Yet vitality has never ceased to stream from Nigeria, often in the form of emigrants frustrated by the situation at home, and hope has been perennially attached to the troubled giant.

It is possible that he may simply find the troubled financial giant's stock undervalued or that he may agitate for change at the top.

Airbus thought seriously of calling it the A280, a deliberate echo of the A380, the troubled giant that is the biggest passenger jet ever made.

Yet investors have continued to flee from WorldCom, the nation's second-largest long-distance phone company and one of the most troubled giants in the hard-hit telecommunications sector.

J. P. Morgan Chase has won some prominent assignments, like handling the revampings of troubled giants like Lucent and, more recently, Enron, the beleaguered energy trading company.

But disastrous economic policies, beginning in the early 1980's, have created a deeply troubled giant that seems to squander its riches, miss opportunities and sink deeper into misery.

With troubled giants IBM and Compaq leading the way, the world's computer makers decided late last year to inject some competitiveness into the European market, hastened by the growth of direct-mail computer sales.

The troubled Italian giant has expanded beyond computers in recent years to focus on designing, installing and maintaining computer networks for big corporate European customers.

The regional arbitration court in St. Petersburg, Russia, ruled yesterday that Baltic Shipping Lines was bankrupt and it appointed an outside manager for the troubled giant.

In an era of troubled giants, Bergdorf has an intriguing tiny success on its ground floor.