RJR Nabisco, Inc., was an American conglomerate formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. RJR Nabisco was purchased in 1988 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in the largest leveraged buyout at the time. In 1999, due to concerns about tobacco lawsuit liabilities, the tobacco business was spun off into a separate company, and RJR Nabisco was renamed Nabisco Holdings Corporation. Nabisco is currently owned by K...
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RJR Nabisco, Inc., was an American conglomerate formed in 1985 by the merger of Nabisco Brands and R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company. RJR Nabisco was purchased in 1988 by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. in the largest leveraged buyout at the time. In 1999, due to concerns about tobacco lawsuit liabilities, the tobacco business was spun off into a separate company, and RJR Nabisco was renamed Nabisco Holdings Corporation. Nabisco is currently owned by Kraft Foods.
The RJR Nabisco leveraged buyout was, at the time, widely considered to be the pre-emininent example of corporate and executive greed. Bryan Burrough and John Helyar published Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco, a successful book about the events which was later turned into a television movie for HBO.
F. Ross Johnson was the President and CEO of RJR Nabisco at the time of the leveraged buyout and Henry Kravis was a general partner at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. The leveraged buyout was in the amount of $25 billion,...
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