success at Scott Paper selling out to Kimberly-Clark at a fine profit. Why was he a failure at Sunbeam? (5 marks)
2. With hindsight we know AL at Sunbeam was a disaster. What hints were there that maybe he was not going to be a success at Sunbeam? (5 marks)
3. What generalizations are there? (5 marks)
4. Sunbeam reported $109.4 million of income for the year 1997. What accounting related actions could Sunbeam have taken that would inflate 1997 income? (5 marks)
5. What real actions in 1996 and 1997 would tend to increase income? Which of these actions are desirable? (5 marks)

As a consultant hired in 1996 would you do as Dunlop wants you to do or would you do what you think is best for Sunbeam? Assume Dunlops actions will harm Sunbeams stockholders and employees.