Most Hated Company?

A few posts back I made reference to AIG becoming the most hated company in America, a feat I describe as having been “unthinkable” only a few years ago, when the Vice President’s old company pretty much had that sewed up. Well, the truth is, there’s no empirical evidence to confirm that everyone else hated Halliburton as much as I did; the fact is, if you were an employee or a stockholder you probably liked the company just fine, and if you are anywhere to the right of center on the political spectrum, you probably figured that if it wasn’t the Big H it would have been somebody else. AIG, on the other hand, appears to have some significant evidence behind it…

According to this study I found online, by several objective matters, AIG has become the most hated company in America, not just because they’ve taken $180 billion of your tax dollars, but also because they’ve lost 99% of their investment value due to bad choices, stupidity and greed and fired enough people to contribute significantly to the unemployment rate, and their senior management is apparently still tone-deaf (or blind) to the outrage they’ve created. Nor is it a surprise to find Citigroup on the list; while not quite as hapless as AIG (and not quite as toxic to our economy), they’ve managed to lose 90% of their share value over the last few years, and they’re also the second largest credit card company in the country, which means that innocently or not, they’ve been responsible for a lot of people going into credit card debt from which they will likely never emerge…

Not all of the names on this list are that obvious, however. Sprint is remarkable only for not appearing higher on the list (it’s easily the most despised cell carrier of the lot; the people who make Verizon look good), but you probably wouldn’t have expected to see K-Mart or Rite-Aid on the list; apparently, their massive financial losses in the past year make up for the fact that they didn’t tank the economy or take vast amount of public money to stay alive and then complain about the terms of the bailout. Abercrombie & Fitch is also a bit of a surprise; apparently, in addition to their child-porn print advertising they also have really crappy customer service and a miserable atmosphere in which to work. And it’s rather startling to find Dell – once the darling of the tech stocks – on this list; it would seem that their neglect of the new “netbook” product category is costing them, and their decision to slash jobs isn’t making them any friends…

United Airlines is not a surprise, given what we’ve been hearing about their customer service and public relations policies over the past year, but it is a bit shocking to realize that all of the people (including me!) who suggested that if they run that aspect of their business like incompetents, the rest of it must also be faulty are apparently correct. It was more surprising to find Hertz on the list; their poor financial performance and sweeping layoffs have made them unpopular, but most people would not have guessed that they’d also make the “Worst Companies to Work For” list. The really amazing one is Gibson; one of the industry leaders, they have a huge following of loyal customers – but getting into trouble for using materials harvested from an endangered species of tree is causing them some trouble…

I call your attention to all of these, the obvious as well as the surprising, not because I expect to amaze or disturb you, but simply to point out that with very few exceptions, all of these companies were at the top of their industry not long ago, and not one of them actually set out to join the most hated firms in America. Not long ago, in fact, you’d have considered investing in most of these while picking on Halliburton, Gateway, Texas Instruments or Enron for being a bunch of arrogant jackasses. Now they’ve all got public relations issues to which the term “blast radius” can (at least figuratively) be applied. If that doesn’t make you wonder where your company will end up in a year or two, it should…