EYECATCHERS

Independent Profits Only 16 months after it was put on the auction block in the wake of a spectacular bankruptcy, Rolls-Royce Motors Holdings Ltd. is doing well indeed. After riding in the red for years, it has announced a pretax profit of $11 million on sales of $117 million in 1973.

Much of the credit goes to Managing Director David Plastow, 42, who was named head of the new management group that launched the motor division as an independent firm after its aero-engineering parent went under. Plastow says that the breakup of the old company was the best thing that ever happened to its motorcar division because "too many workaday decisions -- including every aspect of pricing -- had to be referred to the old company."

Plastow now has far more independence. A former auto-engineering apprentice who joined the company in 1958, he has improved communications between management and labor. "We would not dream of moving a single machine tool in our factories without first consulting the shop floor. That way you avoid the unnecessary strike."

Plastow is also concentrating on exploiting Rolls-Royce's fame as a symbol of luxury, instead of joining the trend toward bringing out smaller, gas-saving cars. He recently kicked up retail prices of the popular Silver Shadow from about $25,500 to $31,000. Now he is preparing a new model, code-named Delta, which at $50,000 may be the world's most expensive production car.

Away from Subsidy. As recently as 1967, Allegheny Airlines and two smaller lines that it has since taken over were collecting $12.5 million a year in Government aid. But this month Allegheny became the first of the nine U.S. "feeder" airlines to go off federal subsidy entirely -- at its own request. The line, President Leslie Barnes proclaims, no longer needs a dole. He told stockholders that profits in the first six months of 1974 would equal or exceed the record $6.2 million earned on $325 million revenues in all of 1973.

One reason for Allegheny's success is that its routes are heavily concentrated in the densely populated East ern Seaboard area. Another reason is the management strategy of Barnes, 57, an earthy, fiercely cost-efficient administrator. In 21 years in the corporate cockpit, Barnes has steadily strengthened Allegheny through precise scheduling and by ridding it of its small-town runs. Barnes also runs a marketing and planning division that probably is the best in the industry. Two years ago, he inspired a joint ticketing and routing operation with Pan American that enables an Allegheny passenger in, say, Canton, Ohio, or Lexington, Ky., to buy a single ticket straight through to Paris or any other Pan Am stop. In 1973 the program took in $5.3 million, 90% more than the previous year.

Dollars for Dreams

Warner LeRoy was four years old when his father Mervyn produced the movie The Wizard of Oz. Ever since, Warner's life has been filled with dreams and a need for the spectacular, and indulging them has proved profitable. LeRoy's latest dream fulfillment is Great Adventure, a 1,500-acre amusement park that opened this month in New Jersey featuring 2,000 animals (including a herd of elephants), chariot races, and one of the world's highest Ferris wheels (150 ft.). LeRoy has already shouldered Hardwicke Companies Inc., a firm in which he is a major stockholder, into spending $50 million on Great Adventure; eventually the company expects to invest $200 million. Says Charles Stein, head of Hardwicke, which has investments in safari-type parks round the world: "We put our whole company at stake because we believe in his creations."

Well they might. Earlier, LeRoy persuaded Hardwicke to put up $1.5 million for half ownership of a Manhattan cafe converted from a theater that LeRoy had acquired so he could be a writer, director and producer. He wanted to transform the cafe into a restaurant where he would "create the sense of spectacle." He did, and Maxwell's Plum is now the paragon of Manhattan's singles spots, earning a tidy 13% profit on a yearly gross of about $4.5 million, and delivering LeRoy a salary of more than $200,000. That leaves the 39-year-old LeRoy with one dream to fulfill: losing the 60 lbs. he has gained "tasting and testing" since Maxwell's opened.

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