Ducommun Board Fires President in Reaction to Losses : Chairman to Take on Duties Until Problems Are Resolved

Just a week after his company announced unexpectedly high losses of $19.2 million for 1986, Ducommun Inc.’s chairman said Tuesday that directors have fired W. Donald Bell, president of the Cypress-based aerospace and electronics distribution company for the past 13 months.

Wallace W. Booth, Ducommun chairman and chief executive, said in an interview that Bell was asked to submit his resignation as corporate president, director and president of Kierulff, Ducommun’s largest division, in the wake of the “unpleasant last-minute surprise” in the final quarter of 1986.

For the final three months of the year, the company lost $18.6 million, about twice what analysts and others on Wall Street had been projecting.

Regarded as Tough Taskmaster

Booth, who had hand-picked the 49-year-old Bell as his successor last year, said he again will act as Ducommun president until the corporation’s problems are fully identified and corrective measures are in place. Booth, widely regarded as a tough taskmaster, named William J. Smith, 42, formerly vice president of marketing for Kierulff, as president of the electronic components distribution division.

Bell’s departure from Ducommun’s executive suite marks the second time in recent years that Booth, 64, has fired his heir apparent. In 1986, he released David G. Schmidt from his duties as president, citing differences in business philosophy.

Booth said that after discovering the unexpected fourth-quarter loss, he and Bell disagreed over its cause, the persons responsible for it and the steps the company should take to correct the situation.

Although Booth said there were several areas of disagreement, he specifically cited the $11-million write-down the company took on its inventory in the final quarter of the year after conducting an item-by-item count in its warehouses. Booth said he believed that the inventory losses were due in part to sloppy management practices and wanted to take steps to improve those immediately.

“I took a harder stance on our problems than Don did,” Booth said.

However, Bell--in an interview Tuesday--downplayed the importance of the inventory problems, arguing instead that, like his predecessor, his ouster came because of differences with Booth’s management style and philosophy.

“The fourth quarter has to be tagged to someone’s tail, and it might as well be mine,” Bell said. “But that’s not the reason I left. It has more to do with business and management style.”

Bell, who joined Ducommun as executive vice president of Kierulff in 1980, said he has no immediate employment plans. The company said he would serve as a consultant during the management transition. The terms of his severance package were not disclosed.