William Schreyer, former Merrill Lynch chairman, dies at 83

William Schreyer, a former chairman and CEO of Merrill Lynch who led its transition from a stock brokerage to a diversified global investment bank, has died. He was 83.

Schreyer, who also gained recognition for donating millions of dollars to his alma mater, Penn State University, died Saturday at his home in Princeton, N.J. The school and Merrill Lynch announced his death Sunday but did not say how he died.

Schreyer had a 45-year career at Merrill Lynch and led the firm from 1985-1993. He became a familiar face in TV commercials after the 1987 stock market crash, telling viewers: "At Merrill Lynch, we're still bullish on America."

A 1948 Penn State graduate, Schreyer and his wife committed more than $58 million to the university. He also was a member of the school's Board of Trustees from 1986-1998 and served as its president for three years. He also chaired the school's first major fundraising campaign in 1984, which raised $352 million.

"No one has had greater ambition for Penn State and its students than Bill Schreyer," said Steve Garban, president of the university's board.

Schreyer was born Jan. 13, 1928, in Williamsport, Pa., where his father managed the local office of a stock brokerage that Merrill Lynch later acquired. He worked there part-time while in high school and joined Merrill Lynch as a junior executive trainee after graduating from college.

He became head of the firm's Trenton, N.J., office in 1963 and then held a succession of positions in its retail branch office system before becoming the New York metropolitan area regional director in 1972. He became head of Merrill Lynch's government securities subsidiary the following year.

Schreyer became Merrill Lynch's president in 1982 and was named chief executive and chairman in 1985.

--Associated Press

Photo: William Schreyer. Credit: PR newswire

Gordon Murray, who co-wrote investment bestseller, dies at 60

Gordon Murray, a former Wall Street financial executive who co-authored the best-selling "The Investment Answer" after ceasing treatment for terminal brain cancer, has died. He was 60.

Murray died Saturday at his home in Burlingame, Calif., according to publicist Jennifer Musico. He was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a type of brain cancer, in 2008.

Murray, a former managing director for Lehman Brothers and Credit Suisse First Boston, self-published "The Investment Answer" in August 2010 along with co-author and financial adviser Daniel Goldie.

The primer on financial investing became a best-seller after an article about Murray appeared in the New York Times in November.

-- Associated Press

Former Tyson Foods Chief Executive Donald J. Tyson dies at 80

Donald J. Tyson, the former Tyson Foods Inc. chief executive who led the poultry company to dominance in the industry, died Thursday in Little Rock, Ark. He was 80.

Company spokesman Gary Mickelson said Tyson died from complications from cancer, and passed away at home with his family.

In 1952 Tyson joined the business his father had founded in the '30s, and Donald Tyson became its president in 1966. The company became the world's largest poultry producer under his leadership, when it bought Holly Farms in 1989. Tyson retired as senior chairman of the Springdale, Ark.-based company in 2001

The former executive was recognized for his "no bad days" outlook and "was known by all to work hard, but also to play hard," the company said in a statement announcing Tyson's death.

Tyson was fined $700,000 by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2005 and Tyson Foods paid $1.5 million to settle an investigation into lavish spending of company money between 1997 and 2001.

The SEC found that he used $3 million in company funds to pay for vacation properties in England and Mexico, and items that ranged from jewelry and artwork to a horse and clothing, all improperly documented in company regulatory filings.

Tyson Foods Inc. was founded by Don Tyson's father, John Tyson, in the early 1930s. Don Tyson added the titles of chairman and chief executive in 1967, the same year his father was killed in a car-train accident. He left the daily operation of the company in 1995 but remained chairman, when Leland Tollett became chief executive.

Under Don's son, John R. Tyson, the company became the leading meat company with its purchase of IBP Inc. in 2001.

The Stephens Media Group first reported Tyson's death.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Don Tyson in 2004. Credit: Associated Press

Edward Evans, thoroughbred racing owner, dies at 68

Edward P. Evans, one of thoroughbred racing's leading owners and breeders, has died after a brief illness. He was 68.

Evans died Friday night at Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan, his personal secretary, Catherine Moraetis, said Saturday. The cause of death was acute myeloid leukemia.

Evans owned Spring Hill Farm in Virginia, and his horses won more than 100 stakes races during his 30-plus years as an owner.

Quality Road was among his best horses, earning more than $2.2 million, including victories in the Woodward Stakes and the Metropolitan Handicap in 2010. Other horses bred by Evans include 2005 Horse of the Year Saint Liam, Gygistar and Tap Dance.

