The Spoils of Office How much do top business executives earn in America? Rs 10 lakh, Rs 50 lakh. Frank E. Rosenfelt, chief executive of Melro-Goldwyn-Mayer earned $ 5,063.000 (about Rs 4 crore) in 1979.Even assuming he worked a 65-hour week and took no holidays, Rosen-felt was clocking up around Rs 6,000 per working hour - after tax. This is more than most top Indian executives take home per month.Rosenfelt is not an exception. In 1979, 33 executives contentedly pulled in more than a million dollars each. As 1980 ended there were signs that the number had risen to more than 50 and there were at least 10 who had crossed the 2-million-dollar (Rs 1.6 crore) barrier.Yet even then not all company heads were collecting all they could have. If C.C. Garvin. chairman of Exxon, now the biggest company in the US in terms of sales, had exercised all his options, his 1979 earnings would have been not $1.1 million but $8.3 million (Rs 6.8 crore). There are probably no more than about 250 companies in India with turnover exceeding this figure - the earnings of a single executive in the US.One question is whether the high-flying executives are worth all this money. Those who think in terms of the more pay the merrier point to the 60 - 70-hour week worked by the average top executive, the six to 10 days he travels each month and the risks to health. But there are others, just as in India, who think that executive pay is ridiculously high, particularly the shareholders, who feel they too ought to get more.Fibre Crisis The synthetic fibre industry may be booming in India but it is passing through something of a crisis elsewhere. Monsanto, the fourth largest US chemicals company is shutting down - or selling - its entire polyester filament textiles business. Monsanto is selling a plant to Fiber Industries in which Britain's Imperial Chemical Industries (IQ) has a 35 per cent stake - and closing down the other two. Dupont, the largest producer of polyester fibre in the world, has a technical lead in the speed at which the filament is texturised for the production of fabrics and Monsanto is said to have partially developed a technology called in-line texturising which it will now sell to Fiber Industries. But there is a great deal of over-capacity in the industry in the West and some plants will have to fold up.Paying Less For MetalsOil is lighter than metals: that is probably one reason that while oil prices are going up, metal prices are coming down, and with a bang. Tin prices dropped to a three-year low on the London Metal Exchange last week as the market was hit by a fresh wave of trade and speculative selling. The cash price of tin hit a low of pound 5,880 (about Rs 1 lakh) a tonne at one stage - a loss of nearly 10 per cent in the past month - and the lowest since early 1978. Prices in the tin market in Penang have fallen sharply too and further declines are anticipated.The aluminium market in Japan is so depressed that the Japanese Trade and Industry Ministry (MITT) is planning a stockpile and is preparing to buy nearly 10,000 tonnes of primary metal to bolster the market. Stocks of the metal in the non-Communist countries are hovering round the 2-million-lonne mark - an increase of nearly 50 per cent in nine months - and producers in many countries are considering production cutbacks as an alternative to further stockpiling.Along with tin, lead prices also dropped last week to pound 290 (about Rs 5.220) a tonne - the first time the price has fallen below pound 300 (about Rs 5.400) since February 1978. Copper, nickel and zinc markets have also grown soft following the downward trend in gold since New Year's day.On The Right TrackWith every twist in the oil price spiral the world's railways are coming back into their own and will be spending a total of Rs 25,200 crore this year on expansion and modernisation programmes, according to a survey of world railway investment. The amount does not include the railways in China, the Soviet Union and other communist countries.The scale of projects forecast for this year represents an impressive market for the world's suppliers of railway equipment including India. The biggest spender will be the railway authorities in the US with a budget of Rs 3,500 crore to cover the purchase of 50, 000 freight wagons and 1, 000 mainline locomotives. In the rest of the non-Communist world, purchases are expected to include 1,500 mainline locomotives, 55,000 freight wagons and 7,500 passenger wagons.Outside the US, West Germany is expected to be a leading spender with an estimated expenditure of Rs 2,000 crore, followed by France (Rs 1,600 crore) and Britain (Rs 720 crore). Countries of interest to Indian manufacturers of railway equipment are Saudi Arabia (Rs 300 crore), Spain (Rs 108 crore) and Brazil (Rs 220 crore) as also some countries like Nigeria and Sudan in Africa.The Name's Everything What's in a name? Apparently, everything. Exxon Corporation is seeking injunction in London against another company which has no connection with Exxon but is using the name. But the word Exxon is not protected under the copyright law and any company can apparently use it and yet be on the right side of law.Exxon is claiming that the word is an original literary-work that can be protected under copyright law. The word was invented when US antitrust legislation required the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey to find a new name. The company was known as Standard-Vacuum and later as ESSO in India but it was taken over by the Government and does not operate any more in this country.Exxon is claiming that a great deal of 'literary" effort has gone into devising the word. It was picked out by a computer from thousands of permutations and combinations. But a pornographic cinema club has been using the name for the last 10 years and has no intention of dropping it.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Nov 27, 2013 08:04 IST--- ENDS ---
