Memorable companies that have vanished

[Duke Newcombe]

Some are predictable contributions to the dustbin of commerce, some are missed. Some had bad luck, others stupid, and a couple outright criminal.


http://money.aol.com/special/companies-that-have-vanished

Top 25 Disappearing Acts


Remember E.F. Hutton? General Foods? RCA? They were once household names, but not anymore. Take a walk down memory lane as we reminisce about some companies that made a name for themselves, but didn't stand the test of time.

Click through our gallery as we count down BloggingStocks.com's picks for the top 25 most memorable companies that have vanished.

Duke

[sinkingfeeling]

1. Interesting, I remember them all.

[PATRICK]

2. An intrusive personal reminiscence

An ancient grade school project was to pick and track a stock. I put my infant prodigy investor cap on and chose Lionel(#18 on the extinction list) which made all those fun train sets for us boomers. Their stock was about 7 dollars and I assumed I could make a killing. I guess it was the end of their hay days or they had other problems because even Christmas came and went and the miserable small stock remained flat and then slipped. Those were still in the good times with little competition and a solid reputation.

I guess it traumatized me about market values ever since which in the end serves me in good stead. It may be hard to kill a good idea or a good business, even one without competition, but it happens all the time.

[Wickerman]

6. I'm sure your stock, if real, would be worthless

but as of May 1, its back in business.

And, yes, it's THAT Neil Young.

http://www.lionel.com/

Today, May 1, 2008, marks the end of one of the most dramatic and difficult periods in Lionel’s 108 year history. After more than seven long years of legal warfare, a brutal financial restructuring, and a lot of corporate soul searching, Lionel has fully emerged from bankruptcy.

In addition to the settlement with MTH, Lionel’s emergence from bankruptcy has been achieved by paying all of its creditors all of the money they were owed, in addition to interest for all the time during which the company was in bankruptcy. As some of you might know, this is an extremely rare and beneficial outcome for creditors. This great result came at a high cost to Lionel’s pre-bankruptcy owners: Luella Davis, Neil Young, and Dick Kughn. It’s extremely gratifying that all of them will remain involved with the company, along with our new partners at Guggenheim Investment Management LLC, who provided much of the new money necessary for Lionel’s successful exit from bankruptcy.

More than enough has already been written about the lawsuit, and the events that followed, and it has undoubtedly been among the most closely followed and avidly reported civil legal actions in recent years. For me, though, the real story has been how so many people came together to rally around Lionel in one of its greatest hours of crisis.

All model train fans are, by nature, students of history, which offers no greater lesson than the fact that desperate times create opportunities for heroic deeds. Our experience over these past few years has been no exception. As Charles Dickens said so well, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” The resolve of Lionel’s ownership, the inspired and dedicated legal defense by our attorneys, and most of all, the steadfast loyalty and encouragement of our fans, gave all of us who work for Lionel the determination to weather the storm.

In fact, the level of support and encouragement was so great that Lionel managed to do substantially more than just weather the storm. In the past three years, the company’s sales have grown dramatically, and we have been able to create new products, gain a strong foothold in mainstream retail stores, and develop and release the much heralded, Legacy Control System.

I wish I could personally thank each and every one of you for your patience and support throughout this long and arduous process, because the enduring strength of this company is a testament to your understanding and loyalty. Now that Lionel’s legal and bankruptcy issues are finally behind us, we look forward to redoubling our efforts to fulfill our promise to create the best products of which we are capable.

Best Regards,

Jerry Calabrese

[dana_b]

3. I worked for #10 (TWA)

for 5+ years right after Carl Icahn took over. I knew nothing about bussines nor that he ran the company. I found out quickly, however, that he was turning Howard Hughes' airline into a big pile of s***. The service was cut dramtically and passengers were always pissed off. What a damn shame....

[DJ13]

4. I still miss Montgomery Wards

Or Monkey Wards as my dad used to call it.

[jeff30997]

5. There's a lot of airline companies in that list.

Thanks to deregulation and "Reaganomics".Old bastard!

[kiva]

7. Woolworths! I grew up in a small town,

and Woolworths was the main store. I spend many an afternoon browsing through the aisles (what teenagers did before malls), checking out exotic items like Evening in Paris perfume in that dark blue bottle. They always had copies of the Top 40 list in their record department (just a small enclosed area) and everyone bought their 45s there (or albums, if you had the extra money). Thought it was an amazing place--even when I was older it was one of those stores that seemed to have everything.

[Angela Shelley]

8. If you miss Woolworths, visit Germany!

No kidding ... Woolworths is still alive and kicking in Germany.

[kiva]

12. I was in London last year, and saw one there, too.

I didn't go in, but wondered if it felt like the old ones.

