Word: goodrich
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Around the Portage Country Club in Akron, Ohio, conversation these days is anxious, subdued, and addressed to one topic: dismissals of executives and white-collar workers at B. F. Goodrich Co. Since September, the fourth largest U.S. tiremaker has quietly retired or fired several hundred employees, including one vice president and many middle-aged people who have spent the bulk of their working lives with the company. The dismissals have often been abrupt, impersonal and accompanied by a minimum in severance...
...purge is a result of last spring's attempted takeover of Goodrich by Ben Heineman's Chicago-based Northwest Industries. Goodrich waged a successful defense [TIME, May 23] that has become a classic in corporate tactics. But Northwest emerged as the largest single stockholder, with 16% of Goodrich's shares. That was a sufficient threat to spur Goodrich's chairman, Ward Keener, to make good on his promise in the heat of the takeover battle to "improve profit margins...
...Goodrich's profits have lagged behind those of its prime competitors. Last year the company earned only 3.9% on sales of $1.1 billion, compared with 6% for the industry's most profitable major operator, Firestone. After Northwest's takeover attempt, Keener, who was paid $240,000 last year, allotted each of the divisions a profit target and rigorously trimmed back on money-losing operations. Last week, six days before Christmas, Goodrich closed down a rubber footwear plant in Watertown, Mass-and with it went the jobs of 950 employees. In that case, the closing had been announced...
...earnings problems are actually cutting their 1969 spending. Chrysler Corp., whose earnings plunged 51% last quarter, has deeply slashed its $300 million capital-spending plans for 1969. At New Stanton, Pa., construction of a $200 million assembly plant was halted even as the steel was going up. B. F. Goodrich, which is trying to fatten earnings and fend off a takeover attempt by Northwest Industries, plans to trim its 1969 spending. So does International Harvester, which has scrapped plans to expand its network of offices around the country...
...little but give ceremonious approval to management decisions, he popularized the role of the working director-demanding that management circulate agendas for board meetings and supply directors with figures to study in advance. In his career, he sat on the boards of more than 30 companies, including Ford, Sears, Goodrich, General Electric and General Foods...