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Al Dunpal Case Study

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Albert Dunlap was known for turning around badly shaped companies into profitable companies. Through his radical restructuring and downsizing methods, he created shareholder value. At Scott Paper, Dunlap fired 35% of all the employees and 71% of the corporate staff raising the stock price from $38.00 to $120.00 and sold the company to Kimberly Clark for more than $6B. Due to his past success, Al Dunlap was hired to turn around Sunbeam. Sunbeam had a long period of management and financial instability. In other words, Sunbeam needed a “savior.” Many believed this was Al Dunlap. Unfortunately, through his tenure at Sunbeam, stock price fell from a high $53.00 to $16.00 on the day that he was fired. Were his “rightsizing” …show more content…

Barron’s published an article accusing Sunbeam of using “creative” accounting to make the company look more profitable through the “bill and hold” program for gas grills and other seasonal products. Although the case does not directly accuse Al Dunlap to have been part of this, it is still a very questionable issue. By focusing too much on the short-term goal of driving the bottom line up, Dunlap did not address Sunbeam’s long term goal of the company and/or strategies and most importantly, Sunbeam’s culture and employee’s needs were completely dismissed.

3. Was the second compensation package offered to Dunlap well-structured? Was it excessive? Was it necessary?

Dunlap’s philosophy was that compensation should be tied to performance. His goals for the company were to bring the stock up, lay off 12,000, reduce work force in half, and product lines by 87%, consolidate the administration and sell off several divisions and double sales over the next three years. His second package was distributed too soon as he had not completed these goals. As soon as Sunbeam acquired new companies, he was given a second compensation package. He received a bonus- a three year contract extension that doubled his salary from $1M to $2M a year and a grant of 300K Sunbeam shares. Again, his compensation package was stock/options based which would lead to Dunlap to do whatever it takes to drive the stock price

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