Sigoloff Brings His Old Team Along as He Tackles a New Task
Before Sanford C. Sigoloff took on a new turnaround assignment this week at L. J. Hooker Corp., he talked things over with the men he affectionately calls Zephyr, Earth Communicator, Abacus and Baud Man. They are four of the key associates who have stood by Sigoloff through thick and thin, nicknamed after the Flash Gordon comic book characters who loyally served their leader, Ming the Merciless (Sigoloff’s nickname).
Seven months since they were last together at Santa Monica-based Wickes Cos., the highly specialized corporate rescue team is back working at a frenetic pace, this time trying to pull L. J. Hooker out from under $1.2 billion in debt.
They have come together partly out of loyalty and partly, no doubt, because Sigoloff has made them rich. “If you perform, he will reward you,” said James Van Tatenhove, a member of the Sigoloff team, in a phone interview from New York. “He is very ethical, very honest. He is a very loyal individual.”
Van Tatenhove, for example, pulled down a salary of $315,012 and a bonus of $86,640 in the fiscal year ended in January, 1988, as a senior vice president at the diversified Wickes organization, the Sigoloff team’s last turnaround project. For his part, Sigoloff drew a “golden parachute” valued by Business Week magazine at $15.9 million--including an annual salary of $951,300 and a bonus of $462,435--when Wickes was bought out in December.
On Wednesday, Sigoloff assumed the duties of chief executive at L. J. Hooker, the U.S. subsidiary of Australia-based Hooker Corp. He promptly sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection for 15 of the company’s U.S. businesses, including the B. Altman & Co. and Bonwit Teller retail chains.
Within hours, the turnaround team was back into its crisis-management routine, hashing over their ideas in one meeting that ran past 2 a.m. Thursday and getting together again less than six hours later for a breakfast session in New York. Later in the day, Hooker and GE Capital announced an agreement for a $50-million credit line, and by 6 p.m. Eastern time Sigoloff was on a plane heading back home to Los Angeles.
The L. J. Hooker assignment is Sigoloff’s fourth major reorganization project. Prior to the Wickes bankruptcy reorganization, he took Daylin, a Los Angeles retailer, through a successful overhaul and saw it later bought out by W. R. Grace & Co. Before that, he worked at Republic Corp., a Los Angeles miniconglomerate, and nursed it back to health while shedding 50 money-losing divisions.
Intense Camaraderie
The current Sigoloff team consists of four members of newly formed Sigoloff & Associates consulting firm and another colleague who now heads his own firm. Other than Sigoloff, they have not taken posts at Hooker but have been retained on consulting contracts.
The ability to move quickly is a crucial element during the first phase of a reorganization, Sigoloff said, and familiarity and experience with the high pressure involved in this type of project helps.
“There is a shortage of guys with turnaround experience,” Sigoloff said in a phone interview before boarding his flight to Los Angeles.
“We all had a lot of fun working together,” he added, referring to his group’s experience at Wickes. “There is an intense camaraderie between people who have worked together 10 to 15 years. I thought it would be fun to work with the guys who we’ve worked with before.”
The Hooker turnaround team includes:
- Van Tatenhove, who went to Wickes from Kaufman & Broad Inc., where he had worked as a senior vice president, and where Sigoloff served briefly as vice chairman.
- Peter Dealy, formerly senior counsel at Wickes Cos. He is the newest member of the team--too new to have a Flash Gordon-inspired nickname--having joined Wickes late in its Chapter 11 proceedings.
- Wilhelm A. Mallory, formerly senior executive vice president and chief financial officer at Wickes and chief financial officer at Daylin.
- Seymour Strasberg, formerly senior vice president, strategic planning at Wickes. He has worked the longest with Sigoloff; the association began in 1971 at Republic.
- Michael S. Sitrick, formerly senior vice president for communications at Wickes, who masterminded the phenomenally successful “We get the message, Mr. Sigoloff” advertising campaign for Builders Emporium, a Wickes subsidiary. His newly formed Sitrick & Co., a corporate public relations company, has been retained for the L. J. Hooker project.
