MANUFACTURING: Profit in Profit Sharing

Boosting its semi-annual profit-sharing payments to 17.5% of each ordinary employe’s wages, W. A. Sheaffer Pen Co. last week told its stockholders their dividends might not be so large if their profit sharing were less generous. WrotePresident Craig Royer Sheaffer: “The fact that we can do the largest business, report the largest profits and pay the largest dividends is proof, we believe, that our system, of which the profit-sharing plan has become almost an integral part, is successful—not only from the viewpoint of the employe but the stockholder as well.” Last year the company paid stockholders $518,535 in dividends, paid employes and executives $368,815.21 in profit sharing—a 71% ratio of profit sharing to dividends which is being upped again this year.