Well, at Least the Pay’s GoodJust when...

Well, at Least the Pay’s Good

Just when you think that you’ve got it bad, along comes a study showing that somebody else has it worse. Consider the poor executives just a rank or two below chief executive.

More of them than ever want the top job, according to a new survey by Korn/Ferry International, the executive search firm, and the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA. But fewer than half would choose the same career if they were starting out again. Nine out of 10 want early retirement.

Their home lives run the aspirants ragged. If they had extra time, most say they would spend it with their spouses. Yet 37% of the 698 executives surveyed said their wives worked outside the home--up from just 14% in 1979, when Korn/Ferry and UCLA conducted a similar study.

There is some solace in the survey for these executives (more than 95% of whom were white men, just as in the earlier study). Their annual compensation averaged $289,000, up 150% from the $116,000 average in 1979. Consumer prices during the same time span rose only 71%.

A Shaky Business Venture

Jack Kyser, chief economist for the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, fields dozens of phone calls from businesses thinking of relocating to the Southland. As a matter of course, he answers their questions about permits, taxes, fees, labor availability, even smog and traffic.

So he wasn’t at all surprised last week to receive an inquiry from a home-remodeling firm in Quebec that is considering a move here. But then came the question he wasn’t expecting: Could he please recommend several business sites that lie directly on an earthquake fault?

Uh, sure, Kyser said. But why?

Simple, the Quebecois replied. A remodeling business on an earthquake fault should not hurt for customers when the Big One hits Los Angeles.

The Picture at Columbia

It won’t be easy to track performance at Columbia Pictures Entertainment now that Sony Corp. has consolidated the studio’s results into its financial statements.

But the Japanese giant’s latest annual report provides some clues to just how weak Columbia was when Sony took over last November.

According to a footnote on Page 38 of the report, Sony--if it had owned Columbia, Guber-Peters Entertainment Co. and another small, newly acquired company for its full fiscal year, ended March 31--would have seen net income drop by $84.5 million, to $570.4 million, while sales for the whole company would have jumped $1.3 billion, to $19.6 billion.

In fact, Sony owned Columbia and Guber-Peters for just five months of the fiscal year. The company reported $589 million in sales from the film division for the period, but didn’t break out operating gains or losses for the unit.