Word: ferguson
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Queens Wild. In Clovis, N. Mex., Mrs. Hazel Ferguson, irked at her husband for joining a late night card party, stalked into the game with pistol in hand, fired a shot into the floor, lined up the players against the wall, marched her errant husband home at gunpoint, next day was fined $25 for discharging a firearm within the city limits...
Though the ads were pitched at the farmer's ego. Massey-Ferguson did not have far to look for the real prototype of the man it described: Massey President Albert A. Thornbrough, 46. When Kansas-born Al Thornbrough became the firm's executive vice president three years ago, the company was on the brink of bankruptcy. This week, by virtue of his aggressive policies, the company proved a remarkable comeback from 1957's losses of $4,700,000; it announced 1958 earnings that topped $13 million, or $1.25 a share. While sales in Europe, Africa, Australia, South...
Chairman James S. Duncan resigned because of "ill health," and Colonel W. Eric Phillips, backed by 30% of the voting stock, became chairman and chief executive officer. Phillips, who had brought Thornbrough to Toronto from the Ferguson tractor division a year before, promoted him to president with authority to overhaul the company...
Cash in the Till. Thornbrough temporarily shut down several U.S. plants, slashed prices of the company's products below cost to clear out inventories, get cash in the till quickly. He streamlined the company by merging the Ferguson and Massey-Harris distribution systems, which often competed with each other, into the new Massey-Ferguson Ltd. He put in tight inventory controls, raised salaries and bonuses of salesmen and branch managers to give them more incentive, brought in a crack young management team to push sales...
...Massey-Ferguson is now working to acquire the tractor plant of England's Standard Motor Co. Ltd., and the diesel engine facilities of England's F. Perkins Ltd. The firm has expanded its operations in France, doubling its stockholdings in Standard-Hotchkiss, a French tractor maker, to 50%. But energetic Al Thornbrough still looks to the U.S. for the even bigger market that Massey-Ferguson must have before it can shuck all its troubles. He has purchased Mid-Western Industries of Wichita, Kans., a leader in the light industrial-equipment field, doubled the size of the Detroit tractor...