THE HISTORY OF TUNGSRAM 1896-1945 - MEK

TUNGSRAM 82case of radio valve factories, radio valves, whoseimport was not permitted or was not rentable onaccount of the high custom duties.Such a divergence in the company's profile broughtabout the development of the machine works inUjpest, specializing in the manufacturing of machinesused in incandescent lamp manufacturing. What oncehad been an in-house workshop, now became one ofTUNGSRAM'S fundmental branches.To give an idea of the size of the TUNGSRAM Corporation,we present a table showing the break-down of itswork-force (30 April, 1929):FactoryUjpestJoh. Kremenetzky,ViennaHungarian TungstenFactory Ltd.MilanWarsawTillburgLondonBucharestParisGlass factory,KlaraUtekacGlass Factory TokodTotal work-forceCoal Mines of AjkaTungsram salesagenciesA grand total ofofficeworkers80823212739722735601287141,572302501,852workers426412257035619881129651226318608,356970739,399total50721457830952701081641252506388749,9281,00032311,251Asa result of the new acquisitions, the total number ofworkers employed by the corporation had reached13,846 by January, 1943, giving a further increase of 20percent.The subsidiaries and branches constituted a complexorganization. Every company retained its share companystructure enjoyed prior to joining the corporation,and even the foreign agencies were reorganizedinto formall independent companies. This striving forindependence was explained by the rising nationalistmood exhibited in the various countries. To tackle thenationalist tendencies, such organizational structureswere formed which made the foreign branches financiallyinterested in one another; for example, theYugoslavian sales agencies and assembly plants wererun as if they had been the subsidiaries of theTungsram factory in Zurich. j wIn the growing isolationist mood the transfer of profitfrom the subsidiaries to the parent company becameincreasingly more difficult. This difficulty was bridgedby license agreements concerning various patentsowned by the Ujpest factory, as well as other agreementsabout certain consultation fees due toTUNGSRAM, drawn up first between the assemblyplants and TUNGSRAM and later between the assemblyplants and Swiss holding company set up just forthis purpose. Then the Swiss company used theproceeds to buy basic materials on the internationalmarkets. This source of acquisition enabledTUNGSRAM to continue with its production throughtherefore,other ways of securing their markets had tobe found.To adapt to the new circumstances, TUNGSRAM, likethe rest of the large international companies, set upfactories (assembly units, more precisely) workingbeside its existing, registered and legally independent,foreign branches which, in fact, were sales agencies, incertain cases these moves were connected to theruthless competition against the great opponents onthe market. When the Dutch company Philips boughtshares in Hungarian businesses, TUNGSRAM respondedby acquiring a small Dutch company. RadiumTillburg, and turned it into a radio valve and incandescentlamp assembly unit. Later this company evenmoved into radio manufacturing. An incandescentlamp factory (assembly plant) was established inMilan in 1930, a radio valve factory in London in 1934,another incandescent lamp factory in Bucharest in1936, an incandescent lamp factory in Bratislava and aradio valve factory in Paris in 1937, and an incandescentlamp assembly unit, again, in Paris in 1939. The