Word: ranke
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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This fear of arousing antagonism is echoed in Harrington's stand vis-a-vis the trade unions While indicating his wariness of "left-wing outside-agitator-inspired wildcats," he concedes that there are instances, for example in the Lordstown auto plants, of genuine rank-and-file worker disenchantment with union leadership and a real desire on the part of workers to participate in the organization of the work process. "And I supported that strike," Harrington says. "But we're in a tough position. It's the same thing in New York, where the civil servants crossed the teachers' picket lines...
Last week, however, there were clear signs that in sounding the Rank gong for Dowson, Davis may have written the last chapter of his own imperial reign. Long-timid Rank directors approved what was termed Dowson's "resignation." But, troubled by sagging profits, they issued a statement saying they were considering proposals "for broad corporate reorganization." Among the expected reforms: delegation by Davis of real authority to division managers; nomination of a director who would live in the U.S. and maintain close liaison with the American investors who own 45% of Rank's shares...
Master Stroke. The biggest reform, and one that a senior company source confides is likely to be adopted within six months, would be a plan to give Rank shareholders equal voting rights. Long before his death in 1972, Company Founder J. Arthur Rank set up an involved scheme under which the Rank Foundation, though it holds only 9.44% of the stock, casts 53% of the votes. His intention was to prevent a takeover...
...when he was deputy chairman, Davis was responsible for a master stroke. He had Rank buy $2.8 million worth of stock in U.S. Haloid Co., now Xerox Corp., after both RCA and IBM had passed up the opportunity. That investment has since metamorphosed Into a 49% share of Rank Xerox, a Xerox division responsible for all sales of copiers outside the Western Hemisphere and the Far East; it returned Rank profits last year alone of $129 million. After that coup, though, Davis seemed to lose his touch...
Davis poured millions of pounds into buying leisure industries, hotels and real estate, the last of which saddled Rank with a $380 million development program at the moment the bottom fell out of the British real estate market in 1973. He also angered American shareholders by making an abortive bid to buy a British brewing company, Watney Mann, without telling them about it. Having no other way to protest, the Americans began selling their stock; they were annoyed not only because they were not consulted on a major corporate move but also because Davis' heavy borrowings for expansion were...