For more than three months, spry, quixotic P. G. Winnett, 83, chairman and co-founder of the West Coast's Bullock's department stores, fought alone to rally stockholders against a merger with Federated Department Stores, the nation's biggest chain. Appealing to local pride, he warned that the "Eastern octopus" would crush Bullock's individuality. Bullock's other directors, led by Winnett's son-in-law, President Walter W. Candy Jr., 58, argued that a merger with Federated (60 stores, including Manhattan's Bloomingdale's, Miami's Burdine's and Boston's Filene's) would enable stockholders to share in its more rapid growth, chided...
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