Ford Dickers

There was a time when Henry Ford was apparently intent on doing every kind of business incidental to the manufacture of automobiles. He provided himself with his own steel mills, his own glass works, his own credit corporation for financing retail sales, even his own railroad (the Detroit, Toledo and Ironton)--all the elements of a great vertical combination, except that for the most part they were, not combined, but erected. More recently he has apparently reversed his intent. As early as 1929 he disposed of his railroad. Last week he was actively dickering for the sale of his retail finance company, Universal Credit Corp. Ernest Kanzler, its president, brother-in-law of Edsel Ford (Kanzler and the younger Ford married the Sisters Clay, nieces of J. L. Hudson, founder of Detroit's biggest department store), was closeted dealing with officers of Commercial Investment Trust.

Universal Credit, which at its peak did a gross business of $200,000,000 in installment sales of Fords, Fordsons. and Lincoins, is now supposed to be doing about half that amount, Ford's price for it supposed to be $20,000,000. Doing similar business are General Motors Acceptance Corp., Commercial Credit Co. and Commercial Investment Trust. The latter two are independents, finance other credit sales besides those of automobiles. Commercial Credit handles Chrysler and Packard sales, C. I. T. has Nash, Hupmobile, Graham-Paige, Hudson, Studebaker. If C. I. T. acquires Universal Credit it will about double its auto financing business, but not its total business of which more than half consists of financing industrial machinery, electric refrigerators, and factoring (textile sales), the latter about one-half of its business.

While Ford was dickering to sell his credit company, rumor last week had it that he was also dickering to sell his steel mills at River Rouge to U. S. Steel Corp. which has no Detroit plant. Formerly U. S. Steel's subsidiary, Carnegie Steel, with a plant at Duquesne, Pa., supplied about three quarters of General Motors requirements. Now National Steel has a plant in Detroit which with the advantage of short hauls on short notice has been able to capture much of the automobile demand. Partly in consequence National Steel has been better off than all other steel companies during the Depression. So it would not be illogical for U. S. Steel to want a Detroit plant, but officials of U. S. Steel denied the rumor.

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