MOTOR MAGNATE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18593, 2 January 1935, Page 13

MOTOR MAGNATE

FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES

PROMINENT FRENCHMAN

LONDON, Dec. 39

The Paris correspondent of tire Daily Mail states that the “Henry Ford of France, “ 3\l. Andre Citroen, is in iinancial difficulties. The Prime Minister, M. Flandin, received him today to diseuss plans to prevent the closing of his motor works.

A Bourse authority indicates that M. Citroen is accepting a plan proposed by M. Michclin, tyre magnate, providing for voluntary liquidation, and 1 full payment of all liabilities. M. Andre Citroen and M. Coty, perfume manufacturers, were, the two most dazzling figures in French industry before the war. M. Citroen's name pervades Paris. It is borne by one ,of every .10 of the motor ears that race about the streets, and all through the night the Eiffel Tower, dominating the city, spells out in huge, electricallylit letters, the word ‘ ‘Citroen. ’’ It cost M. Citroen, all his persuasiveness and influence to induce the Paris authorities to accept this, the largest: electric sign in the world. It c.ost him £12,000 a year in francs to maintain it. But ho considered that a. trifle compared' with the tremendous publicity it gave him. No one outside the United States had ever attempted anything so colossal.

Not much more than 30 years ago M. Citroen was a penniless young engineer. He gambled with fate and won, and went on winning. He had saved a little capital, thr.own away all offers of a steady job, and' became “independent.“ Engaging 10 workers he started a hand grenade factory. The business paid.

In 1008 M. Citroen was asked to reorganise a motor-car firm —his big chance. Staking all the money he had, and all he could borrow, he flung himself into the Industry which ho shrewdly perceived' was the industry of the future. Then came the Great War. Lieutenant Citroen, at the front with an artillery unit, soon noticed that his outfit, like all other French ones, was hampered by lack of ammunition, and that the little there was arrived at the front after great delay. He worked out a plan for an ammunition plant to overcome the shortage of shells, and the French Government appointed him instantly a director of a factory guaranteed to product 50,000 shells a day. After the war M. Citroen transformed’ his plant into a motor-car tnetorv which continued its expansion, until the last few years of trade restriction and currency fluctuation. With France clinging to the gold standard he found it increasingly difficult to sell abroad, and in Franco itself his market shrank. Now, faced with the prospect, of the closing of the works into which he lias put till his efforts and hopes, he has been compelled to seek aid- to carry on.