The BIZ QUIZ

Talk about a roller-coaster ride. From the volatility in stocks to the historic action in mergers, 1998 was a year to remember in business. See if you can answer these questions about stories that made headlines:

1: Drug giant American Home Products Corp. had planned a $35-billion mega-merger with what company, until their talks collapsed?

a) Pfizer Inc.

b) Ciena Corp.

c) Monsanto Co.

d) Merck & Co.

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2: In one of the largest securities-related settlements ever, Merrill Lynch & Co. agreed to pay Orange County how much to settle complaints stemming from the county’s 1994 bankruptcy?

a) $100 million

b) $400 million

c) $900 million

d) $1.5 billion

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3: Before making its dramatic rebound late in the year, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped how far from its then-record high set in July?

a) 12%

b) 15%

c) 20%

d) 29%

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4: Only weeks after Citicorp and Travelers completed their merger to form Citigroup, what executive--once thought a candidate to lead the financial services colossus--was ousted?

a) Sanford Weill

b) John Reed

c) Deryck Maughan

d) Jamie Dimon

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5: What billionaire is the largest stockholder in Sunbeam Corp., which fired outspoken executive Albert “Chainsaw Al” Dunlap as its chairman:

a) Larry Tisch

b) Philip Anschutz

c) Jay Pritzker

d) Ronald Perelman

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6: American Stores Co., which agreed to be bought by grocery chain Albertson’s Inc., owns the Lucky supermarket outlets and what drugstore chain?

a) Rite-Aid

b) Sav-On

c) Payless

d) Walgreen

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7: What man was ousted as chief of Universal Studios, but left with a severance package estimated at $30 million:

a) David Geffen

b) Frank Biondi Jr.

c) Jeffrey Katzenberg

d) Michael Ovitz

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8: Once an unthinkable event, personal-computer maker Compaq Computer Corp. bought which maker of large-scale computers for $9 billion:

a) Data General

b) Unisys

c) Honeywell

d) Digital Equipment

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9: Since California’s $20-billion electricity industry was deregulated March 31, how many residential users have switched to a new power provider?

a) 1%

b) 5%

c) 15%

d) 25%

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10: AT&T; Chairman C. Michael Armstrong, whose company agreed to buy cable powerhouse Tele-Communications Inc. for $37 billion, previously ran what company?

a) Lockheed Martin

b) GM Hughes Electronics

c) Liberty Media Group

d) Raytheon

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11: The proposed merger of Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp. would reunite the two biggest pieces of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil trust, which was broken apart in 1911. Exxon originally was called Standard Oil of:

a) New York

b) New Jersey

c) Ohio

d) Pennsylvania

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12: The Dow Jones industrial average recorded its biggest one-day point gain in history on Sept. 8. The blue-chip index that day rose:

a) 331 points

b) 351 points

c) 381 points

d) 401 points

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13) What financier plans to donate millions of dollars to help poor Los Angeles children attend private schools of their choice?

a) Richard Rainwater

b) Michael Milken

c) Theodore Forstmann

d) Robert Bass

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14) What company unveiled plans to ease the telephone system’s overload with a new network that can increase call-handling capacity 17-fold?

a) MCI WorldCom

b) AT&T;

c) Bell Atlantic

d) Sprint

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15) Lockheed Martin scrapped its planned purchase of aerospace rival Northrop Grumman for what reason?

a) Dispute over price

b) Antitrust objections

c) Management clash

d) Suits by competitors

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16) Some 90% of the nation’s 44 million pager customers lost service when a satellite operated by this company spun out of control:

a) GM Hughes Electronics

b) PageNet

c) SkyTel

d) PanAmSat

Answers:

1 c

2 b

3 c

4 d

5 d

6 b

7 b

8 d

9 a

10 b

11 b

12 c

13 b

14 d

15 c

16 d