How Al Dunlap Self Destructed

On June 9, Sunbeam Chairman and CEO Albert J. Dunlap stormed out of a board meeting in Rockefeller Center, leaving a conference room filled with puzzled and incredulous directors. Most of them thought the once celebrated champion of downsizing, under mounting pressure, was becoming unglued. One director, say three participants, openly expressed concerns about Dunlap's emotional state.

Demanding their support, Dunlap, 60, had just told his board that billionaire financier Ronald O. Perelman and others were engaged in a conspiracy to drive the small-appliance maker's already slumping stock down further so they could buy Sunbeam Corp. on the cheap. He suggested that if Michael Price, an influential mutual-fund manager who had recruited Dunlap nearly two years earlier, really backed him, he would buy out Perelman's $280 million stake.