Hoover Co

From the window in his small union hall office, Jim Repace can look out at the red brick, four-story Hoover Co. plant and dream about owning the well-known vacuum cleaner maker. His task is to inspire hundreds of workers that their best strategy to stop a job drain is a risky one: to buy a struggling company, if they can find some financial help. They hope to form an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, now that new owner Whirlpool Corp. is selling the nearly 100-year-old Hoover.

From the window in his small union hall office, Jim Repace can look out at the red brick, four-story Hoover Co. plant and dream about owning the well-known vacuum cleaner maker. His task is to inspire hundreds of workers that their best strategy to stop a job drain is a risky one: to buy a struggling company, if they can find some financial help. They hope to form an employee stock ownership plan, or ESOP, now that new owner Whirlpool Corp. is selling the nearly 100-year-old Hoover.

The final bill has been tallied for the Hoover vacuum cleaner company's disastrous free-flights promotion--and it's a whopper. Hoover, overwhelmed by the response to an offer of free international tickets to English and Irish purchasers of appliances, spent $72 million. When the promotion ends, Hoover will have flown more than 220,000 people for free. Consumers realized the obvious: that vacuum cleaners are cheaper than international air fares.

The final bill has been tallied for the Hoover vacuum cleaner company's disastrous free-flights promotion--and it's a whopper. Hoover, overwhelmed by the response to an offer of free international tickets to English and Irish purchasers of appliances, spent $72 million. When the promotion ends, Hoover will have flown more than 220,000 people for free. Consumers realized the obvious: that vacuum cleaners are cheaper than international air fares.

Call it a clean sweep for the law of supply and demand. In England and Ireland, where there are many competing brands of vacuum cleaners, Hoover Ltd. decided to stimulate sales last winter by offering free airplane tickets with each purchase (View, April 9). More than 200,000 people bought appliances. The company, which had badly underestimated demand, suffered a loss of $48.8 million.

The company's board of directors declined to recommend the $496-million takeover offer to its shareholders. Chicago Pacific's $40-a-share offer, which expires Nov. 13, is not conditioned on the tender of a minimum number of Hoover's 12.4 million shares outstanding. Hoover, the North Canton, Ohio-based manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and other floor-care products, said its board ordered the company's management and financial adviser, Lazard Freres & Co.

H. Earl Hoover, the former chairman of Hoover Co., the vacuum cleaner manufacturer, and an executive credited with making famous Hoover's longtime slogan, died Wednesday in a Highland Park hospital. He was 94 and a nephew of the company's founder, W. H. Hoover. Hoover had retired as chairman and honorary director of the North Canton, Ohio, company in 1974. Hoover developed many patents for the suction sweeper and helped popularize the Hoover slogan, "It beats as it sweeps, as it cleans."

NORTH CANTON, Ohio -- This was once a manufacturing hub where Hoover Co. made vacuums and a nearby steel plant employed tens of thousands. Many of those jobs have left the area, some disappearing entirely, others going overseas. Since then, some have returned, but the decline was one vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan tried to exploit Thursday in the swing region of Stark County, Ohio, calling out China for its restrictive trade practices and President Obama for failing to regulate them.  “President Obama promised he'd stop these practices, he said he'd go to the mat with China; instead, they're treating him like a doormat,” Ryan said in a packed gymnasium at Walsh University here.

Call it a clean sweep for the law of supply and demand. In England and Ireland, where there are many competing brands of vacuum cleaners, Hoover Ltd. decided to stimulate sales last winter by offering free airplane tickets with each purchase (View, April 9). More than 200,000 people bought appliances. The company, which had badly underestimated demand, suffered a loss of $48.8 million.

The company's board of directors declined to recommend the $496-million takeover offer to its shareholders. Chicago Pacific's $40-a-share offer, which expires Nov. 13, is not conditioned on the tender of a minimum number of Hoover's 12.4 million shares outstanding. Hoover, the North Canton, Ohio-based manufacturer of vacuum cleaners and other floor-care products, said its board ordered the company's management and financial adviser, Lazard Freres & Co.

Jockeys Corey Black and Alex Solis were talking to reporters Sunday after a day of silence, but they won't be giving television interviews, a practice that is expected to be followed by other riders at Santa Anita. "I'm not doing any television interviews," Black said. "About the other guys, I don't know. This is my decision. We're not the stars, so they don't need us." The Jockeys' Guild's insurance agreement with the Thoroughbred Racing Assns.

BEFORE vacuums were invented, America's homemakers swept their carpets with brooms to keep them clean. Once a year, during spring cleaning, many moved their furniture in order to lug their rugs outdoors for a good beating in fresh air. Then, from the mid-1880s through the early 1900s, would-be inventors pondered the idea of a machine that would suck up dust and dirt. Most of their efforts were impractical and unaffordable, including one gasoline-powered behemoth that weighed about 100 pounds.