TRW Conducting ‘Review’ of Credit Reporting Unit

TRW Inc. said Friday that it is conducting a “strategic review” of its Orange County-based consumer credit reporting business, but has no imminent plans to sell the 2,000-employee operation.

The statement came after TRW Chairman Joseph T. Gorman was quoted in the New York Times as saying that the company was weighing whether to sell the unit, partly because of recent criticism from consumer groups and government officials.

But officials of the Cleveland-based technology giant said Friday that the review is nothing more than the regular scrutiny that is applied to all TRW units. The company’s activities range from building satellites to manufacturing steering gear for trucks.

“TRW is continuing these reviews but has no plans to sell the credit-reporting business at this time,” the statement said.

The company acknowledged that Gorman said TRW’s credit bureau--one of the nation’s three largest--was not performing up to expectations. It added, however, that the operation has potential for good profit margins and that TRW is an industry leader.

TRW’s information and services business earned $49 million on sales of $760 million in TRW’s 1990 fiscal year, a 19% decline in earnings. At the time, the firm blamed the decline on a downturn in the credit and real estate markets.

Small compared to TRW’s other divisions, the credit bureau operations has brought bad publicity to the company recently because of a burgeoning outcry concerning its practices regarding the collection and dissemination of financial data on individuals.

The attorneys general of six states, later joined by seven others, filed two lawsuits last month that accuse the company of failing to fix errors in consumer credit records and other alleged misdeeds.