[K Gardner]

9. You have my childhood memories in your head ! I can still even remember the "smell" of a Woolworths

store and the taste of a grilled cheese and coke float, sitting at the lunch counter :-)

[2hip]

17. Don't forget the lunch counter, turtles, goldfish and parakeets!

I was fascinated with their "pet" department. And, yeah,it always smelled funky. The smell was consistent from one store to another whether or not critters were sold so it wasn't the animals that gave it such a peculiar odor.

[SoCalDem]

19. We had some "dime stores" that were teen hangouts too..

We had SS Kress AND Kresges..and Duckwalls & Neisners & Woolworths & Ben Franklins..

The Kress store was so old that it still had wooden display tables with built up wooden sides to keep stuff from falling onto the floors..oiled wooden floors that creaked.. and they still used those gigantic golden cash registers with about 10o keys on the face...money was sent in tubes that were on a chain drive...the "ladies" on the open mezzanine floor upstairs would wave when they got the tube..and then would send doen the change :)

and then in 1967....Shoppers' Fair opened up south of town and about 5 years later the first mall...and then downtown "died"...

All our "dime stores" had long lunch counters & soda fountains too...

[scheming daemons]

10. They left off a big one.... Westinghouse

[Duke Newcombe]

18. Westinghouse...still alive and kicking

The mostly sell low end electronics and personal care items. More overseas than here.

Shockingly, them make some of the best flat-panel TVs.

Duke

[gatorboy]

11. I miss Burger Chef.

:(

[The Great Escape]

15. Remember These Guys?

[SoCalDem]

20. Burger Chef was the BEST.... remember Griff's

:)

[librechik]

13. Remember the "Only Buy American" WalMart?

whatever happened to them?

[underpants]

14. um... ... Bethlehem Steel?? anyone??

Oh that's right they could be allowed to go away-they were a strong union presence

[MiniMe]

16. Woodward & Lothrop

[stillcool]

21. But are they really gone?

On December 3, Hutton agreed to a merger with Shearson Lehman Brothers. The merger took effect in 1988, and the merged firm was named Shearson Lehman Hutton, Inc.

In 1993, American Express sold its brokerage and asset management business--the Shearson and Hutton parts of Shearson Lehman Hutton--to Primerica. Primerica merged them with Smith Barney (which it had bought in 1987) to form Smith Barney Shearson, later shortened back to simply Smith Barney. As a result of several mergers over the rest of the decade, the remains of E.F. Hutton are now part of Citigroup.
His daughter, Dina Merrill, owns RKO Pictures.
*************
* 1953 - General Foods acquired Perkins Products Company, maker of Kool-Aid.
* 1957 - The company introduced Tang, which became available nationally two years later.
* 1964 - General Foods introduced Maxim, the first American brand of freeze-dried coffee.
* 1968 - General Foods makes its ill-advised purchase of the Burger Chef fast-food chain.
* 1969 - General Foods buys Rax Restaurants.
* 1971 - General Foods acquired the maker of Gevalia.
* 1978 - General Foods sells Rax Restaurants to Rac.
* 1981 - General Foods acquires Oscar Mayer & Company.
Kraft Foods Inc. (NYSE: KFT) is the second-largest food and beverage company headquartered in North America (behind PepsiCo) and the third largest in the world (after Nestlé SA and PepsiCo).

The Philip Morris Company (now known as Altria Group), acquired Kraft for $12.9 billion in 1988, eventually merging it with another food subsidiary, General Foods, which it had acquired in 1985. In 2000, Philip Morris acquired Nabisco and merged it with Kraft. Altria sold 280 million Kraft shares via an initial public offering in 2001, retaining an 88.1% stake. On January 31, 2007, after months of speculation, the company announced that its 88.1% stake would be spun off to Altria shareholders at the end of March 2007. Kraft is now an independent publicly held company.
Kraft brands

Capri Sun · Crystal Light · Dairylea · General Foods · Jell-O · Kool-Aid · Kraft Dinner · Maxwell House · Oscar Mayer · Post Cereals · Tang · Toblerone · Vegemite
*****************************************8
Today, the RCA trademark is owned by Thomson SA through RCA Trademark Management S.A., a company owned by Thomson. The trademark is used by two companies, namely Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Thomson SA, which licences the name to other companies like Audiovox and TCL Corporation for products descended from that common ancestor
During the 1970s, RCA Corporation, as it was now formally known, ventured into other markets. Under Robert Sarnoff's leadership, RCA diversified far beyond its original focus on electronics and communications. The company acquired Hertz (rental cars), Banquet (frozen foods), Coronet (carpeting), Random House (publishing) and Gibson (greeting cards). Despite this diversification, or perhaps because of it, the corporation was plagued by financial problems.

At the ripest moment, conditions led to RCA's takeover by GE in 1986 and its subsequent break-up. GE sold its 50 percent interest in what was then RCA/Ariola International Records to its partner Bertelsmann and the company was renamed BMG Music for Bertelsmann Music Group.