Monday, Mar. 18, 1940

How They Did

By the end of last week nine-tenths of the big U. S. corporations had published their 1939 earnings. Totted up, they were roughly twice 1938's earnings, the same as 1937's, a third less than 1929's. For 874 corporations, total earnings minus total losses amounted to $1,640,424,000.

>Coca-Cola Co. netted its sixth consecutive all-time record, $27,230,374.73, on an all-time record volume.

>Before Consolidated Aircraft Corp. could go to work on its order backlogs ($42,141,694 at 1939's end, $49,000,000 now), it had to take time out for engineering, retooling. Result: curtailed production for 1939, net earnings down 28.1% to $1,104,326.

>United Aircraft (engines, planes, propellers) ended the year with a 72.8% increase in net to $9,375,437, backlog up from $17,463,959 to $127,004,032.

>General Motors Corp. net rose 79.4% to $183,300,000, came within sniffing distance of the biggest earnings in the land, the $190,280,877 of unwieldy A. T. & T.

>G. M. subsidiary, General Motors Acceptance Corp., which during 1939 was: 1) convicted of the monopolistic practice of requiring G. M. dealers to use its service (for installment sales), and 2) ordered to cease & desist from advertising its time-pajonent plan as costing only 6%, earned $10,144,964, down 13%.

>Because Hershey Chocolate Corp. started 1939 with a small inventory of cocoa, sugar and nuts, which it had bought at low prices, and because prices continued low, it was able to get a wide profit margin, have an inventory loss of only $107,406 (it has been as high as $3,869,921 in 1937). Net for 1939, $6,233,304, up 51.1%.

>The wee Dewey & Almy Chemical Co.'s net was up 131.3% to $624,539. One reason: its new Cryovac process for wrapping cuts of meat in air-tight latex.

>Consolidated Edison Co. of N. Y. reported net earnings of $36,428,119, up 4-4%-)-- Commonwealth Edison Co. of Illinois, sound cornerstone of the late Insull pyramid, earned $25,414,590, up 27.7%.

>In 1938 Studebaker Corp. had a $1,762,465 deficit. In 1939 it brought out its low-priced Champion, hoped to sell 50,000 of them, sold 75,000, for the year netted $2,923,251. The Chrysler strike, which held up Plymouth deliveries, helped.

>Booming Celanese Corp. of America earned $6,374,101, up 157%, despite a month-long strike.

>U. S. air travel increased 42% in 1939, and airline earnings showed it. American Airlines netted $1,467,751, up 688%, Eastern Airlines $883,824, up 151.5%.

>Accomplishment of Transcontinental & Western Air, whose operations still suffer from lack of feeder lines, was to decrease its deficit to $188,817 from 1938's $749,355.

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