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NEW YORK, United States — Michel C. Bergerac, who led Revlon Inc.'s diversification into health care and lost control of the cosmetics maker in a three-month battle with investor Ronald Perelman, has died. He was 84.
He died Sunday at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, his wife, Alice Bergerac, said in a telephone interview. The cause was respiratory failure resulting from coronary heart disease and hypertension.
Bergerac served as New York-based Revlon’s chairman and chief executive officer for a decade after company founder Charles Revson died in 1975. He resigned from the company in 1985 at the conclusion of a hostile takeover by Perelman’s Pantry Pride Inc., which paid $1.8 billion for the company’s stock, according to an account by the New York Times.
The fight for Revlon also pitted Perelman against Forstmann Little & Co., Theodore J. Forstmann's investment firm, which sought the right to buy two Revlon divisions if another bidder took control of the company. The takeover battle produced one of the signature deals of the 1980s.
By Stephen Miller; editors: Charles W. Stevens and Kevin Orland.
