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Target: 700 Cars a Day. Reith convinced U.S. Ford, which owns 55% of the French company's stock, that it would be best to merge with Simca. This gives Simca Ford's 60-acre plant at Poissy, eleven miles from Paris, with 4,500 workers and 3,000 machine tools, plus its own 55-acre plant at Nanterre, with 9,000 workers and 3,200 machines. Production next year is scheduled at 500 Aronde and 200 Vedette passenger cars a day, about 40% of the French market. The new Vedette so impressed foreign dealers that the Belgian distributor ordered 3,500 and the Swiss distributor 2,500 after the showing last week.
On the Paris Bourse and American Stock Exchange, stock traders looked with favor on the Simca-Ford combine. French Ford shares rose from 56¢ last January to $1.87 on the American Exchange, while Simca stock went from $34 to $54 a share on the Bourse. Stockholders of Ford of France will get one share of Simca for each 23 shares they now hold. They will be entitled to a dividend of $2.14 paid on Simca stock last May (i.e., about 9¢ a share on Ford stock) and will also have a U.S. market for their stock when Simca is listed on the American Exchange in New York.
*French car builders keep horsepower low because income-tax inspectors use it to estimate a citizen's wealth, call it a "signe extérieur de richesse."