Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation that was traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. In 1962, the company adopted the name of one of its acquisitions, Chris-Craft Boats, which was founded in the late 19th century and became famous for mahogany-hulled powerboats in the 1920s through the 1950s.
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History
National Automotive Fibers
National Automotive Fibers (NAF) was formed in Detroit in 1928 as a manufacturer of upholstery, carpeting, interior trim and plastic products for Chrysler Motors, Ford Motors and Studebaker-Packard, all automobile companies. While successful, the company was only a minor automotive supplier. In the 1940s, NAF purchased the Montrose Chemical Company of San Francisco, but it was still centered on the auto industry. In 1956, the company suffered a major loss of $1 million against sales of $46 million. Paul V. Shields, a senior partner of Shields & Company, a Wall Street investment firm, acquired the company as he saw that NAF was overdependent on the auto industry but had growth potential. Shields trimmed NAF's product line and diversified the company into oil and gas operations, television and radio broadcasting. With this diverse portfolio, the company was renamed the NAFI Corporation in 1959. This brought a record profit of $1 million against lowered sales with assets of $10 million. NAF and Bing Crosby teamed up to purchase a television station, KPTV in Portland, Oregon, for $4 million on September 1, 1959. A Bing Crosby led group sold Los Angeles' KCOP-TV in 1960 to the Corporation.
Chris-Craft Industries
Chris-Craft Boats was an independent company until it was acquired by Shields & Company's NAFI Corporation in 1960 and merged with NAFI. They renamed the merged company in 1962 as Chris-Craft Industries, Incorporated. In 1962, the company acquired the Old Crown Brewing Corporation, a brewery company based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Old Crown was sold to its employees a short time later.
In 1964, Chris-Craft launched the all-fiberglass Chris-Craft Commander. This dramatic new design was unveiled at the New York City National Boat show, perched at the top of an escalator on a giant, castered cradle. This first Commander was a 38' express hardtop with a 13' beam. The line of Commanders soon grew to include sizes ranging from 19' to 60'--all "styled in fiberglass."
In 1968, Baldwin-Montrose Chemical Co., Inc. took a controlling interest in Chris-Craft and installed its chairman, Herbert J. Siegel, as Chris-Craft's chairman.
In 1977, Chris-Craft Industries formed BHC, Inc. to hold its two existing television stations, KCOP in Los Angeles and KPTV in Portland, Oregon, both placed within BHC's Chris-Craft Television, Inc. subsidiary. That same year, Chris-Craft purchased a share of 20th Century Fox. In 1981, the 20th Century Fox share, then at 20 percent, was traded to Marvin Davis and Marc Rich for 19 percent of United Television.
Between the 1960s and 1980s, Chris-Craft lost market share as competitors with more innovative designs and less expensive manufacturing techniques, such as fiberglass hulls, came on the scene. Chris-Craft ended production of its last mahogany-hulled boat, the Constellation, in 1971.
Chris-Craft Industries sold its boat division to Murray Industries in 1981; Chris-Craft Industries retained the Chris-Craft trademark and licensed it to Murray. Outboard Marine Corporation acquired the boat company in 1989, then went into bankruptcy in 2000 and was purchased by Genmar Holdings. Genmar sold the Chris-Craft boat division to Stellican Ltd., then Stellican purchased the Chris-Craft trademark from News Corporation, thus reuniting the two parts of the boat company.
Chris-Craft Industries was acquired by News Corporation in 2000 for its television subsidiaries.
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See also
- Chris-Craft - a company that reunited the brand name with the boat manufacturing division.
References
Source of article : Wikipedia
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