U. S. Iron & Steel

Iron & steel giants of the U. S. groped towards mergers last week. Directors of the Trumbull Steel Co. and the Republic Iron & Steel Co. decided to consolidate; and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. sold $75,000,000 of bonds through Kuhn, Loeb & Co. That was the biggest piece of industrial financing of the year.

Republic Iron & Steel is itself a consolidation, accomplished in 1899, of 24 iron & steel companies. Once it made only steel bars. Now it makes diversified products. It has plants in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Alabama and Illinois, and iron or coal mines in Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Alabama and Pennsylvania. With vast steelmaking facilities, it lacks sufficient mills to finish its products. John Alexander Topping is chairman; Cyrus Stephen Eaton a director since last April. Mr. Eaton's joining Republic Iron & Steel was the first definite step towards last week's merger. He is Trumbull Steel's chairman.

Trumbull Steel complements Republic Iron & Steel effectively because its steelmaking departments are less complete than its facilities for finishing steel for immediate consumers. It manufactures sheet & tin mill products, open hearth steel blooms, billets, slabs and bars, and steel strips. Mills are at Warren, Ohio.

Because Mr. Eaton, a partner in the banking house of Otis & Co. of Cleveland, is heavily interested in the Inland Steel Co. and because the men who control Trumbull Steel also control the Central Alloy Steel Co., it is quite probable that by next spring both those companies will join the merger.

Not so probable is the drift of the Otis Steel Co., another large "independent." However, William Gwinn Mather, president of the Cleveland Cliffs Iron Co. and Chairman of Otis Steel, has heavy investments in Trumbull Steel and in Central Alloy. Such financial relationships count toward consolidations.

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.'s sale of $75,000,000 of bonds through Kuhn, Loeb & Co., again brought that investment house into close touch with the larger U. S. iron & steel companies. Five years ago they tried to accomplish a merger of these six concerns:

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co.

Republic Iron & Steel Co.

Inland Steel Co.

Steel & Tube Co. of America

Midvale Steel Co.

Lackawanna Steel Co.

The promotion work failed. Charles Michael Schwab's Bethlehem Steel Corp. absorbed first Lackawanna Steel, then Midvale Steel; Youngstown Sheet & Tube absorbed Steel & Tube of America. Republic Iron & Steel and Inland Steel remained solitary, until last week. Out of the $75,000,000 Youngstown Sheet & Tube borrowed on its bonds last week, it will pay off some $64,000,000 of debts and have more than $10,000,000 to use in whatever merger plans it may fancy. So far its officials admit none.

The assets of the various important iron & steel companies at the beginning of this year were:

U. S. Steel Corp $2,454,139,185

Bethlehem Steel Corp 645,885,471

Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co 295,471,626

Republic Iron & Steel Co 137,635,053

Inland Steel Co 87,102,837

Central Alloy Steel Co 74,342,064

Trumbull Steel Co 50,651,488

Otis Steel Co 37,335,441