In Time of War Prepare . . .

Like the snake which swallows a frog as big as itself, Aviation Corp. last week contracted to pay $15,000,000 for a 64% interest in Crosley Corp. (Crosley's 1944 earnings of $3,300,000 exceeded AVCO's by nearly $200,000.) This big mouthful was the outward sign that two aggressive businessmen, in their different ways, were following the maxim "In time of war prepare for peace."

Wily, round-faced Victor Emanuel, who in nine years had helped put together AVCO as an extraordinary aviation holding company, clearly intended to have one foot on the ground, come peace.

AVCO's present structure--now much simplified from the jerry-built organization Victor Emanuel found whisked together--is composed of the following holdings: 1) Consolidated Vultee Aircraft Corp. (Liberators), 29.6%; 2) New York Shipbuilding Corp., 59.3%; 3) American Airlines, 24.1%; 4) Pan American Airways Corp., 9.2%; 5) American Central Mfg. Corp. (kitchen sinks and cabinets), 60.8%; 6) Roosevelt Field Inc. (on Long Island), 20%; 7) American Propeller Corp., 100%; 8) Lycoming Division (small aircraft motors), 100% ; 9) Spencer Heater Division, 100%; 10) Republic Aircraft Products Division, 100%.

This sounded like an embryo General Motors Corp. of the air--with some unfunctional trimmings. Last December, adding more General Motors atmosphere, smart Mr. Emanuel hired Irving Brown Babcock away from General Motors truck division and made him AVCO president. But last week's deal made it apparent that if Emanuel was pursuing the General Motors idea he did not intend to pursue it entirely in the air.

In buying a controlling interest in Crosley Corp., he added to AVCO's line

1) manufacturing facilities for radios, radar and electronic equipment, refrigerators, ranges and home-heating units;

2) Cincinnati station WLW, which at 50,000 watts is one of the nation's most important; 3) a contract to buy New York station WINS. (The entire deal is subject to approval by the Federal Communications Commission.)

The deal brought AVCO into the new and prospectively dazzling electronic industry--whose prospects may help keep AVCO riding high (its stock sells for $9 although its earnings are only 54-c- a share).

About all AVCO did not buy from Powel Crosley Jr. was his Cincinnati Reds baseball team (National League), and rights to the bantam, two-cylinder, $350 car on which Crosley took a flier before the war. He has hopes of redesigning it as a more successful four-cylinder car, and has a quota for auto production in the reconversion period.

Evidently Mr. Emanuel, whose route to success has been mergers, and Mr. Crosley, who has made money by building up a business from scratch, are each planning more of the same.

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