Byrne, John A. Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-at-Any-Price. New York: HarperBusiness (HarperCollins), 2003. 406 pages.

Albert "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap was the CEO of Scott Paper Company from 1994-1995. He laid off 11,200 people and put intense pressure on those who remained to increase short-term shareholder value. The stock went up. Kimberly-Clark acquired the company and Dunlap moved to Sunbeam, leaving a seriously-wounded Scott Paper behind. Scott Paper was the sixth company that was dismembered by Chainsaw Al since 1983. Wall Street loved Dunlap, and Dunlap thrived on the "tough-guy CEO" publicity he was getting. He left Scott with $100 million in salary, bonuses, stock gains, and other perks.

Almost all of this book is about Dunlap at Sunbeam from mid-1996 until he was fired by the board on June 15, 1998. This time no one was fooled and Al Dunlap was stuck with what he had destroyed. Sunbeam was nearly bankrupt. Accounting restatements were required for 1996 and 1997, and the stock went from a peak of $53 to about $6 a share. Even though the SEC accused Dunlap of "massive financial fraud," he was able to settle with only a $500,000 fine. Part of the reason why Dunlap got off lightly is that new corporate scandals were suddenly in the news. The amount of the restatements made by Enron, HealthSouth, and WorldCom, made Sunbeam look like a comparatively minor incident.
ISBN 0-06-661981-5

Search the NameBase site: While the best way to search for names is to use NameBase, most can also be found here by using only first and last name, separated by a single space, with no quotation marks.
Wikipedia Watch

Name index for Byrne,J. Chainsaw. 2003

try a NameBase search          home page          register