Evans, who was born in Pittsburgh, was the son of Thomas Mellon Evans, also a breeder and owner whose Buckland Farm produced 1981 Kentucky Derby winner Pleasant Colony.

Evans also was a former chairman of publisher MacMillan Inc. He recently donated $50 million to his alma mater, Yale University, to help with construction of a campus for its school of management.

-- Associated Press

Prunella Stack, British fitness promoter, dies at 96

Prunella Stack, an early and enthusiastic promoter of physical fitness for women and hailed as Britain's "perfect girl," has died. She was 96.

Stack died at her home in London on Thursday, her family said. The cause of death was not announced.

Stack was 20 when she took over leadership of the Women's League of Health and Beauty, now known as the Fitness League, after the death of her mother, Mary Bagot Stack, the league's founder.

Part of a wider European movement that promoted exercise for women and staged massive demonstrations of movement, it grew rapidly under her leadership and expanded into Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Hong Kong.

Stack had been a fitness model since the age of 13 and newspapers called her "the perfect girl."

"Brought up as a health and beauty goddess, I was not used to a lack of homage," Stack wrote in her 1973 memoir, "Movement is Life."

Recruiting league members for a public display in London in 1935, Stack declared that she wanted "the youngest, and the oldest, fattest and thinnest, most elementary and most veteran, marching side by side.

"Cut out feelings of shyness of self-consciousness," she exhorted. "They are selfish, fundamentally, and unnecessary."

-- Associated Press

Alfred E. Kahn, who backed airline deregulation during Carter administration, dies at 93

Alfred E. Kahn, who presided over the historic deregulation of the U.S. airline industry during President Carter's administration, paving the way for JetBlue and other low-cost carriers, died Monday. He was 93.

Kahn, an economics professor at Cornell University, died of cancer at his home in Ithaca, N.Y., the school said in a statement. University spokeswoman Claudia Wheatley confirmed his death.

A leading scholar in public utility deregulation, Kahn led the move to deregulate U.S. airlines as chief of the now-defunct Civil Aeronautics Board in 1977-78. The board had to give its approval before airlines could fly specific routes or change fares.

“Historically, the board has insisted on second-guessing decisions by individual carriers to offer price reductions,” Kahn said in early 1978 as so-called “super-saver fares” swept the industry. “During the last several months we have been abandoning the paternalistic role, leaving the introduction of discount fares increasingly to the management.”

President Carter embraced deregulation as a means of stimulating economic growth. Kahn was largely instrumental in garnering the support needed to push through the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 — the first thorough dismantling of a comprehensive system of government control since 1935.

“I open my mouth and a fare goes down,” he quipped to the Washington Post in 1978.

By letting airlines instead of the government decide routes and fares, Kahn is credited above anyone else with enabling a dramatic drop in airline fares and a boom in air travel over the last 30 years.

Deregulation opened the way for such carriers as People Express and JetBlue, and allowed low-cost Southwest Airlines — which had up until then operated only within Texas, outside of CAB's reach — to expand nationwide.

But the move also contributed over the years to the death of such storied names as Pan American and the erosion of in-flight amenities.

“While the resulting competitive regime has been far from perfect, it has saved travelers more than $10 billion a year,” Kahn wrote in a 1998 New York Times essay.

Kahn was also a key player in a broader movement that persuaded Congress to give industries such as trucking, railroads, financial services, telecommunications and cable television the ability to set prices without government involvement.

In October 1978, Carter made Kahn his anti-inflation czar, with a mandate to curb rising costs in arenas such as food, medical care and energy. High oil prices, a weak bond market and a falling dollar fueled an economic crisis in 1979, and inflation approached an annual rate of 12%.

“It's housing costs, it's insurance regulation, it's everything in the world,” he told The New York Times in 1979. “Sometimes I feel it (inflation) touches so many things, it's an area as wide as the ocean, but I've been about one molecule deep.”

Inflation remained a big problem and contributed to Carter's defeat by Ronald Reagan in his bid for a second term in 1980.

Kahn spent most of his career as a professor at Cornell, joining the faculty in 1947 and finishing as a professor emeritus of political economy. He was widely regarded as one of the world's leading scholars and influential figures in public utility deregulation.

Born in Paterson, N.J., in 1917, Kahn earned bachelor's and master's degrees at New York University and a doctorate at Yale University in 1942. Early in his career, he worked for the Brookings Institution, the antitrust division of the Justice Department and the War Production Board.

After completing basic training in 1943, he served as an Army economist for the Commission on Palestine Surveys. He was an assistant professor at Ripon College in Wisconsin from 1945 until 1947.

