How business, doctors and journalists prey on your food anxieties I

United Dominion Industries
Unless you're a constipated horse, aloe juice probably
won't cure your ailments . But a lot of people don't know
that, <strong>and</strong> this has made Rex Maughan very rich .
Jan Ver Hagen, UDI's eh7ef operedng ofFicer
"I'li be like Pac•Man, nibbiing at costs ."
Bridge . After years of losses, Dominion
Bridge brought in someu'hat less
than $20 million ; Holl<strong>and</strong> used the
proceeds to help keep debt down to a
minimum .
While Holl<strong>and</strong>, now 56, restructures
the corporation, Chief Operating
Officer Jan Ver Hagen looks after
the daily operations . Hired a« ay last
year from Emerson Electric, where he
was vice chairman, Ver Hagen, 57,
says his goal is to increase United
Dominion's 8 .5% operating margin
to 11 .5% in 1997 <strong>and</strong> its 12 .7% return
on equin, to 15% by 1999 . Grins Ver
Hagen : "I plan to be like Pac-Manendlessly
nibbling away at costs ."
The results show . Last year United
Dominion's sales rose 11%, to $2
billion, <strong>and</strong> such is the operating leverage
in the comparrv that net income
jumped 56°%, to $62 million,
SI .55 a share .
With the sale of its service <strong>business</strong>es,
United Dominion's revenues
will probably remain around S2
billion this year ; but earnings may
climb another 23%, to around $1 .90
a share .
The folks who run United Dominion
have no regrets about having
pulled out of Canada's stagnant econome,
burthev do «ish chey hadn't lost
Giddings & Lewis along the way . The
moral of this story is : It's not enough
to know where you're going . You'd
better have a good plan for getting
there, too. m
dccoafltNGTO Phoenix <strong>business</strong>man
Rex Maughan, Alex<strong>and</strong>er the Great
conquered the East African isl<strong>and</strong> of
Socotra to obtain its aloe plants to
soothe his soldiers' Nrounds . Never
mind that Socotra is 1,500 miles
southeast of dte southernmost point
of Alex<strong>and</strong>er's conquests . Historv
isn't Rex Maughan's <strong>business</strong> . Peddling
products with supposed medicinal
qualities is his <strong>business</strong> .
Maughan, who is in his late 50s, is
founder <strong>and</strong> sole owner of Phoenixbased
Forever Lis, ing Products International
. Forever Li ving sells deodorants,
toothpaste, laundry detergent
<strong>and</strong> three dozen other p roduas, nearly
all of%chich contain estract ofaloe, a
cactuslike succulent plant common to
some desert areas . Half his <strong>business</strong>
comes from a single product, drinkable
aloe gel, a tart extract that looks
like pineapple juice <strong>and</strong> tastes like
turpentine . A quart ofthis stuff retails
for ^J .14 .95 . People drink it straight or
mixed with fruit juices. Forever Living
also does a big <strong>business</strong> in bee
pollen, which some people are persuaded
cures hay fever (Foaaes, Apr . 24) .
Forever Living is one of what are
called multilevel sales organizationsor
ppramids . These outfits recruit armies
of fidl-time <strong>and</strong> part-time salespeople,
who instead of working on
com mission typically buy the products
<strong>and</strong> then sell them at a profit .Acharao
teristic of such outfits is that more
money %i•orks its way to the top of the
pyramid than stays at the bottom . The
big money is notin selling the stuff, but
in recruiting people to sell [Ite stuff .
A new salesperson at Forever Livin g
Forever ~_Iving's
orcduc .s
Rex Maughan
says his
distributors
moved close to
$1 billion worth .
98 Forbes e August 14, 1995 i
http://legacy.library.ucsf.edu/tid/agf97d00/pdf
4
__ ~