Wynn’s International to Take $21-Million Charge-Off in 4th Quarter : Recession: The auto supplies firm blames sagging U.S. car sales. The company expects an annual loss.

Blaming weak U.S. auto sales, Wynn’s International Inc. said Monday that it would charge off $21 million in the fourth quarter, which is expected to result in an annual loss.

Wynn’s, a worldwide supplier of automotive chemicals, molded rubber products and air conditioners, also expects to lay off about 50 employees at its Texas air-conditioner subsidiary.

The company, which expects to issue its annual financial report in late January, would not give the size of the estimated loss.

For 1990, Wynn’s reported net earnings of $6.4 million, including $1.5 million in the final quarter. This year, net income for the first nine months was $2.8 million.

Wynn’s vice president for finance, Seymour Schlosser, said the fourth-quarter charge, equal to $4.15 a share, comes entirely from the restructuring of Wynn’s Climate Systems unit.

The subsidiary, acquired by Wynn’s in 1978, makes air conditioners for domestic and foreign car makers and after-market add-ons.

As part of the restructuring, Schlosser said, about 50 of the subsidiary’s 500 employees are expected to be let go by year’s end. At its peak in the late 1980s, the unit employed almost 1,000 workers.

Wynn’s President James Carrol blamed the recession for the unit’s weak performance.

In a statement issued Monday, he said officials have concluded that the business outlook for Wynn’s Climate Systems will remain poor for the next several years.

The subsidiary’s chief customers, said Schlosser, are automobile manufacturers and new and used car dealers who install the air conditioners as dealer-supplied add-ons. Auto production and sales in the United States have been dropping for more than two years, eating away at the market for air-conditioning units, he said.

If not for the charge-off, Wynn’s International would have posted profits for both the fourth quarter and the full year, Schlosser said.

The charge includes about $4.5 million in goodwill--the value placed on the air-conditioner company’s reputation, market share and customer base when Wynn’s acquired it--as well employee-termination costs and the value of equipment and facilities idled by the slowdown.

Wynn’s International also announced Monday that its directors have declared a regular quarterly dividend of 15 cents per share of common stock, payable Jan. 3 to stockholders of record on Dec. 17. The company said this represents the 67th consecutive quarterly dividend payment since 1975.