Word: brill
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Undertaker Needed. Business was so bad that the plant was about to be shut down; in Perelle's first year, Brill lost $2.1 million. "All the place needed," says Perelle, a cocky bantam (5 ft. 6 in.) who never hesitates to crow over his own accomplishments, "was an undertaker." Perelle quickly found out what was wrong. For one thing, Brill did not even have an assembly line. Buses were built in one spot, had to be lifted over incompleted ones when finished...
Perelle spent $10,000 to put in an assembly line, and another $150 for a winch to pull it. Where Brill once used 2,300 men, on three shifts, to build ten buses, 700 men now turn out the same number in a single eight-hour shift. In 1950 Perelle cut the losses to $124,000, and rearmament brought along some $25 million in Government orders for buses and in subcontracts. Last week Perelle proudly reported that in 1951 Brill's sales rose 88%, to $23.6 million, and the company turned in a profit of $2.5 million after taxes...
...full. So Perelle, to spark his sales, has taken on a total of $4,000,000 worth of bus company "paper." It averages 4¼% interest, and Perelle regards it as a safe investment, but it ties up money that he would prefer to put into modernizing Brill's plant...
Sturdy Baby. As a result of the "easy credit policy," Brill's share of city bus business is edging up. When Perelle took over, Brill made 414 buses, or 7.8% of the industry's total. Last year it made...
Wall Street's Financier Charles E. Allen, who bought Brill from Victor Emanuel's Avco Corp. a year ago and added it to his growing collection of U.S. companies (Colorado Fuel & Iron, American Bosch), likes Perelle's methods so well that he gives him a free hand. They both realize that the big Government orders make Brill, to some extent, a war baby. But Perelle hopes to have Brill strong enough, when rearmament is over, to stand on its own feet...