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American Morning
Fortune Magazine's Best and Worst List
Aired December 10, 2001 - 09:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JACK CAFFERTY, CNN ANCHOR: That's the opening bell on videotape at the New York Stock Exchange. We begin a new trading week, and you can see the averages are already heading south. The futures indicated a sharply lower opening this morning. Not a lot of news to move the markets.
We've got the Fed meeting tomorrow. There's some information later in the week about inflation and retail sales, but the week begins following that down turn on Friday. The Dow slipped just under 50 points, closed at 10,049. The NASDAQ dropped 33. And the S&P was off, I think, close to 9. And it looks like, at least at the start, they're going to sell them this morning.
Andy Serwer of "Fortune" Magazine is with me. It's that time of the year when we get the lists of best and worst, and your magazine is not to be left out of this.
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: No, best and worst business stories, here. There's some really incredible tales that year, Jack, and we went through a couple of them. We went through things such as the best and worst merger of the year. And, you know, a lot of times they talk about synergy, convergence. It's not very complicated, people. Here we have a deal that actually makes sense. Peanut butter merging with jelly. Okay?
CAFFERTY: Absolutely.
SERWER: It's Smuckers and Jif getting together. The number one peanut butter company, the number one jelly company getting together. What a great merger. We like that. Thumbs up.
CAFFERTY: Best one of the year, right?
SERWER: Right. And the worst one, though, is the one that's still outstanding, this HP and Compaq, Hewlett-Packard and Compaq deal. Some bad news late Friday, Jack. Of course, the Packard Foundation decided it would not vote for the merger. That's 18 percent of the HP shareholders now against it. CEO Carly Fiorina has her hands full. And, you've got problems when the two big shareholders, Hewletts and the Packards, don't like the deal.
CAFFERTY: This deal may not happen, and if it doesn't, Carly Fiorina could have problems.
SERWER: I think she would definitely be on the out if that deal does not happen. No question about that.
CAFFERTY: What else?
SERWER: Well, we're looking at IPO timing. You know, IPO is kind of not great this year. But a couple of them worked. One of them that worked great was Weight Watchers.
CAFFERTY: Oh yes.
SERWER: Everybody stuffing their face with all the anxiety after 9-11, and that deal went public. And, Fergi, the spokeswoman of the company, and the deal went gang-busters. And that was a great one. On the other hand, one that did not work out so well, luxury good maker, Prada.
CAFFERTY: They make those little bags, right?
SERWER: They make bags. They make stuff that you and I don't buy.
CAFFERTY: Excuse me, my daughter insists she had to have one of these bags, right? A little thing, about this big, made out of satin, cost $150. That's the most ridiculous thing I ever saw in my life. I said, "what do you mean, $150?" I could make you one those.
SERWER: It doesn't fly in this economic environment.
Then we get to the last one here we want to talk about this morning. Best and worst dressed. Best Dressed, Bernie Arnault, the CEO of LVNH, Louis Vuitton, Moet Hennessy.
ZAHN: He better be.
SERWER: And, of course, you know, it's Thomas Pink and these high-end things. Of course he's very well dressed. And then there's the Worst Dressed. The CEO of Microsoft.
CAFFERTY: (UNINTELLIGIBLE)
SERWER: Steve Balmer, of course, the CEO. Bill Gates is the chairman now. And you know, we used to say that Steve looked a lot like he got his clothes from Lands End. But I think that's really despairaging to Lands End.
(CROSSTALK)
SERWER: Lands End has perfectly good clothes, Jack. And Steve, you know, you got hundreds of millions of dollars, time to spend a little bit of that on some new threads. Or at least an iron. At least an iron, for goodness sake.
CAFFERTY: "Fortune" Magazine's answer to Mr. Blackwell. Andy Serwer, thank you.
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