- Ling-Temco-Vought
Ling-Temco-Vought was a large U.S. conglomerate.
History
In 1947 entrepreneur
James Ling founded his own Dallas electrical contracting business, Ling Electric Company, where he lived in the rear of the shop. After incorporating and taking his company public in 1955, Ling found innovative ways to market his stock, including selling door-to-door and from a booth at the State Fair of Texas.In 1956, Ling bought L.M. Electronics, and in 1959 added Altec Electronics, a maker of stereo systems and speakers. In 1960, Ling merged his company with
Temco Aircraft , best known for theirmissile work, and using additional funding from insurance businessmanTroy Post , they bought the famous Chance Voughtaerospace firm. The new company became Ling-Temco-Vought, with a combined sales of $2.7 billion in 1969.With low interest rates allowing the company to borrow huge sums, Ling proceeded to build up one of the major 1960s conglomerates. As long as the target company's earnings exceeded the interest on the loan (or
corporate bond ), or the company's price/earnings ratio was less than that of LTV's stock, the conglomerate became more profitable overall. Given the fairly unsophisticated stock research of the era, the company appeared to be growing without bound, and its share prices rose. In 1964 Ling started aholding company and established three public companies, LTV Aerospace, LTV Ling Altec, and LTV Electrosystems (laterE-Systems , then part ofRaytheon IIS, and since 2002 has been calledL-3 Communications -Integrated Systems (L-3/IS)), mirroring the original companies that formed LTV. This action raised capital, allowing Ling to raise more loans and buy more companies.In 1965, Ling added the wire and cable company Okonite. In 1967 they bought Wilson and Company, noted for their
golf ing equipment, but also involved in meat-packing and pharmaceuticals. He later spun each of these divisions into separate companies traded on the American Stock Exchange; they soon acquired the trader nicknames "Golfball," "Meatball," and "Goofball," respectively. 1968 added Greatamerica, Post's holding company forBraniff International Airways andNational Car Rental , and J & L Steel. In addition he acquired a series of resorts in Acapulco, Guerrero, Mexico, and Steamboat Springs, Colorado. By 1969 LTV had purchased 33 companies, employed 29,000 workers, and offered 15,000 separate products and services, and was one of the forty biggest industrial corporations.In 1969 investors found that the conglomerates were not growing any faster than the individual companies had before they were bought out. Share prices plummeted, sparking a
bear market , and there was a general feeling that the conglomerates were to blame for the market woes. An anti-trust lawsuit was filed that year, and eventually theboard of directors demoted Ling in 1970, and he left the company, to be replaced by former LTV executive,Paul Thayer .In the 1971 antitrust settlement, LTV sold its Braniff and Okonite components, and Thayer changed the company name from Ling-Temco-Vought to LTV Corporation. In 1975, after leaving the company himself, Thayer was involved in a suit over fraud in the sale of unregistered securities and was succeeded by former
Xerox executiveRaymond Hay .After a series of divestitures, and including the 1984 merger of the Jones and Laughlin subsidiary with
Republic Steel Corporation , the company continued to exist primarily as asteel producer, renamed itself LTV Steel, and moved its headquarters to Cleveland in 1993.LTV Steel filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on December 29, 2000. [cite web|url=http://www.ltvsteel.com/|title=LTV Steel|publisher=LTV|accessdate=2008-05-26] The assets were acquired and merged with
Weirton Steel to form theInternational Steel Group .References
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*External links
* [http://www.wrhs.org/crawford/template.asp?id=410 LTV Steel - Western Reserve Historical Society]
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