LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Miller Industries
built 132 days ago
In taking a positive approach to a negative situation, Miller Industries was--perhaps without recognizing the fact--borrowing a page from Georgia's own Ivy Ledbetter Lee (1877-1934), often referred to as the "Father of Public Relations." While he was working as a public relations consultant for the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1906, a train owned by the company had an accident. The railroad followed standard procedure, which was to pretend that nothing had happened; Lee... went against tradition by inviting reporters to visit the scene of the accident--at the railroad's expense, no less--and promised to provide them with all the information they needed. Soon the newspapers were printing positive stories about the company, and the railroad executives realized the wisdom of Lee's innovative approach.
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CHATTANOOGA, Tenn., May 4 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Miller Industries, Inc. (NYSE: MLR) intends to release its results for the first quarter ended March 31, 2007 on Tuesday, May 8, 2007, after the close of the market. In conjunction with this release, the Company will host a conference call on the following day that will be simultaneously broadcast live over the Internet on:
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Miller Industries is engaged in manufacturing of vehicle towing and recovery equipment. The company manufactures a line of wrecker, car carrier and trailer bodies. The company's manufacturing operations are located in Tennessee and Pennsylvania, and has foreign manufacturing operations in France and the UK. It is headquartered in Ooltewah, Tennessee and employs aboout 1,000 people.
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Miller Industries created RoadOne, a towing service company, in February 1997, and in less than six months it had acquired 34 towing service companies with combined historic revenues of $80 million annually. RoadOne was, from the beginning, the largest towing company in the United States, with service in 15 states. According to the company's annual report that year, Miller planned to establish a national towing service network. In 1997, the company ... set up its Financial Services Group, which offered equipment financing and other financial services to Miller Industries distributors and their customers. The company planned to continue its expansion into these realms of business in the following year.
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Even as Badgley admits that the company’s entry into towing services proved a misstep, he points out that the towing services competition the company created with some of its towing equipment customers never cost Miller Industries any distributors. Now, with a simplified business plan, upper management should be able to refocus on the manufacturing operations, which are centered in Oolte- wah and include a plant in Greeneville. Increased demand since August is prompting the company to raise production about 25%, Badgley says.
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Although the diversification strategy was necessary if the company wanted to increase the value of its stock, the broad reach of Miller Industries' services would soon expose the company to legal liabilities. As it turned out, Luke's favorable comparison to Microsoft--which itself underwent a widely publicized antitrust investigation in the late 1990s--would prove to be ironic.
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Miller Industries