Rand V. Araskog, who as chief executive of ITT Corp. from 1979 to 1998 spent much of his time dismantling the vast conglomerate as investors clamored for focus, died Monday at his home in Palm Beach, Fla. He was 89 years old.
Mr. Araskog, who grew up in Minnesota in a family of Swedish descent, was a U.S. military intelligence official in Germany before going into business, joining what was then International Telephone & Telegraph Corp. in 1966 and becoming the right-hand man to its chairman, Harold Geneen.
The company was founded in the 1920s to provide telephone service in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Mr. Geneen transformed it with rapid-fire acquisitions into the ultimate conglomerate whose scores of businesses included Sheraton hotels, Hartford Insurance, Avis rental cars and the maker of Wonder bread and Hostess Twinkies.
