Frederick Ross Johnson

F. Ross Johnson was a Canadian-born American businessman, best known as the chief executive officer of RJR Nabisco in the 1980s. He started his career as an accountant for General Electric in Montreal and as a vice-president of merchandising for the T. Eaton Company before being named president of Standard Brands Ltd. ³ Johnson negotiated a merger between Standard Brands and Nabisco with Nabisco CEO Bob Schaeberle in 1981. Soon after, Schaeberle left Nabisco, and Johnson took the helm, replacing many Nabisco executives with ones from Standard Brands. After growing restlessness, he decided to put the company in play. Originally, he planned to execute a management-led leveraged buyout with Shearson Lehman Hutton. Events quickly escalated into a takeover contest. He was extensively profiled in the book Barbarians at the Gate: The Fall of RJR Nabisco by Wall Street Journal columnists Bryan Burrough and John Helyar, and in the movie of the same name made for HBO. In the film, Johnson was portrayed by James Garner . Following the RJR Nabisco takeover by Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. led by Henry Kravis, Johnson started his own private investment company, RJM Group, Inc., based in Atlanta, Georgia. Until he resigned in March 2009, he was chairman of AuthentiDate Holding Corp., a United States publicly traded company. He served on the board of directors of several companies including Bentley Pharmaceuticals. Johnson also served on the advisory board of Power Corporation of Canada . ¹