Word: lum
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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With his own sales down 33% (for Ford) and 65% (for Mercury), Ford President Henry Ford II showed stockholders a first-quarter ledger with earnings off 77% to $22.7 million. Chrysler Boss Lester Lum ("Tex") Colbert had to face up to a $15.1 million loss-the biggest ever-with sales down 53%. Only General Motors President Harlow H. Curtice has anything to crow about. Chevy has bumped Ford out of the No. 1 spot; G.M.'s overall first-quarter sales were off only 11.6%, its earnings down 29.1% to $185 million; G.M. cars, though down in volume, have captured...
...ailing auto industry, the Chrysler dividend was a casualty. President Lester Lum Colbert reported a first-quarter loss of $15,139,802, almost $2 a share, and reluctantly announced a cut in the dividend from 75? to 25? to conserve cash. Ford did much better, though its earnings dropped from $1.85 in the first quarter of last year to 42? in the first quarter of this year. Nevertheless, it will pay its next quarterly dividend...
...higher 1958 prices the trouble? The Senators heard Chrysler's President Lester Lum Colbert implicitly deny it. "Tex" Colbert insisted that automakers can still have a good year "as soon as we get over this psychological thing" of recession-minded customers. "Prices are only a part of competition," he said. "You just can't go along with supply and demand. You price over a long-range program." Chrysler tried smaller cars in 1953-54. They were shunned in favor of larger (and cheaper) models made by G.M. and Ford. Chrysler tried cutting prices...
From the other members of autodom's Big Three came equally chill words. Chrysler's Lester Lum ("Tex") Colbert sent word that in his view Reuther was proposing to "fight inflation by making a whole series of new inflationary demands." Ford's Board Chairman Ernest Breech, speaking in Nashville, said "giant labor unions, with unprecedented monopoly power." are putting a "steady squeeze on corporate profits and constantly increasing the price for goods and services...
...automakers, whose sales have a prime effect on the U.S. economy, last week lowered their targets. Chrysler President Lester Lum ("Tex") Colbert, who only a few months ago was the soul of confidence as he predicted a 6,000,000-plus year for autos in 1958, told a Harvard Business School audience that the entire auto industry is in for a poorer year than he expected-though still a good one. "We know that the people have the jobs and that their savings-bank accounts are at a high level," said Colbert, "but the consumer has lost the desire...