'Too much passion': Why Firestone owner let Carl Icahn buy Pep Boys
Could Bridgestone still add stores from Phila chain?
Outbidding Bridgestone (debt-fueled "financial" investors like Icahn often pay more, vs. "strategic" corporate buyers like Bridgestone), Icahn took Pep Boys private and has replaced top Philadelphia-based executives with leaders of his Auto Plus chain, based in Georgia.
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"The acquisition would have been a good fit for the Japanese tire maker," adding more than 800 Pep Boys-owned locations to Bridgestone's 2,200 Firestone and other U.S. stores.
No wonder, when Philadelphia-based Pep Boys went on the market, "Bridgestone showed restraint." It raised its initial $15 bid to $17, but let Icahn buy Pep Boys and merge it into his recently-acquired Georgia-based Auto at $18.50 a share, topping $1 billion.
"It's a decision we had made in advance so there was no hesitation from anybody," Tsuya told Bloomberg.
"Tsuya, who joined Bridgestone in 1976, was a junior member on the project team that worked on the Firestone acquisition. While the Firestone takeover helped Bridgestone expand, Tsuya said if he could do it all over again," he would have nickel-and-dimed the seller, instead of driving away competitors with Bridgestone's fat above-market bid. "It was like rushing into a marriage with too much passion," Tsuya concluded.