ABSTRACT
One fact occupied Stepan Popovic's thoughts as he drove home one night in March 1990 from a seminar on foreign investment in Czechoslovakia organized by the Washington-based consulting and investment firm PlanEcon: Foreign investors ranked the glass industry second among industries in which they were willing to invest. Popovic was general manager of Sklo Union State Company (SU), a producer of flat and container glass and glass fibers, located in Teplice, North Bohemia. The goals that Sklo Union's management sought to achieve through privatization were clear. In early spring 1990 Sklo Union's management began negotiations with Guardian Industries on its own. In the summer of 1990, some three months after Stepan Popovic's first meeting on foreign investment, he believed he was ready for negotiations. He considered the potential suitors that best fit SU and his plans for privatization.
