The "barbarians" in the boardroom

According to conventional wisdom, the corporate raiders and buyout specialists who flourished in the 1980s were the antithesis of good management. Their goals of realizing quick profits from the acquisition of major companies--frequently through rapid cost-cutting and the breakup of conglomerates--made them the bane of old-school corporate leaders. Long-term management, it seemed, was being sacrificed on the altar of short-term profits. With the abatement of takeovers in recent times, top corporate managers have hailed a return to business-as-usual. But the takeover artists have not, in fact, retreated. Instead, these corporate acquirers, many of whom own large stakes in major industrial companies, are assuming board seats and switching their emphasis to overseeing the companies they control--with an eye toward the long term. In this new role, the takeover experts are not plunderers, nor are they creating quick profit at the expense of companies' long-term health; rather, they are defying expectations and, in a number of important respects, successfully implementing the agenda of the gurus of good management. Setting the pace in this new arena is the most powerful takeover group of the 1980s, the leveraged buyout firm of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Company. KKR's partners hold board seats at nine different companies with $1 billion a year or more in sales.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)