Word: ponts
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...Pont has been on a plateau for the past few years. It is at a high altitude, but it is still a plateau." This judgment of the recent growth of the world's largest chemical company comes from Charles Brelsford McCoy, 60, president of E. I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. McCoy betrays a hint of nervous candor not often shown at the 167-year-old firm, where fluctuations in corporate fortunes often have been shrugged off as mere ripples in the stream of its history. Lammot du Pont Copeland, now 64, who moved up to board chairman...
Behind the euphemisms, Du Pont managers are plainly worried. Many stockholders share their concern. Though Wall Street still considers the company to be among the bluest of blue chips, Du Pont shares have dropped from $261 in 1965 to last week...
Stunted by Success. Growth seems stunted by past success, company policy and the Justice Department. Du Pont's old flair for turning the test tube into a horn of plenty made it the 15th largest industrial company in the U.S., with $3.5 billion in sales in 1968. From this lofty level, Du Pont finds it nearly impossible to match past expansion. Sales almost trebled in the 1940s and doubled in the 1950s, but in the decade now ending, they have climbed only about 60%. Overseas, where 1968 sales were $440 million and just starting to be profitable, Du Pont...
...company has spent generously on drug research for two decades, but its first really promising product, an oral flu-preventive pill called Symmetrel, has been a commercial flop since it was introduced in 1967. Reason: Du Pont lacked both expertise and a sales force for drug marketing, and one result was that doctors generally did not prescribe it. Corfam, the first synthetic leather to "breathe," cost $60 million to get into production in 1964, but quick and stiff competition has made it only barely profitable. Du Pont is now improving the versatility of Corfam-in order to expand...
This month, in an important new move, Du Pont expects to complete its first domestic acquisition in a quarter of a century. It will acquire Endo Laboratories, a small Long Island-based pharmaceutical maker (1968 sales: $22 million). Du Pont is obviously buying marketing flair, not volume. "We need Endo," says Roger E. Drexel, manager of Du Font's industrial and biochemicals department. "Without a feedback of marketing information, we reduce our chances of success with a new pharmaceutical product...