(FORTUNE Magazine) – Is this any way to make an exit? The same day that Unisys reported a $640 million annual loss for 1989, Chairman Michael Blumenthal, 64, announced that he was retiring from the computer manufacturer to become a limited partner at Lazard Freres, the investment banking firm. Actually, Blumenthal first planned to leave in 1988, but chose to keep up the fight while the computer manufacturer cut $500 million from its costs by closing plants and eliminating 8,000 jobs. Created in 1986 through the merger of Burroughs and Sperry, Unisys never became the powerhouse that Blumenthal hoped to build. Nonetheless, he defends his original vision: ''It's questionable whether either of the two parts would have survived the changes in the computer industry.'' Blumenthal knows about survival. After his family escaped from Nazi Germany, he grew up in a Shanghai ghetto. No stranger to restructuring, he presided over cost cutting at Bendix and Burroughs. He has been on the other side too: During a shakeup in the Carter Administration, Blumenthal was fired as Treasury Secretary.