Word: ogdenational
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Like a wallflower at the country club ball, Ogden Corp. remained relatively unnoticed among the conglomerates that flourished in the '60s. Despite its relative anonymity, though, Ogden is among the 100 biggest corporations in the country-a scrap metal-shipbuilding-food service empire that generates annual sales of more than $1 billion. It also has recovered more rapidly from ill fortune than many farther-famed conglomerates...
...Ogden's earnings plummeted about 55% in 1969, but in the next three years they climbed back up. In 1972 profits rose more than $5,000,000, to $32 million. The company resumed paying dividends in December 1971 after a year-and-a-half suspension. Even so, investors remain chary of conglomerates, and by the end of last week, Ogden's stock was still dawdling at $13 a share, down from a onetime high...
...major drain on Ogden was its Avondale Shipyards near New Orleans, which during the 1960s made unusually low bids to gain Navy-destroyer contracts and then saw costs soar. In 1969 the yard suffered a loss of $3.8 million. Ogden has since gathered the shipyard, its prosperous shipping business, which operates 20 vessels, and a stevedoring firm into a single transportation division, and last year the yard showed a small profit. Now Avondale expects to cash in big by helping to relieve the nation's growing fuel shortage. It is increasing production of liquefied-natural-gas tankers that sell...
Another headache for Ogden was ABC Consolidated, a food-service firm that sells sandwiches, soft drinks, popcorn and other snacks in thousands of moviehouses, factories and sports centers, including the cavernous Pittsburgh Civic Arena. It also operates two snackbar chains, Nedick's in New York City and Doggie Diners in San Francisco. ABC, which Ogden acquired in 1967, quickly overexpanded into full-service restaurants and in 1970 lost almost $5,000,000. "We eventually identified $40 million worth of business that was not worth having," says Ablon. Ogden sold off the losers and raised earnings by folding ABC into...
...Ogden did not have troubles enough, its major food-processing firm, Tillie Lewis Foods of Stockton, Calif., was hard hit by the Government ban on cyclamate sweeteners, a key ingredient of its canned fruit and vegetable line. After suffering a loss in 1969, Lewis switched into the weight-control market with the low-calorie Tasti Diet line of canned goods. Tasti Diet has been a winner from the start, and last year the food division posted profits of $6.5 million...