|
 "As long as he is succeeding, and as long as it's profitable,
I don't see why he should step down," Feuerstein said in an
interview of Redstone, the 92-year-old executive chairman of
both Viacom Inc and CBS Corp who faces renewed questions over
his fitness to lead.
Feuerstein spoke at a party thrown on Sunday by friends and
family for his own upcoming 90th birthday, and said he had come
to know Redstone on vacations and through connections in
Boston's tight business community, Redstone's home turf.
The event illustrated the contrast between the two figures'
legacies. Some of Redstone's investors have been up in arms
after a former girlfriend of Redstone filed a lawsuit alleging
he was mentally incompetent. With Redstone out of the public
eye, last week a member of Viacom's board made the rare move of
responding publicly to investors' concerns, saying Redstone
remains "mentally capable."
Feuerstein, meanwhile, is famous for different reasons. Twenty
years ago, Feuerstein kept paying his idled workers while he
rebuilt his textile factory in Lawrence, Massachusetts after a
disastrous fire. He became a national symbol of benevolent
capitalism during an era of corporate cost-cutting.
Feuerstein reinvested too much, however, and was eventually
forced out of his own family business, Malden Mills. Now known
as Polartec and owned by Versa Capital Management of
Philadelphia, the company has about 600 workers, down from 3,200
at Malden Mills' peak.
[to top of second column] |
Feuerstein was still the toast of Boston at the party on Sunday,
held at the modern synagogue Feuerstein attends in the quiet suburb
of Brookline.
Guests included Michael Dukakis, the onetime U.S. presidential
candidate and former Massachusetts governor, and former
Representative Barney Frank, who once headed the U.S. House
Financial Services Committee.
"You carried a community on your back," U.S. Representative Joseph
Kennedy III told Feuerstein during the event.
Once a distance runner, Feuerstein stood before the group to give
his own remarks, stooped but articulate. He quoted the poet Samuel
Coleridge and biblical verses and told the audience that workers
should not be oppressed.
"Prayer is meaningless unless it involves love for God's creatures
and one's fellow man," Feuerstein said.
(Reporting by Ross Kerber; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
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