Word: steel
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...obvious need is to increase sales and earnings. The company that controlled 65% of the nation's steel sales 60 years ago has slipped almost steadily to a low of 24.2% of the present booming market; each percentage-point drop now means a loss of $150 million in annual sales. Though U.S. Steel last year reached a three-year peak in sales ($3.6 billion) and earnings ($203.5 million), its profit as a percentage of invested capital (4.9%) was the lowest among the majors, and as a percentage of sales (5.6%) was just average. In comparison, National Steel, which...
Lawyers & Bankers. Such losses in income and image have stirred up criticisms of the company's management. In the 63 years since J. P. Morgan bought out Andrew Carnegie for $500 million and brought in Judge Elbert Gary to organize U.S. Steel, the company has been guided mostly by lawyers and bankers. Of the six chairmen in its history, only one-the late Ben Fairless -ever worked regularly in a steel mill and was not a lawyer. Says a vice president of a competing steel company: "The operating people simply do not have an equal voice. The corporation would...
High policy at U.S. Steel today is made by three men-two of whom came from consulting jobs outside. Chairman Roger Miles Blough, 60, probably the best-known U.S. businessman, was recruited 22 years ago from the company's law firm, White & Case, and today is in charge of its relations with Washington and with stockholders. Finance Committee Chairman Robert C. Tyson, 58, a cool accountant who came from Price, Waterhouse, looks after the money. Leslie Worthington, 61, an ebullient salesman who was lifted several ranks to the presidency in 1959, runs day-to-day operations. Steelmen and securities...
Penalty of Size. Instead of leading the industry, the company's cautious managers were slow in adjusting to some of the great marketing and technological changes that have vastly altered the steel business over the past decade. Such companies as Inland were quicker to react to the fact that the great postwar and post-Korea steel shortage ended in 1957, and they stepped up their selling drives. While U.S. Steel continued to concentrate on the heavier and less profitable grades of steel, such specialists as Armco and Youngstown marketed more and more of the lighter and flat-rolled steels...
European firms developed the two major postwar steelmaking innovations -the oxygen process and continuous casting-and companies such as McLouth, Kaiser and Jones & Laughlin built oxygen furnaces before U.S. Steel did. Progressive McLouth was also first with continuous casting. In addition, U.S. Steel declined to meet lower prices set by aggressive domestic and foreign competitors, sometimes abandoned markets rather than compete...