At Cornell, he became an associate professor in 1950 and a full professor in 1955. He was chairman of the school's department of economics from 1958 to 1963, a member of the board of trustees from 1964 to 1969, and dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1969 to 1974.

In the early 1970s, he wrote a study of government controls of private industry called “The Economics of Regulation.”

In 1974, he took a six-year leave from the university when he was appointed chairman of the New York Public Service Commission, which oversaw regulation of electric, gas, telephone and water companies.

He introduced an electrical-rate pricing system that gave breaks to users during non-peak hours and permitted rivals of Bell System competitors to hook up to the telephone giant's equipment.

Kahn is survived by his wife, Mary, and three children and was the legal guardian of a nephew, Cornell said in its statement.

-- Associated Press

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, architect of euro currency, dies at 70

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa, an architect of the euro currency and a founding member of the European Central Bank's executive board, has died. He was 70.

Padoa-Schioppa died after suffering a heart attack Friday night in Rome, the newspaper La Repubblica reported.

Padoa-Schioppa, who fought for the single currency as a catalyst for European integration, served on the central bank's executive board from 1999 until 2005. He was deputy director general of the Bank of Italy for 13 years and was named finance minister under Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi in May 2006, a position he kept until the government collapsed in January 2008.

"Our new currency unites not only economies, but also the people of Europe," he said in June 1999, six months after the euro's launch. "The society with these unifying bonds is now the European society, and not only a national society: this, I think, represents a profound change in human history."

Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa was born July 23, 1940, in Belluno, Italy. His father, Fabio Padoa-Schioppa, worked in insurance and was a schoolteacher. He studied at the Bocconi University in Milan, where he got a degree in economics in 1966, and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was fluent in German and English.

In 1988, Padoa-Schioppa served as joint secretary to the Delors Committee, named after the then-president of the European Commission, investigated how European Union countries could remove all common trade barriers by introducing a single currency. The committee came up with a three-stage plan that was later included in a 1992 treaty that instituted the single currency.

Padoa-Schioppa called the euro "a currency without a state."

-- Bloomberg News

Photo: Tommaso Padoa-Schioppa in New York earlier this month.

Credit: Jim Lee / Bloomberg

 

One year ago: Roy Edward Disney

Roy Edward Disney, the nephew of Walt Disney, was so committed to his uncle's creative spirit that he mounted revolts that led to the unseating of two of the company's chief executives who he felt were leading the company astray. He died one year ago at age 79.

As chairman of Disney animation, Disney helped guide the studio to a new golden age of animation with an unprecedented string of artistic and box-office successes that included "The Little Mermaid," "Beauty and the Beast," "Aladdin" and "The Lion King."

But it was a long road to those successes. After 20 years of working on nature films for the studio, he quit in 1977 when he was denied a larger role in the company after the death of his uncle Walt and his father, Roy O. Disney. He remained on its board as a director but was largely a figurehead.

Disney went on to partner with lawyer Stanley Gold and became a successful financier through Shamrock Holdings, where he built up wealth to ease his reliance on his inherited Disney stock.

When he had accumulated enough money and influence independent of Disney, he made his move against the company that had increasingly frustrated him. He quit the Disney board in 1984, causing a stock turmoil that led the unseating of the company's management. Using his influence, Disney was able to bring in a whole new management team led by Michael Eisner.

The victory was short-lived. Tensions began building between Disney and Eisner when the company's president and chief operating officer, Frank Wells, died in 1994, leaving Eisner solely in control of the company. In 2003, Disney called for Eisner's resignation, saying the company had come to be perceived as "rapacious, soul-less and always looking for the 'quick buck' rather than long-term value." Eisner resigned in 2005.

Disney initially fought the hiring of Eisner's successor, Robert A. Iger, but relented when Iger made peace, offering Disney an office at the company's Burbank studios, a consultancy and the title "director emeritus."

Despite wealth estimated at $600 million, Disney remained shy and outwardly unpretentious, according to people who knew him. He also was involved in several philanthropic activities, including serving on the board of trustees of the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, where he helped carry out the dream of Walt and his father to build and sustain a top arts college in Southern California.

For much more on his turbulent career, creative passion and the sometimes tense drama within his family, read Roy Edward Disney's obituary by The Times. Also, view a photo gallery of his life.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Roy Disney, in the Shamrock Center in Burbank on December 1, 2003. Credit: Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times

Southern California economist Jack Kyser dies at 76

Jack Kyser, the dean of Los Angeles economists who spoke as an expert on Southern California to media around the world, has died. He was 76.

Kyser had a long career focusing on the workings of the Southern California economy and spoke with authority on a wide range of topics. He was best known as a representative of the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

Kyser was born in Huntington Park and raised in Downey and Vernon. He earned a bachelor’s degree and a masters of business administration from USC.

