The business conglomerate was far in the future when James Buchanan Brady, otherwise known as Diamond Jim, founded U.S. Industries, Inc., in 1899. Today USI is a conglomerate with a difference that he would have appreciated. Since 1965, its sales have doubled, to $1.1 billion last year, and net profits have nearly tripled, to $63 million, a healthy 18% on invested capital. In the first quarter of 1970, when many other conglomerates were going through the wringer, USI raised its sales by 12% and its earnings by 16% over the same period of 1969.
USI is different in other ways...
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