Tenneco's Blakely Receives CFO Excellence Award
8 September 1998
Tenneco's Blakely Receives CFO Excellence Award
GREENWICH, Conn.--Sept. 8, 1998--Tenneco Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Robert T. Blakely has been named a winner of a CFO Excellence Award - in the Capital Structure Management category - from Arthur Andersen and CFO Magazine.
The first annual awards recognize the best in financial leadership and honor individuals who have created value through their strategic vision, leadership, innovation and effectiveness, according to Gary Moran, an Arthur Andersen partner.
Awards were given in ten categories representing the major challenges CFO's face. The categories demonstrate the array of CFO responsibilities and the complexity and importance of finance in the modern corporation, according to Moran.
Blakely was recognized for work over the last six years spearheading a series of reorganizations, refinancings, divestitures and acquisitions that took Tenneco from being a conglomerate in seven lines of business, with $11 billion in debt and a market capitalization of $3.5 billion in 1992 to a focused company in two businesses with a 50% debt-to-capital ratio, a $7.3 billion market capitalization, and return on assets above 15% by 1997.
As an integral member of the senior management team that engineered the comprehensive turnaround of the former Tenneco, Blakely helped direct a program of significant cost reduction and re-engineering. It included major asset sales and funding initiatives, and specifically the syndication of three credit facilities totaling $5.9 billion and equity offerings of more than $2.2 billion. An important part of the initiatives was the planning and implementation of a $1.5 billion restructuring of Case Corporation.
In a CFO Magazine article about Blakely, Tenneco Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Dana G. Mead attributed much of the success of Tenneco's ongoing transformation to Blakely, crediting the CFO's credibility, ability to pull together disparate groups of people, and his "excellent relationships with banks, owners, rating agencies, and others" in reorganizing "one of the largest and most complex conglomerates in the world."
The article further notes that Blakely was the only member of the previous senior management team who remained as the former Tenneco went through its difficult changes of the 1990s. Blakely joined Tenneco in 1981 from Morgan Stanley & Co., where he had been a partner in the bank's energy group. His experience there is credited in the article with helping him understand the range of possibilities in dealing with the former Tenneco's complex problems. Blakely's experience and expertise continue to be an invaluable asset to Tenneco, as the company pursues a study of strategic alternatives announced in July.
Blakely earned his bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering in 1964 and his master's degree in business administration in 1965, both from Cornell University. He received his doctorate in 1970 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Blakely is a Trustee of Cornell University and serves as a member of Cornell's audit and finance committees. He is a member of the board of directors of Solutia Inc. (formerly Monsanto Chemical); Vlasic Foods International Inc.; the New York City Ballet; the Manhattan and Bronx Council of the Boy Scouts of America; and the United Way of Greenwich.
Arthur Andersen is a global multidisciplinary professional services firm that helps its clients improve their business performance through assurance and business advisory services, business consulting, global corporate finance, and tax and business advisory services. With more than $5 billion in revenues and 60,000 employees, Arthur Andersen serves clients in 363 locations in 78 countries.
CFO Magazine, a member of the Economist Group, reaches 365,000 senior executives with financial responsibilities at large and midsized companies, and is published monthly.
Tenneco is an $8 billion global manufacturing company headquartered in Greenwich, Conn., with 50,000 employees worldwide. Tenneco Automotive is one of the world's largest producers and marketers of ride control and exhaust systems and products, which are sold under the Monroe(R) and Walker(R) global brand names. Among its products are Sensa-Trac(R) shocks and struts, Rancho(R) shock absorbers, Walker(R) Quiet-Flow(tm) mufflers and DynoMax(tm) performance exhaust products, and Monroe(R) Clevite(tm) vibration control components. Tenneco Packaging is among the world's leading and most diversified packaging companies. Among its products are Hefty(R) trash bags, Hefty OneZip(R) and Baggies(R) food storage bags, E-Z Foil(R) single-use aluminum cookware and Hexacomb(R) paper honeycomb products.
For more information about Tenneco, visit the Tenneco website at http://www.tenneco.com.