Chris-Craft Industries
| public holding corporation | |
| Industry | Television Broadcasting Other Plastics Product Manufacturing Unsupported Plastics Film and Sheet (Except Packaging) Manufacturing |
| Fate | Sold to News Corporation |
| Successor |
News Corporation (2001-2013) 21st Century Fox (2013-present) |
| Founded | 1928 |
| Defunct | 2001 |
| Headquarters | New York, New York, {USA} |
|
Key people
|
Herbert J. Siegel (chair) |
| Products | boats, hospital laundry bags, carpet fibers, insulation, and chemical products |
| Revenue | $467.1 million (1998) |
| Divisions | Boats Roamer Steel Boats Division |
| Subsidiaries |
BHC Communications, Inc. (79.96%) Chris-Craft Industrial Products, Inc. |
Chris-Craft Industries, Inc., formerly National Automotive Fibers, Inc., was a publicly held American corporation traded on the New York and Pacific Stock Exchanges. It later took on the name of one of its acquisitions, Chris-Craft Boats. This forebear was founded in the late 19th century by Christopher Columbus Smith, and became famous for mahogany hulled powerboats in the 1920s through the 1950s.
National Automotive Fibers (NAF) was formed in Detroit in 1928 as a manufacturer of upholstery, carpeting, interior trim, plastic products for Chrysler Motors, Ford Motors and Studebaker-Packard, all automobile companies. While successful, the company was only a minor automotive supplier. In the 1940s, NAF purchased the Montrose Chemical Company of San Francisco, but was still centered on the auto industry. In 1956, the company suffered a major loss of $1 million against sales of $46 million. Paul V. Shields, a senior partner of Shields & Company, a Wall Street investment firm, acquired National as he saw that NAF was overdependent on the auto industry but had growth potential. Shields trimmed NAF's product line and diversified the company into oil and gas operations, television and radio broadcasting. With this diverse portfolio, the company was renamed the NAFI Corporation in 1959. This brought a record profit of $1 million against lowered sales with assets of $10 million. NAF and Bing Crosby teamed up to purchase a television station, KPTV, for $4 million on September 1, 1959. A Bing Crosby led group sold KCOP-TV in 1960 to the Corporation.
Chris-Craft Boats was an independent company until it was acquired by Shields & Company's NAFI Corporation in 1960 and merged with NAFI. They renamed the merged company Chris-Craft Industries, Incorporated in 1962. In 1962, the company acquired the Old Crown Brewing Corporation, a brewery company based in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Old Crown was sold to its employees a short time later.
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Wikipedia