1992: HIGHS . . . AND LOWS
Jan. 6: The Food and Drug Administration issues a moratorium on silicone gel breast implants, deflating stock prices of companies making the devices.
Jan. 8: Woolworth Corp. says it will close, sell or revamp 900 money-losing outlets.
Jan. 10: A group of top U.S. executives who accompanied President Bush to Japan conclude a trade summit with the Japanese. Chrysler Corp. Chairman Lee A. Iacocca says the United States is getting its “brains beaten in” by Japan and should retaliate.
Jan. 17: IBM says it finished 1991 $2.8 billion in the red, its first loss ever.
Jan. 24: A federal judge accepts the Bank of Credit & Commerce International’s guilty plea to charges of fraud, racketeering and conspiracy and orders it to surrender $550 million in assets, the largest such forfeiture in U.S. history.
Jan. 27: R.H. Macy files for bankruptcy protection after buckling under debt accumulated in its $1.1-billion purchase of Bullock’s, Bullocks Wilshire and I. Magnin in 1988. In March, Macy’s announces it will close 60 stores.
Jan. 30: Independence Bank, the Encino institution secretly controlled by the scandal-ridden Bank of Credit and Commerce International, is closed by state regulators, who determined that bad real estate loans had rendered Independence insolvent.
Jan. 31: Trans World Airlines becomes the nation’s fourth major carrier in the past year to land in bankruptcy court.
Feb. 3: Ralphs Grocery Co. is acquired by an Ohio-led investor group from the Chapter 11 reorganization of Campeau.
Feb. 4: After two years of losses and diversification, Pacific Enterprises, the 106-year-old parent of Southern California Gas Co. and Thrifty Corp., announces that it will shed some troubled retailing units, including the Big Five sporting goods chain.
Feb. 4: Shearson Lehman Bros. agrees to buy First Capital Life Insurance Co. in a $50-million deal that promises to salvage the investments of 250,000 policyholders nationwide.
Feb. 11: Paint maker and retailer Standard Brands files for Chapter 11.
Feb. 13: Ford Motor Co. reports a $2.3-billion loss for 1991, the worst drubbing in its 89-year history. Also, the Securities and Exchange Commission gives shareholders the right to vote on compensation packages for top executives.
Feb. 20: Suffering from prostate cancer, Time Warner Inc. chairman Steven J. Ross ousts Nicholas J. Nicholas as president and co-chief executive in favor of Gerald M. Levin, who steered Time into cable TV and pioneered the use of satellite transmissions by Time’s HBO unit.
Feb. 24: General Motors sets a record by reporting a loss of $4.5 billion for 1991. GM also names 11 of the 21 plants it had previously warned would close by 1995.
Feb. 25: Rupert Murdoch says he’ll run Fox Inc. following the resignation of Barry Diller, who single-handedly created a fourth network. In the larger economy, consumer confidence plunges to a 17-year low.
Feb. 26: After 100 years in business, McCrory Corp. files for Chapter 11. Meanwhile, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation’s largest retail discount chain, says 1991 profit soared 25% to a record $1.6 billion.
March 3: AT&T; says it will replace up to one-third of its phone operators with a computer system.
March 6: Unemployment surged to 7.3% in February, the highest since the recession began and the worst in 6 1/2 years. Los Angeles County’s rate rose to 9.9%, from 8.6% in January. Also, Thorn EMI agrees to acquire Virgin Music Group for $973 million.
March 8: Kaye, Scholer, Fierman Hays & Handler, the law firm that represented Lincoln Savings, will pay the federal government $41 million in the biggest enforcement settlement ever against lawyers involved in the savings and loan mess.
March 16: Robert S. Eaton, a top executive of General Motors, will become chairman and CEO of Chrysler Corp. when Lee Iacocca retires on Dec. 31.
March 19: BankAmerica Corp. says 10,000-12,000 jobs will be eliminated as a result of its acquisition of Security Pacific Corp.
March 25: Norman M. Coulson resigns as chairman of Glenfed Inc. as the S&L; predicts a $110-million quarterly loss.
March 30: Ernst & Young, the nation’s largest accounting firm, and Jones, Day, Reavis & Pogue, the second-biggest law firm, agree to pay $87 million to settle fraud charges stemming from the collapse of Lincoln Savings & Loan.
April 5: Sam M. Walton, one of the world’s richest men and the founder of Wal-Mart, dies at age 74.
April 10: Charles H. Keating Jr., the former chairman of Lincoln Savings’ parent, is sentenced to 10 years in prison and fined $250,000 for defrauding Lincoln’s customers. The failure of Lincoln Savings, the biggest of any thrift, will cost taxpayers $2.6 billion.
April 12: Euro Disney theme park opens outside of Paris.
April 22: The biggest bank merger in U.S. history is official as Security Pacific melds into BankAmerica Corp. which paid $5 billion to become the nation’s second-largest banking company.
April 24: TRW announces beginning of a long-awaited program to provide customers with a free copy of their credit report upon request once a year.
