Word: ranked
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Obviously, G.C.F. needed a transfusion. The best way to get it, apparently, was to merge G.C.F. with Rank's profitable Odeon Theatres, Ltd, an exhibiting company (TIME, Dec. 8). By the merger, Odeon (which is Rank-controlled but partly owned by public stockholders) will shoulder a ?1.1 million debt for unpaid dividends on G.C.F.'s preferred stock and the job of raising another ?2 million needed to continue production on the 44 pictures scheduled for next year...
Raised Eyebrows. Once aired in Britain, these black realities stirred up more criticism of Rank. The sober Manchester Guardian was shocked that Rank's privately owned G.C.F. "could make a heavy loss without any general shareholder of the public companies . . . knowing anything about it." Repeating the charge of Brendan Bracken's Financial Times that in taking over G.C.F., Odeon was getting a pig in a poke, the News Chronicle tartly observed that the pig was "a lanky beast of decidedly questionable value...
Yorkshireman Rank went imperturbably on with his plans. He expected to complete the Odeon-G.C.F. merger this week by voting the 90% of Odeon common stock that he and his friends control. Said Rank: "My shareholders have the greatest confidence in me. . . . After all, why should they complain? When I took over Odeon, the five-shilling common shares were worth four shillings only. Now they are worth 40 shillings...
...Rank explained it, the merger was needed less because of G.C.F.'s losses than because of the 75% British tax on U.S. films which had shut them out of British theaters. Odeon, which had made good money showing films, would have few films to show when the present stock of new U.S. films runs out in a few months. Odeon had no choice but to take on the "more hazardous" job of making films to keep its theaters running...
Lowered Ax. The merger would also make possible "administrative economies." They had already begun. Less new talent would be hired and there would be no pay increases for stars. Such a policy had long been recommended by Rank's penny-wise chief adviser, ex-Accountant John Davis, 40. In the past he had lost some tiffs to producers who put prestige before profit. Now profit-minded John Davis was the undisputed operating manager...