Article: When audacious becomes disastrous ; How the merger game felled a CEO and nearly killed Federal-Mogul.

The St. Regis Hotel's crystal chandeliers, Louis XVI-style furniture and $5,000-a-night rooms make a posh setting for Wall Street's high-powered money managers.

So it was fitting that Richard Snell, one of the industry's boldest deal-makers, invited 100 financial analysts to this luxurious New York City hotel in the summer of 1999. Snell, president of Federal-Mogul Corp. (NYSE: FMO), wanted to update the analysts on his Big Hairy Audacious Goal. That was Snell's phrase for his plan to expand his company, a Southfield-based maker of engine bearings and seals, into a $10 billion-a-year auto supplier.

After a string of costly acquisitions, the 60-year-old ...

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