Thornton Holding Co Inc history

Using borrowed money, Thornton acquired Litton Industries in 1954 and purchased a few smaller electronics firms that same year.

When he purchased Litton Industries, Thornton promised Lehman Brothers that his company, with $8 million in sales, would have $100 million in sales by 1959.

By 1961, Litton was the fastest growing company on the New York Stock Exchange.

By 1963, sales reached $500 million.

William Pearse was working as a management trainee at the Gates Rubber Co. before he and Barbara started a Team Electronics audio/video franchise store in Arvada, Colorado--a suburb of Denver--in 1968, with $15,000 in personal funds.

In 1972, Litton's credibility was further damaged by Roy Ash's claim that after three years of declining profits, Litton's sales would revive that year.

In 1974, Litton reported $77 million in write-offs in the business systems division, which had lost money for two consecutive years.

The second SoundTrack opened in Denver in 1976.

In 1979, the company sold its Triumph-Adler typewriter business, which had lagged far behind its competitors.

The 1984 purchase of Core Laboratories Inc., a natural complement to Western Geophysical, seemed to indicate that Litton would remain dedicated to the petroleum industry.

Orion Hoch, who took over as chief executive officer in late 1986, oversaw the divestment of 14 major unprofitable and non-related businesses representing over $1 billion in sales.

In 1990 the company's ads featured a hippopotamus.

Pearse Electronics had net sales of $53.7 million in fiscal 1992 (the year ended January 31, 1992) and net income of $1 million.

In 1993, Litton won a $1.2 billion jury award from competitor Honeywell Inc.

In September 1994 the company closed its Denver SoundTrack store and opened a 31,000-square-foot superstore in the city in what had been the Century 21 movie theater.

The Pearse family owned about 46 percent of the stock in 1995.

The latter, which opened in April 1996, had five audio demonstration rooms, three home theaters, two cars on the showroom floor displaying the latest in mobile-audio technology, and a children's play area named "Kid City."

The company made its biggest expansion move yet in June 1997, snapping up Audio King Corporation in a deal valued at about $5.7 million.

Helping to fund this expansion was a late 1999 secondary stock offering that raised more than $35 million.

Fiscal 2000 ended up being the company's best year yet, as net income surged nearly 74 percent to $14.6 million, while net sales amounted to $484.4 million, a 26 percent increase from the previous year.

Further funding for this ambitious plan came from another secondary stock offering, completed in May 2002, yielding net proceeds of $84.8 million.

In mid-January 2005 he increased his stake to 31 percent, concurrent with the company filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.