Merger

Mergers

Coal. Isaac Thomas Mann, president of the Pocahontas Fuel Co. and chairman of the organization committee of a giant unborn company, confirmed a report last week that the semi-bituminous smokeless coal Hercules would soon be born. The merger will include some 25 or 30 companies operating in Virginia and West Virginia, capable of producing 30,000,000 tons a year. Among the companies considering the merger are Pocahontas Fuel, New River Coal, Consolidation Coal, American Coal, Pond Creek Pocahontas, Gulf Smokeless Coal, Berwind-White Coal, General Coal, Slab Fork Coal, Crozer Pocahontas.

Oil. Arrangements were virtually completed last week for the Texas Corp. to acquire the California Petroleum Corp. through an exchange of stocks. The Texas Corp. is the largest "independent" oil company in the U. S., has total assets of $432,000,000 including 2,400,000 acres of oil lands in the U. S. and Mexico. The California Petroleum Corp., with assets of $98,000,000, has 70,000 opulent acres in California. Reason for the merger: to expand the Texas Corp.'s operations in the Far East in order to compete more effectively against the Standard Oil Co. of New York and the Royal Dutch Shell group. R. C. Holmes is president of the Texas Corp.; Jacques Vinmont of the California Petroleum Corp.

Milk, Mincemeat, Fruit Juice. The Borden business began in 1857 with Gail Borden's discovery of a method of condensing milk. The Borden Company is the present result. In 1927 it was the largest manufacturer of evaporated and condensed milk and the largest distributor of fluid milk and cream in the U. S. It also sold butter, eggs, malted milk, caramels. Recently it acquired ice cream factories. Added to Borden products by merger last week were dried whole milk (Klim and Parlac), dried skimmed milk (Merrell-Soule and Breadlac) mincemeat (None Such), dried orange and lemon juices--all products prepared by the Merrell-Soule Co., which has as subsidiaries the Merrell-Soule Co. of England and Canadian Milk Products Co. Ltd. Merrell-Soule is to dried milk what Borden is to condensed --originator and largest producer. Atlanta Laundries. In Atlanta, there had been twelve large laundries: last week there were only three. Ten had combined to form the

Atlanta Laundries Inc. Together they do up each week 60,000 packages of Atlanta's dirty linen--90% of the city's total laundry and 75% of its dry cleaning--a $2,775,000 business.

Japanese Electricity. The largest corporation in Japan (capital, $20,000,000; gross annual earnings $55,000,000) was formed last week upon the merging of the Tokyo Electric Light Co. and the Tokyo Electric Power Co. One of the largest public utility companies in the world, it operates over 10,000,000 sq. mi. of Japanese territory, serves 10,000,000 (one-sixth) of Japan's population. The Guaranty Company of Manhattan helped accomplish the merger.