Edwin Artzt, who as chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble Co. doubled profit during the 1990s while eliminating unprofitable brands, closing factories and expanding business overseas, has died. He was 92.
(Bloomberg) — Edwin Artzt, who as chief executive officer of Procter & Gamble Co. doubled profit during the 1990s while eliminating unprofitable brands, closing factories and expanding business overseas, has died. He was 92.
He died on April 6, Procter & Gamble said on its website, without giving details. Artzt “had the foresight and competitive spirit to position P&G for success, and he led with conviction and courage,” current CEO Jon Moeller said in a statement.
As CEO of the world’s biggest consumer-products maker from 1990 to 1995, Artzt cut about 12% of the workforce — or 13,000 jobs — and shuttered 30 plants, breaking with tradition at the Cincinnati-based company, where employees previously had job security.
A career P&G manager, Artzt gained nicknames such as “Wrecking Ball” and “The Prince of Darkness” for his acerbic outbursts, reputation for cost-cutting or, as he insisted, his penchant for working long into the night. He also got results: During his tenure, P&G’s market capitalization increased by $22 billion, according to a 1995 press statement.
“There was no need for any hatcheting in the company, but a need for us to get ourselves more competitive, to get our structural costs under more control,” Artzt said in a 1995 interview with the New York Times.
Company Brands
P&G manufactures Ivory soap, Crest toothpaste, Tide detergent, Bounty paper towels and Pampers diapers among its list of brands. Artzt helped make the company a force in the cosmetics and personal care industries by acquiring Max Factor and Old Spice.
Along the way, he jettisoned lagging brands, such as Puritan cooking oil, White Cloud bathroom tissue and Citrus Hill orange juice. He reduced prices on most merchandise while lowering production costs, cut back on coupons and promotions, and re-engineered logistics.
“We want to take our company apart brick by brick and put it back together again,” he told Wall Street analysts, according to a 1993 Newsweek article.
Edwin Lewis Artzt was born on April 15, 1930, in New York. He was the eldest son of William Artzt and the former Ida Lichtenstein, both classical musicians.
California Move
The family moved to Beverly Hills when Edwin was 7, where his father played with big bands and was music director for the radio program Blondie, according to his 1949 obituary in the New York Times.
Edwin Artzt was more interested in sports and journalism than music, and won a scholarship to the University of Oregon on the basis of a profile of Arthur Lake, the actor who played Dagwood Bumstead in radio, TV and film versions of Blondie, according to the book Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble.
He met his future wife, Ruth Nadine Martin, at a college dance. Artzt worked as a news editor at the university radio station and briefly as a sports reporter after graduating in 1951.
Two years later, he answered a classified ad in the Los Angeles Times and was hired in a P&G sales training program. The next year, Artzt moved to headquarters in Cincinnati to become brand manager for Dash detergent, one of the products he eliminated in the US market when he was CEO almost four decades later.
International Expansion
Artzt worked in a wide range of posts at P&G. He helped introduce Comet cleaning powder and Biz, a liquid detergent that flopped because it tended to crystallize in the warehouse. In the 1980s, he led P&G’s international operations, which by the 1990s accounted for more than half of the company’s revenue.
After he left P&G, Artzt worked as a senior adviser at Gabelli Group Capital Partners Inc. and KKR & Co.
With his first wife, Ruth, he had five children: Wendy, Karen, William, Laura and Elizabeth. The couple divorced in 1995. He later married Marieluise Hessel, an art collector.
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