CEO: ‘90s excesses led to many bankruptcies

Alana Roberts

Wednesday, Sept. 24, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.

Ronald Rittenmeyer, CEO and president of Safety-Kleen, an industrial waste management company currently in Chapter 11 restructuring, is comparing the "anything goes" business practices of the 1990s to the city of Las Vegas.

"In Vegas, there's an escape from reality and the consequences. The '90s are much like Las Vegas," he said during his keynote speech Monday at the annual conference of INSOL in Las Vegas.

INSOL International is a London-based federation of accountants and lawyers who specialize in turnarounds and insolvency. About 300 members from 31 countries attended the conference, which began Sunday and ended Tuesday.

Rittenmeyer's speech, titled "Boom to Bust: Recovering from the '90s Bubble," explained the excesses and the foibles of an era where good business practices were abandoned in pursuit of ambitious and often unrealistic goals, and explained how such behavior led to the bankruptcies of many companies.

"The excess of the '90s became the norm not the exception. In this new age where expectations were through the roof it was too easy to satisfy the street (Wall Street). CEOs and their staffs became heroes and Y2K fueled the drive for technology," Rittenmeyer said.

He is currently leading Safety-Kleen's restructuring process, which is set for completion sometime in the the third quarter of 2003. The company employs 13 people at its 9,000-square-foot operation in North Las Vegas on Donovan Way. The company about a year ago left its former location at Las Vegas Boulevard and Owens Avenue, where it had been since 1977.

Rittenmeyer said he knows how companies find their way into chapter 11 and more importantly he knows how a company can recover.

"A main tenant of business is to find a need and fill it and that need must be real. In my assessment, there was no boom, a boom is something sustainable. The '90s were built on a vapor and it was based on a blip. People poured millions of dollars into businesses that didn't have customers let alone a product," Rittenmeyer said.

He said facts such as the current 6 percent unemployment rate indicate that the economy is still in a "lean" time. However, he also said there is hope of recovery if companies get back to tried-but-true fundamental rules.

"Lean years sow the seeds of tomorrow's opportunity. Lean years need strong management, Rittenmeyer said.

He said the leaders of companies who want their businesses to recover need to value their employees and customers and they need to pay attention to details.

"I suggest that businesses are like race horses. You have to know them inside and out and coax them into success. Maybe we'll temper the recovery with some good old fashioned values," Rittenmeyer said.