With the exception of a forecasting stint in Omaha for Union Pacific Railroad, Kyser spent his career focusing on the workings of the Southern California economy. He worked for United California Bank and spent eight years as an economist with the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce.

Kyser joined the LAEDC in 1991, when it had no economics research department. Today, the department has five full-time staff members. The LAEDC named its research center after Kyser, whom it started calling a "founding economist," in 2008.

A full obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

-- Roger Vincent

Photo: Jack Kyser

 

Comics artist John D'Agostino Sr. dies at 81

John D'Agostino Sr., whose work in comic books ranged from Archie and Jughead to the Incredible Hulk and G.I. Joe, among others, has died. He was 81.

D'Agostino died Sunday of bone cancer in Ansonia, Conn., publisher Archie Comics said Tuesday in a statement.

Born in Italy in 1929, D'Agostino immigrated to the United States and got his first job as head colorist at New York City's Timely Comics, the forerunner of Marvel. He worked with Stan Lee, who went on to co-create numerous memorable superheroes, including Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four.

While working at Timely, D'Agostino — whose nickname was "Jon" — helped supervise another artist, Stan Goldberg, who later become synonymous with the high school adventures of Archie, Reggie, Veronica and Betty at Riverdale High School.

D'Agostino later joined Goldberg, hired in 1965 by Archie Comics managing editor Richard Goldwater, and began a long career drawing numerous characters.

Besides Jughead, D'Agostino also drew for titles including "My Little Margie," "G.I. Joe, A Real American Hero," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch" and "Sonic the Hedgehog," among others. D'Agostino also did the letters for the first three issues of Marvel's "The Amazing Spider-Man."

"Jon was concerned about doing the best job possible. He would always be available to help young artists improve their artwork and draw the Archie cast of characters," Archie co-president and editor-in-chief Victor Gorelick said.

D'Agostino's latest work in comics is scheduled to be published in December, and several of his covers will be seen through 2011.

-- Associated Press

 

Steven Posner, real estate tycoon, dies at 67

Real estate tycoon Steven Posner died Monday in a high-speed boat crash near Miami that killed another man and left two others injured, authorities said Tuesday. Posner was 67.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission issued a statement confirming the death of Posner, son of the late corporate raider Victor Posner, and said it is investigating Monday's crash on Biscayne Bay.

The agency said a friend of Posner's, 60-year-old Clive Warwock, was killed and Posner's 64-year-old cousin, Stuart Posner, was seriously injured. Both men were aboard Posner's boat.

Posner's 44-foot race boat and a similar 46-foot vessel collided. The operator of the second boat, 27-year-old Friedrich Eigelshoven of Fort Lauderdale, suffered minor injuries. A passenger on the second boat was not hurt.

The crash happened about 1 p.m. Monday in clear conditions. The Fish and Wildlife Commission said the boats — each capable of speeds approaching 100 mph — appeared to be racing before colliding, according to witnesses.

Steven Posner made headlines a decade ago in a battle with his father over trust fund money. The matter was settled in 2001 and netted Posner an estimated $100 million in real estate holdings. The deal was struck after father and son tossed a gold coin before a Miami judge to determine Steven Posner's share.

Victor Posner died in 2002.

-- Associated Press

British turkey tycoon Bernard Matthews dies at 80

Bernard Matthews, who parlayed an investment in 20 eggs into a business that became Britain's biggest turkey processor -- once raising the birds in the rooms of a large country home -- has died. He was 80.

Matthews died Thursday at his home, the company said Friday. The cause of death was not announced.

"Bootiful," Matthews' Norfolk-inflected pronunciation of "beautiful," became one of Britain's best-known advertising slogans in a series of television ads in the 1980s.

In recent years, the company was targeted by animal-rights groups for its intensive farming, and sales were hit in 2007 when one farm reported Britain's first outbreak of bird flu.

One of the company's products, Turkey Twizzlers, was singled out five years ago by TV chef Jamie Oliver as an example of excessively fatty food in school meals, and the product disappeared from many lunch menus.

Matthews, who stepped down as chairman of the company in January, started the business in 1950 with 20 eggs and a secondhand incubator. A dozen eggs hatched, Matthews sold the chicks at a profit and he was on his way.

Three years later, he bought a derelict country house, Great Witchingham Hall, where he and his wife, Joyce, raised turkeys in all but one of the 36 rooms. It is still the company headquarters.

-- Associated Press

Photo: Bernard Matthews outside No. 10 Downing Street in 1979. Credit: Associated Press