Word: leylands
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...practices of multinational companies have become so commonplace that exposing them is emerging as a growth industry in itself. Last week when the London tabloid Daily Mail published an expose of an elaborate system of alleged bribes and payoffs maintained by Britain's big, government-controlled automaker, British Leyland Motor Corp., the shock waves reached the highest levels of Britain's shaky Labor government...
...story raised questions about the exposers as well as the exposed. British Leyland has some similarities to the Lockheed Aircraft Corp., the American company whose use of secret money to help win sales abroad touched off the current concern over international business ethics. Like Lockheed, the British auto giant (1976 sales: $4.9 billion) had to seek government assistance to keep it going; in 1975 the British government spent millions to buy 95% of the company's stock and rescue it from bankruptcy. Also like the American firm, British Leyland depends heavily on its export business. The Daily Mail charged...
...British Leyland's "slushing," as the Daily Mail told it, amounted to $19.4 million in the 1975-76 financial year and is estimated at $42.5 million for 1977-78. Furthermore, the paper claimed to have evidence that these payments were authorized by a Cabinet member, Industry Secretary Eric Varley...
...Policy. Leyland's-and the government's-problems are far from over. Restoring pay differentials in British industry would introduce a severe complication in negotiations for Phase 3. The strike has sharpened union resentment against the pay policy. Joe Gormley, chief of the Mineworkers' Union, which brought down the Heath government three years ago, says "there is not a cat-in-hell's chance" that the miners will vote for voluntary curbs...
...Leyland, its losses during the strike ran $17 million to $25 million a week, adding to the $43 million in red ink generated by the company's auto-manufacturing division last year. Leyland still earns money from bus and truck production, and from its special-products division. In fact, it has just announced earnings of $120 million for the 15-month period ending in December. The strike losses will all but wipe out these profits, however. That jeopardizes future loans from the government, which are essential to provide the $425 million that Leyland needs to make a new version...