Word: olivettis
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...months the computer tapes of two of Europe's biggest business machine makers have been feeding back their information in red ink. The losses of both-Italy's Olivetti and France's Machines Bull-stem at least in part from U.S. competition. Now both companies have sought to program for profits by naming new presidents...
...Olivetti board, comprised of industrialists and bankers who stepped in to refinance the company, last week picked the first man outside the Olivetti family ever to head it. He is Bruno Visentini, 54, the vice president of Italy's huge, state-owned industrial holding company, I.R.I. (TIME, March 27). Visentini's main task is to strengthen the position of Olivetti's U.S. subsidiary, Underwood Corp., which has not kept up with its U.S. competitors. In addition, Olivetti (1963 sales: $360 million) is troubled by import restrictions in its sizable Latin American market. Visentini, a lawyer well-connected...
...calculated risk, becoming the first European corporation since World War II to take over an American firm. It now holds 90% of the stock of foundering Underwood, onetime leader in the U.S. business-machines field, whose ragged research and inadequate product line had pushed it into hard times. But Olivetti had hardly nursed Underwood back from a 1959 sales low of $75 million to annual sales of $117 million - and a profit last month for the first time - when other problems appeared...
...Italy's important export market of Argentina, where Olivetti has long built typewriters and calculators, an attempt to ship in other machines was almost completely cut off last year by Argentine import restrictions. In neighboring Brazil, inflation far worse than Italy's ate up Olivetti's profits. Heavily dependent on South American sales, damaged by the Italian spiral and drained by its effort in the U.S., Olivetti had insufficient income to cover the costs of its vastly expanded plants, which turn out products noted for their quality and design...
Trouble & Optimism. Olivetti's condition was made more critical by the fact that the dynasty was collapsing. Since Camillo Olivetti's death in 1943, his three sons, three daughters and their children have never been able to agree on common moves. Olivetti limps along on a codirectorship of Grandsons Roberto and Camillo Olivetti, representing two different factions. About all that they have been able to codecide is that they need the Agnelli syndicate to come in and buy one-third of Olivetti. To run Fiat and some 110 other companies that range from cement to Cinzano vermouth, Giovanni...