April 29: Four white police officers who were videotaped beating black motorist Rodney G. King are acquitted in a Simi Valley trial. Hours later, Los Angeles erupts in riots. Businesses are burned and looted in many parts of the city, resulting in $775 million in damages. Perhaps half of that amount is uninsured. The riots also claimed 53 lives.
May 3: Peter V. Ueberroth is chosen to oversee the city’s rebuilding efforts, a task force dubbed Rebuild L.A. that will eventually come to have 80 board members.
May 14: Canadian real estate giant Olympia & York files for Canadian bankruptcy protection, and two weeks later does the same in Britain. Its debts exceed $9.4 billion. Also, MCA becomes the first big entertainment company to extend health insurance coverage to “committed, same-sex partners” of its employees.
May 20: To settle allegations of fraud arising from its actions involving the auction of government securities, Salomon Bros. will pay $290 million and be temporarily barred as a U.S. Treasury securities dealer.
May 23: Pacific Enterprises says it will sell its Thrifty Corp. unit.
May 25: Black-owned contractors in southern Los Angeles, backed by a group of clergy, form a coalition to seek riot-related construction work.
May 28: Sprint Corp. says it will acquire Centel Corp. in a $2.85-billion stock swap. The deal will allow the combined company to provide local, long-distance and cellular telephone services.
June 1: The Dow Jones industrial average reaches its 1992 peak at 3,413.21.
June 3: Federal officials own up to different recession-related figures. Job losses are more than 25% higher than originally reported, reaching 2.16 million nationwide. Recession or no, Disneyland raises its prices.
June 5: McDonnell Douglas says it will close its Torrance aircraft parts plant in 1993, eliminating 2,000 jobs.
June 8: MCI Chairman William McGowan, who helped break up AT&T; and bring about a telecommunications revolution, dies of a heart attack at age 64.
June 10: California says it will seek to revoke Sears, Roebuck & Co.’s license to repair automobiles, alleging a pattern of overcharging. Sears later agrees to distribute up to $46.6 million in coupons to disgruntled customers nationwide.
June 21: Rupert Murdoch fires Steven Chao, recently named president of Fox Television Stations, after Chao had a male stripper perform at a gathering during which the issue of censorship would be tackled.
June 24: Former Columbia Savings chief Thomas Spiegel is charged with 55 counts of looting the defunct thrift.
June 26: Since the beginning of the year Hughes Aircraft has eliminated 3,000 jobs mainly at Southern California plants and says it expects more layoffs before the year is over. Just four days later, Hughes announces it will lay off 9,000 workers over the next 18 months, close 92 facilities and take a $1.2-billion charge in response to slower defense spending. In Arcadia, Hinshaw’s department store says it will close after 40 years in business.
June 30: The credit crunch continues. Bank commercial and industrial loans totaled $546.1 billion in the first half, down 7.2% from the previous year, according to FDIC data. At the same time, the banks held $228.6 billion in Treasury securities, a 32% increase in just a year. It’s even worse in California, where commercial and industrial lending by banks dipped 13.9%. Investments in Treasury securities soared 55%.
July 1: A Los Angeles Times investigation reveals that some of the nation’s top securities firms hire brokers with long records of complaints and disciplinary action for violating industry regulations.
July 2: Interest rates continue to fall. The Federal Reserve cuts its discount rate to 3.0% and banks lower their prime rate to 6.0%.
July 6: Federal regulators seize San Diego-based Homefed Bank in the largest such takeover of a U.S. thrift.
July 10: McDonnell Douglas says it will lay off 4,000 to 5,000 workers by year-end at its Long Beach-based commercial aircraft unit.
July 23: Vons, the Southland’s biggest supermarket chain, says it will build a dozen stores in the inner city.
Aug. 5: Businesses are going under in California at a record pace, with failures increasing almost 43% in the first half versus a 17% rise nationwide, according to a Dun & Bradstreet survey.
Aug. 5: A federal judge rules that Michael Milken will be allowed to leave prison after he has completed two years of a 10-year sentence for securities fraud and other violations.
Aug. 11: Irvine-based Fluor Corp. is awarded a $2.2-billion contract in the largest environmental cleanup project ever.
Aug. 12: After 14 months of haggling, the United States, Mexico and Canada unveil a historic agreement to create the world’s largest free-trade zone throughout North America.
Aug. 13: A group of institutional property owners holds one of the biggest commercial auctions ever in attempting to dispose of $500 million worth of hotels, apartments and office towers across the county.
Aug. 27: About 6.3 million cars and 45 years after it opened, the GM plant in Van Nuys closes, marking the end of car making in Southern California.
Sept. 1: Insured damage from Hurricane Andrew will reach $7.3 billion in Florida alone, making it the costliest disaster in American history. By year-end, the hurricane and the Los Angeles riots, among other things, will hit the insurance industry with $17.5 billion in disaster losses, more than twice the previous record.
Sept. 2: Gov. Pete Wilson signs a $57.4-billion state budget, ending a 63-day impasse during which California had no spending plan and state expenses were paid with IOUs.
Sept. 4: California’s unemployment rate jumped nearly a full percentage point in August to 9.8%, the highest level in more than 9 years.
