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Named for Lord Kelvin, famed British physicist, Kelvinator was founded in 1914 in a second-story shop in Detroit. It grew by merger and sales expansion until today it sells at least one out of every five U. S. electric refrigerators.* Prompted by a seasonal sales curve and notoriously stiff competition, Iceman Mason has gone in heavily for diversification. The Kelvinator line now includes coal & oil burners, gas & electric stoves, air-conditioning equipment, temperature control instruments. Kelvinator was in the black throughout Depression, made $1,199,000 in the ice year through September 1935. Its earnings for the ice year just closed have not been published but in the nine months through last June Kelvinator profits were $1,372,000.
In last week's dickering, Kelvinator offered profits, Nash cash. Kelvinator, ready to capitalize on a possible building boom, could use cash to expand its home heating and cooking divisions. Invested there, Nash's cash will probably earn a considerably better return than in Government bonds.
*Mechanical refrigerator sales are expected to top 2,000,000 this year, a record. Eleven years ago the figure was 75,000.