Eighteen months later, he sold it for $600 million. When investment bankers told Reynolds he would be lucky to get $450 million for the company's real-estate development arm, he balked and pulled it off the market. That persuaded him not to keep those businesses, but rather to demand a better price when he sold them. Speaking in an interview last fall, he said that rather than finding workers 'sleeping on their brooms,' he found the plants 'well-run, the workers motivated.' During his first two months at the company, he barnstormed through every Westinghouse factory in the country, and what he found surprised him. Reynolds' arrival as chief financial officer foreshadowed the end for Westinghouse's industrial side. People at the company viewed the newcomers with suspicion. Reynolds, a financial man who loves buying and selling businesses. So he enlisted PepsiCo colleagues to help clean up, most notably Fredric G. He also indicated that he didn't trust most of the longtime West-inghouse managers to do the right things, deriding them for carrying what he called 'death cards' - which listed their retirement date. There were losses from litigation, environmental cleanups and huge pension liabilities. But within months of his arrival, he realized the company's problems were greater than he thought. Jordan expected first to prune and then grow the industrial businesses, while nurturing and expanding the other side of Westinghouse - a group of radio and TV stations. During an interview last year, he griped that the organization he inherited was a place where 'performance was just not taken very seriously.' One moment he would talk about the prestige of the Westinghouse name, the next make caustic comments about the place. I feel that dynamism in Westinghouse now.'īut he never convinced his troops that he was so moved or dedicated many doubted that he even had confidence in them. In a 1994 letter to worried shareholders, he likened the company to a naval ship 'when it turns to the open sea and advances its engines to full speed. Its nuclear power plants dot the globe, with designs that still dominate the industry. It was Westinghouse, after all, that spearheaded the development of everything from electric stoves to radar. Still, Jordan told the world that the company's industrial portfolio, while tarnished, could be made to shine.

Despite its vaunted past, the company was in trouble, having lost billions in a disastrous foray into financial services. When he arrived at the company four years ago from PepsiCo Inc., he was the first outsider to become CEO in 64 years. This is not what Jordan said he wanted to have happen.

Westinghouse tv company