Word: krupp
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...year history, Germany's Krupp industrial complex has often seemed as much a sovereign state as a business enterprise. Bismarck, the Kaisers and Hitler all courted the house of Krupp. Kaiser Wilhelm I called it "a national institution." Five generations of Krupps have made a proud point of imperiously waving away even bankers' questions about company finances...
...longer. Last week the company's fifth chief, Alfried Krupp, 59, found himself being not only called to strict and public account, but virtually read out of the family fiefdom...
...Bonn conference room crowded with bankers, aides and newsmen, Krupp sat silently while Socialist Economics Minister Karl Schiller spelled out what he called "a brave step that will remove unrest" about Krupp's future. In mid-April, the firm must appoint an "administrative council" of private but non-Krupp businessmen who will vote on all major management decisions. By the end of 1968, Krupp will be transformed into a public company, possibly some sort of foundation...
Banker's Rights. Schiller's move was the price extracted by the Bonn government and a group of West German banks for providing the financing that is urgently needed for $250 million worth of export orders that Krupp has on its books. The company's troubles began last year when Krupp, already suffering from the depressed coal market and declining prices for steel, which accounts for 30% of its total production, began grasping for export orders so as to keep its 100,000 loyal Kruppianers at work...
Having far overextended its own financial resources, Krupp went to an export-financing syndicate of 54 banks last December and asked for $25 million in credit. The bankers, who had advanced him $90 million earlier in the year, demanded to see the company's balance sheet. Then-incredibly-they turned Krupp down. Said Deutsche Bank Chief Executive Hermann Abs, Germany's most powerful banker: "It is the noblest right of the banker to say no when he considers the risk exhausted." Abs next took the problem to Bonn. Schiller stepped in quickly, fearing that a crisis at Krupp...