It’s Thanksgiving week, and that means it’s time to roast to perfection the biggest turkeys in the business world during the year just passed. So fair or fowl, here’s the list — stick in the fork. Gobble, gobble.
Bill Ackman: The activist investor’s bet on JCPenney increasingly seems to be full of stuffing. This week, after we learned that the retailer’s crazy pricing strategies sent sales down another 27 percent in the most recent quarter, Ackman went on CNBC to “talk his book.” In a bizarre exchange, Ackman touted a new scheme in which Penney’s customers could scan a promotional code on their iPhone. Note to billionaire: Not all Penney’s customers have iPhones!
The London Whale: This turkey swam in risky waters. Bruno Iksil, the London trader who made outsize bets in the dark corners of the debt markets, ended up costing his employer, JPMorgan Chase, more than $6 billion in losses and almost cost America’s most famous banker, Jamie Dimon, his job.
Facebook IPO investors: Not since Krispy Kreme has a stock offering looked so tasty, at least to those who got caught up in the hype and didn’t bother reading the Facebook prospectus before diving in. This company is by no means a turkey, but when it went public it was one overpriced bird.
Avon’s board of directors: It would take more than a little concealer and powder to mask the flaws of this bunch of turkeys. Not only did they turn down a $24.75-a-share takeover bid from Coty this spring, they let Andrea Jung, the former CEO, stay on as chairman until 2013. Needless to say, the stock has been cooked — earnings fell 81 percent in the latest quarter and are now trading in the $13-a-share range, or about half the Coty offer. Ding-dong.
Jon Corzine: For many, 2012 will go down as another year that the biggest turkeys were not cooked. Exhibit A, former senator and MF Global CEO Corzine. Although a House subcommittee recently reported that Corzine contributed greatly to the collapse of the firm by pushing it into risky trades, another year has passed with no charges on the horizon. Corzine isn’t sweating it. He’s a fixture on the New York restaurant scene.