PERSONAL FILE

sb "He was born accident-prone and money-prone." A friend thus describes Eduardo Barreiros Rodriguez, 43, the chainsmoking Spanish industrialist who, in partnership with Gulf Oil, is busy building a network of 500 auto service stations across Spain. As a struggling mechanic in the provinces, Barreiros lost four fingers in mishaps. But in 15 years, he parlayed his family auto repair shop into a $670 million industrial empire (diesel engines, machinery, electrical equipment) that ranks among Spain's six largest private enterprises. Barreiros has just signed a contract to produce diesel engines, trucks and tractors in Colombia. He still lives in a modest apartment and sticks to his simple success formula: "Produce more to make more money, so you can buy more machinery to produce even more."

sb To mild-mannered Toshio Inoue, 62, chairman of the Tokyo Stock Exchange, there was nothing inscrutable about last week's dizzy stock-buying splurge in Japan. Said Inoue, unruffled: "The bull market is here to stay for some time, and considering the circumstances, I believe it is natural." After a long career in banking--he was vice governor of the Bank of Japan before becoming exchange chairman in 1961--Inoue himself had a hand in one of the most immediate circumstances causing the market's hyperactivity. As he advised, the government lifted all restrictions on the repatriation of investments in Japanese securities by foreigners, one of the necessary steps toward full Japanese membership in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

sb With hands that are calloused from bricklaying yet adept at painting, Georg Leber, 42, chairman of West Germany's 450,000-man construction workers' union, recently signed a labor contract new in German industry. Instead of the usual one-year term and flat wage increase, it runs two years and pegs wage rises to estimated growth in national product and the cost of living. Other German unions are howling about the potential loss of bargaining power, but Leber's own well-paid workers seem happy. Leber, a Social Democratic Deputy, brings to labor relations a new style of social partnership, always moving, as associates describe his tactics, "in a framework of economic possibilities."

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