Heads I Win, Tails You Lose
From the Put-On-a-Happy-Face File: Farmers Group and Batus Inc., which are locked in a hostile takeover battle, both claimed to have come out on top in court on Friday. Not only was it the same court, it was the same ruling.
At issue was the decision of a Nevada federal judge concerning a resolution Batus wants to put before a shareholders meeting May 20. It calls on Farmers to immediately begin merger negotiations.
Los Angeles-based Farmers Group said the judge agreed with its lawyers in saying that such a resolution could not be binding. For its part, Batus claimed victory because the judge required Farmers to introduce the resolution, which Farmers had been resisting.
Could this be what corporate jargoneers love to call a “win-win” situation?
Mouse, Indeed, Will Sprout
Indeed, there seems to be no limit to Walt Disney’s promotion of Mickey Mouse’s upcoming 60th birthday.
Apparently, the seeds have been planted for the profile of Mickey Mouse to be cut from a large field crop in the Midwest so that Mickey can be seen by air travelers crisscrossing the country.
Last week, Footnotes reported remarks by Disney Chairman Michael Eisner that we thought indicated that Disney would restrain itself. Wrong. We didn’t mean to slip you a mickey.
Product of a Fertile Mind
There’s a new breed of rabbit in town.
It’s called the Rabbit Computer, a $159 device that helps a would-be mom predict the best time to get pregnant.
By recording a woman’s daily morning temperature in its memory banks, the Rabbit Computer can predict when a woman is most likely to conceive, its creators boast. That is because a woman’s body temperature rises slightly when she ovulates.
The device is being sold through mail order by RCC Marketing of Los Angeles. Jerry Newman, one of RCC’s three founders, says Rabbit Computer works best for woman with regular menstrual cycles. And, he cautions, it’s not a good contraception device.
Although the device looks more like a calculator than a bunny, Newman believes that rabbit is a good name. “We wanted something that didn’t sound scientific and had to do with fertility.”
That’s What Friends Are For
Is turnabout fair play? In late 1986, AFG Industries and a partner tried to buy Lear Siegler for the expressed purpose of getting its auto glass business. Lear resisted AFG and turned, instead, to Forstmann Little, the leveraged buyout specialists.
Then this month Forstmann went after AFG, hoping to merge Lear Siegler’s Safelite auto glass sales operations with AFG’s half-billion-dollar residential glassmaking system. But Thursday, Forstmann pulled out.
People who work in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