Sept. 7: California’s two largest banks, Bank of America and Wells Fargo, made comparatively fewer home mortgage loans to blacks in Los Angeles County in 1990 than did major savings and loans, according to a Times study from Federal Reserve Board records on nearly 200,000 loans processed in 1990 in Los Angeles County.
Sept. 9: Hughes Aircraft says it will move all of its missile-building operations to Tucson, eliminating at least 4,500 more defense industry jobs in Southern California.
Sept. 25: General Motors is hit by its second strike in a month when 4,200 workers in Lansing, Mich., walk off the job. Three days later, GM and the UAW reach a tentative agreement to end a strike at the vital parts plant. Less than a month later, GM tells the UAW that the $3.35-billion fund assuring full pay to laid-off workers will run out by the end of the year.
Sept. 29: Sears announces a sweeping plan to break up its merchandising and financial operations, including Coldwell Banker Residential Group.
Oct. 5: Congress overrides a presidential veto of legislation to re-regulate the cable TV industry.
Oct. 8: Schwinn Bicycle Co., the 97-year-old Chicago concern whose products were a bit of Americana, files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.
Oct. 9: Philip Hawley announces plans to retire as chairman and chief executive of Carter Hawley Hale Stores, which is newly emerged from bankruptcy reorganization. Later, company president H. Michael Hecht quits too.
Oct. 15: The Air Force says it plans to transfer its headquarters for designing secret satellites, along with at least 800 high-level scientific and engineering jobs, from El Segundo to Washington, D.C.
Oct. 16: May Department Stores says it will close 12 stores in the Southland and merge the California May Company and Robinson’s chains effective Jan. 31, 1993.
Oct. 19: Blockbuster Entertainment, the leading video outlet chain, expands into recorded music by purchasing 236 Music Plus and Sound Warehouse stores from Shamrock Holdings, based in Los Angeles, for $185 million.
Oct. 26: Robert C. Stempel is forced out as chairman and chief executive of ailing General Motors Corp.
Oct. 29: Brandon Tartikoff announces his resignation as chairman of Paramount Pictures. Soon after, Paramount hires producer Sherry Lansing to head the firm’s motion picture group.
Nov. 2: Studio chairman Joe Roth leaves 20th Century Fox to start his own production company at Walt Disney Studios. Fox Chairman Rupert Murdoch names Fox Entertainment Group President Peter Chernin as Roth’s replacement at the end of the year.
Nov. 3: The bad economy costs George Bush his job as Bill Clinton is elected President.
Nov. 9: Chevron Corp. says it will cut 1,500 jobs, including 28% of its headquarters staff in San Francisco. An investor group including Air Canada makes the winning bid--$450 million--for a controlling interest in Continental Airlines.
Nov. 19: Despite hard times, Walt Disney Co. posts a 29% jump in earnings, to $223.7 million, in the fourth quarter ended Sept. 30, on revenue of $2.1 billion.
Nov. 20: California wine makers and sellers are relieved after the United States and the European Community settle a bitter trade dispute averting sharp price increases of European white wines.
Nov. 23: Ernst & Young pays the government a record $400 million--three-quarters of it covered by insurance--to settle claims that the firm’s auditors failed to warn of disastrous financial problems that caused some of the worst thrift failures. Westinghouse Electric Corp. announces plans to liquidate a money-losing credit business, take a $1.13-billion write-off and slash its dividend.
Nov. 29: For the first time in years, shoppers brightened the traditional opening day of the Christmas season as merchants witnessed more flashing of cash, less of plastic, and more bargain-seeking.
Dec. 1: Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner cashes $197.5 million in stock options, believed to be the most money ever reaped by a corporate chief executive in a single day.
Dec. 3: A UC Davis study says pregnant women who work in computer chip-making plants have a 40% greater chance of miscarriage. Also, General Motors identifies the remaining seven of the 21 plants it plans to close by mid-decade, eliminating up to 18,000 jobs. Two additional plants are likely to close, bringing the total to 23.
Dec. 4: State officials report that California’s jobless rate jumped to 10.1% in November, the highest in nine years; national unemployment fell to 7.2%.
Dec. 5: James D. Robinson III will step down as chief executive of American Express. The company has suffered from an unsuccessful acquisition strategy.
Dec. 9: Lockheed announces that it will buy General Dynamics’ fighter jet division for $1.5 billion cash.
Dec. 10: Walt Disney Co. says it plans a $50-million investment in a new National Hockey League team in Anaheim.
Dec. 10: Jonathan J. Sheinberg, son of MCA President Sidney J. Sheinberg, and three others agree to pay $1.3 million to settle government inside-trading charges related to the 1990 acquisition of MCA by Japan’s Matsushita Electric Industrial Co.
Dec. 21: Shedding $28 billion in market value in just five months, IBM sees a virtual run on its shares culminate in a closing price below $50. Also, the Justice Department files a civil antitrust suit charging eight of the nation’s largest airlines with using a computer system to fix prices in the $40-billion domestic air passenger business.
