Corporations: Purposeful Hodgepodge

At first glance it seems a monument to absent-mindedness—a potpourri of unrelated products from bread-bagging machines to rocket launchers, all stuffed improbably under the wing of one of the nation's most anonymous corporate giants. But FMC Corp. of San Jose, Calif., is no happenstance hodgepodge. It is a carefully laid industrial mosaic that since 1950 has run up an enviable record of twelve consecutive yearly increases in both sales and profits. Last year sales of FMC's 14 divisions soared to $415 million; in the first half of this year they climbed another...

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