Word: loreans
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During his successful four-year campaign to persuade the British government to cough up $156 million in loans and grants, maverick Automaker John Zachary De Lorean confidently predicted that American customers in 1982 would buy 20,000 of the sporty stainless-steel autos manufactured by De Lorean Motor Co. (price tag: $25,000). De Lorean, however, had not reckoned on the continued disastrous slump in U.S. auto sales. Since last June, only half of the 7,000 De Loreans shipped to the U.S. from the company's manufacturing site in Belfast, Northern Ireland, have been sold. As a result...
...Lorean is seeking an infusion of $70 million in government export loans, but negotiations between the firm and the tightfisted Conservative administration of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher have erupted into a public game of chicken. Said a Thatcher spokesman last week: "This government does not regard De Lorean as a bottomless pit. You can't keep throwing good money after bad." De Lorean quickly reminded officials that his firm provides 2,600 jobs in a violence-prone and depressed section of Northern Ireland, where few corporations have ventured...
Adding to De Lorean's problems, word leaked out that company executives last month voted themselves "performance bonuses" of some $800,000. Although the extra pay was rescinded after a public protest, the bonuses nevertheless became a bitter issue during an acrid debate last week in the House of Commons. Conservative M.P. Alan Clark indignantly claimed that the government had been "subsidizing the extravagant life-style of a lot of American...
...Thatcher government deferred a final decision on De Lorean's request last week. Instead, it appointed a team of financial experts to examine the ailing company's books. The group is due to report back in two weeks. If the British government grants any additional aid, it is likely to ask for much greater control over the firm...
Meanwhile, De Lorean announced production cutbacks and layoffs of 1,000 workers, saying that the Thatcher government had "done everything to me except put me in a torture chamber in the bottom of one of those old castles." Still, the automaker insisted that his firm had plentiful assets. "We will be fine," he said. He added that the company now has offers from two large financial institutions in the U.S. that are willing to provide up to $200 million in new financing. "The tragedy is that as hard as we worked at it," said De Lorean, "we just didn...