Over the coming years, RJR would pursue a number of additional restructurings, equity injections and public offerings of stock to provide the company with additional financial flexibility.

On March 21, 1991, RJR Nabisco Holdings Corp. became a publicly traded stock.

Later, in December 1990, RJR announced an exchange offer that would swap debt in RJR for a new public stock in the company, effectively an unusual means of taking RJR public again and simultaneously reducing debt on the company.

KKR would begin to reduce its ownership in RJR, when in 1994, its stock in RJR was used as part of the consideration for its leveraged buyout of Borden, Inc., a producer of food and beverage products, consumer products, and industrial products, in a highly complex and unprecedented transaction.

The following year, in 1995, KKR would divest itself of its final stake in RJR Nabisco when Borden sold a $ 638 million block of stock.

F. Ross Johnson decides to take the tobacco and food conglomerate RJR Nabisco private after receiving advance news of the likely market failure of the company's smokeless cigarette called Premier, the development of which had been intended to finally boost the company's stock price.

After sixteen years of efforts that included contributing new equity, taking RJR public, asset sales and exchanging shares of RJR for the ownership of Borden, Inc., KKR had finally sold the last remnants of its 1989 investment.

Taylor left the foreign service in 1984 and served as Senior Vice-President of Nabisco ( RJR Nabisco after 1986 ) from 1984 to 1989 and later founded the public consulting firm Taylor and Ryan ( and remains Chair ).

In March 1989, Louis V. Gerstner of American Express became the new head of RJR Nabisco.

In March 1999, RJR Nabisco announced the sale of the international division of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, and in June of that year, the company sold the remainder of R. J. Reynolds Tobacco to stockholders.

Six of KKR's portfolio companies completed IPOs in 1991, including RJR Nabisco and Duracell.

RJR declined, but further appeals followed in 1993 and 1994.

RJR Nabisco proved to be not only the largest buyout in history to that time, at $ 25 billion ($ 31. 1 billion, including assumed debt ) as well as a high water mark and sign of the end of the 1980s buyout boom.

At $ 31. 1 billion of transaction value ( including assumed debt ), RJR Nabisco was by far the largest leveraged buyout in history.

The buyout of RJR Nabisco was completed in April 1989 and KKR would spend the early 1990s focused on the task of repaying the RJR's enormous debt load through a series of asset sales and restructuring transactions.

By the mid 1990s, the debt markets were improving and KKR had moved on from the RJR Nabisco buyout.

On November 8, 1990, Hearst Corporation acquired the remaining 20 % stake of ESPN Inc. from RJR Nabisco for a price estimated between $ 165 million and $ 175 million.

The credibility of Milloy's website junkscience. com was questioned by Paul D. Thacker, a writer for The New Republic, in the wake of evidence that Milloy had received funding from Philip Morris, RJR Tobacco, and Exxon Mobil.

KKR would eventually prevail in acquiring RJR Nabisco at $ 109 per share, marking a dramatic increase from the original announcement that Shearson Lehman Hutton would take RJR Nabisco private at $ 75 per share.

Additionally, the RJR Nabisco deal was showing signs of strain, leading to a recapitalization in 1990 that involved the contribution of $ 1. 7 billion of new equity from KKR.

* 1993 – Kraft General Foods acquires NABISCO ready-to-eat cold cereals from RJR Nabisco ( the cereals are now owned by Post Cereals ).

In July 1997, under pressure from the impending Mangini trial, Congress and various public-interest groups, RJR announced it would settle out of court and voluntarily end its Joe Camel campaign.

On January 15, 1987, the RJR Nabisco board approved a headquarters move from Winston-Salem to Cobb County, Georgia, north of Atlanta, where the company had rented space.

Among KKR's investors included, the Coca-Cola, Georgia-Pacific and United Technologies corporate pension funds as well as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology endowment, the Harvard University endowment and the New York State Common Retirement Fund However, KKR also faced criticism from existing investors over the firm's use of hostile tactics in the buyout of RJR.

KKR proposed to provide a joint offer with Johnson and Shearson Lehman but was rebuffed and Johnson attempted to stonewall KKR's access to financial information from RJR.

" Gerstner reversed this plan, realizing from his previous experiences at RJR and American Express that there remained a vital need for a broad-based information technology integrator.

It moved heavily into the frozen food business and the packaged meat industry, and then picked up a selection of other brands from firms like RJR Nabisco and Beatrice Foods among others, as the leveraged buyouts of the 1980s resulted in the divestiture or breakup of many major American consumer product firms.

*-The Guinness World Records page on F. Ross Johnson, the record holder for largest Golden handshake ( US $ 53, 800, 000 from RJR Nabisco ) in February 1989

The Curtiss Candy Company was owned by Standard Brands Inc which merged with Nabisco in 1981 to become Nabisco Brands, Inc., and, in 1990, Nestlé bought Baby Ruth and Butterfinger from RJR Nabisco.

Procter & Gamble bought Hawaiian Punch from Del Monte Foods, spin off from RJR Nabisco in 1989, in 1990.

He has retired from serving on the Board of Directors of Lehman Brothers, Bristol-Myers Squibb Company, The Brown Group, Inc., Chase Manhattan Bank, RJR Nabisco, Pilkington Ltd., and Xerox Corporation.

In 2003, RJR dropped its sponsorship of the top series, and NASCAR obtained a sponsorship from NEXTEL, a telecommunications company.

Its name ( along with that of the Winston brand ) derives from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the city where RJR was founded and headquartered.

KKR was able to overcome the RJR Nabisco investment, raising a new investment fund and continuing to invest throughout the 1990s.

After the RJR Nabisco deal, KKR did not complete a single investment in 1990, the first year with no new investment activity since 1982.

While KKR no longer had any ownership of RJR Nabisco by 1995, its original investment would not be fully realized until KKR finally exited the last of its investment in 2004.

However, KKR was still burdened by the performance of the RJR investment and repeated obituaries in the media.

Following the RJR Nabisco takeover by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. led by Henry Kravis, Johnson started his own private investment company, RJM Group, Inc., based in Atlanta, Georgia.

Gelbart-scripted films for television included Barbarians at the Gate ( 1993 ), a true story about the battle for control of the RJR Nabisco corporation starring James Garner that was based on the best-selling book of that name ; Weapons of Mass Distraction ( 1997 ) starring Ben Kingsley and Gabriel Byrne as rival media moguls and And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself ( 2003 ) starring Antonio Banderas as the Mexican revolutionary leader.

Several television and radio stations including Television Jamaica ( TVJ ), CVM TV, RJR 94 FM, TBC Radio 88. 5 FM, Hitz 92 FM, FAME 95 FM, LOVE TV, ZIP 103, Kool 97 FM and LOVE FM, are all based in Kingston.

In addition to the aforementioned Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco and the film adaptation, based on actual events, a fictional LBO is the basis of the 1963 Japanese film High and Low.

* F. Ross Johnson-Former CEO of RJR Nabisco during the leveraged buyout.

* F. Ross Johnson ( born 1931 ), Canadian businessman and former CEO, RJR Nabisco.

The R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Company ( RJR ), based in Winston-Salem, North Carolina and founded by R. J. Reynolds in 1875, is the second-largest tobacco company in the U. S. ( behind Altria Group ).

RJR is an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of Reynolds American Inc. which in turn is 42 % owned by British American Tobacco of the United Kingdom.

R. J. Reynolds Industries merged with Nabisco Brands in 1985, and the name changed to RJR Nabisco in August 1986.

In 1987, a bidding war ensued between several financial firms to acquire RJR Nabisco.