New Money & New Blood

Western Air Lines, Inc. has had trouble keeping its financial altitude. It picked up during the war, made money. But it lost again this year with a leaden deficit of $267,037 in the first nine months, despite a third-quarter profit. Moreover, like many another U.S. airline, Western was overloaded with expansion plans. Even after canceling half its orders for new planes, Western had current liabilities of $6.5 million and current assets of only $2.6 million.

Last week, Western's president and largest stockholder (45.7%), William A. Coulter, decided that the best way to lighten ship was to jump out himself. Seventyish, he wanted to retire from active management, anyway. Into his place went Terrell C. Drinkwater, 38, vice president of American Airlines.

Wall Streeters gossiped that Dillon, Read & Co. and the Chase National Bank had also had a hand in moving Coulter out. Dillon, Read had agreed to underwrite a $6.5 million stock issue and Chase had agreed to lend Western up to $7.5 million--on condition that the stock issue brought in the proposed $6.5 million. (Coulter will stay on as director but will sell his 240,210 shares of stock.)

Western's new $35,000-year president got into aviation as a lawyer specializing in aviation, became the wartime chief executive of Continental Air Lines, left Continental for American. Drinkwater thinks that Western's new stock issue will put it in sound financial shape. To keep it that way, he intends to order a general economic belt tightening. His first act as Western president will be to introduce (on interoffice memos) a Li'l Abner-like cartoon of an Indian (Western's trademark) tightening his belt. Said Drinkwater: "A fat Indian isn't an efficient Indian."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.