Charges of Reckless Driving

Under the highballing presidency of Leslie G. Taylor, Denver-based DC International, one of the biggest trucking firms in the U.S., has expanded rapidly, since 1963 has bought a major European road hauler and three in the U.S., and at the same time has consistently reported profit increases. So why is Taylor, who is DC's largest single stock holder (200,000 shares worth $3,400,000), now out of a job? Answer: his board of directors decided that Taylor was doing too much too fast--and was not consulting them enough.

In a confrontation with Taylor on July 21, when he was just back from a trip to Hong Kong to look into the possibility of an Asian subsidiary, the board's eight other members argued his policies point by point, then unanimously voted him out of office. In his place, they appointed a temporary triumvirate: William Alexander, president of the Denver Tramway Corp.; Eugene Adams, president of the First National Bank of Denver; and Martin Schmidt, transportation consultant and professor at the University of Colorado. Said Adams: "There has been a growing division of opinion within the board over the advisability of some of the recent acquisitions."

To make the repudiation of Taylor clearer, the board also decided on an "adjustment" whereby the company provided $1,689,698 in ready cash from current profits to pay its way out of three Taylor ventures in one stroke. Thus, instead of reporting record profits of $1,473,607 for the first half of 1966, which is what the books showed before the adjustment, the company reported a loss of $216,091. The biggest item was to provide a reserve for Taylor's entire investment of $1,142,902 in acquiring 85% of Holland's West-Friesland Eurotransport, Inc. West-Friesland is losing money--as Taylor predicted it would for at least five years. The other adjustments involved the bankrupt Yale Express System, which was being managed by DC, and West Coast Fast Freight, which is now under DC management.

Inside his huge home in Denver's Cherry Hills Country Club district, London-born Leslie Taylor, 50, said nothing.

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