Money for Power

One hundred potent citizens of Milan--bankers, industrialists and men of science --sat down to luncheon, with a U. S. guest of honor who piqued their curiosity. He was, they understood, a financier whose unusual hobby is to acquire control of clean, smart, pedigreed industries. At present Mr. Aldred and his associates are the bankers for the firms which produce razors stamped "Gillette," silverware with the venerable Manhattan hall mark "Gorham," and U.S.-made motor cars bearing the nameplate "Rolls-Royce." Clearly this guest, this Signor John E. Aldred, was worthy of Italian observation. Especially so, because today the Manhattan financial house of J. E. Aldred is handling issues of dollar bonds totalling some $30,000,000, on the basis of which extensive expansion of the Italian hydroelectric industry is taking place.

To sense the projects envisioned before the luncheon in Milan, last week, interested observers turned to a report on the Italian hydro-electric industry which was issued recently by Signor Giacinto Motta, managing director of the great firm which produces 30% of the electricity used by Italians, namely the Edison General Italian Electric Co. of Milan. Brisk and explicit, Signor Motta keynotes thus:

1) Italian current consumption has doubled within the past seven years, and now stands at an annual consumption of some eight thousand millions of kilowatt hours.*

2) The total investment made thus far in Italian hydro-electric companies is roughly equivalent to half a billion dollars, a sum which would have to be doubled to attain "utilization of all Italy's hydro-electric resources."

3) The new power plants must include not only hydro-electric but steam-driven generators. "We must mix the white coal [water power] with the black coal [thermic power]," declares Signor Motta, "[to] make up for the deficiency of water power in years of minimum rain fall."

4) The Italian electrical industry is grouped about 12 major holding corporations, of which the Edison Company of Signor Motta in Milan is the largest, with the Hydro-Electric Company of Piedmont second and producing 17% of Italy's electric power.

Since the above facts were soundly before the 100 luncheon auditors of Financier Aldred, in Milan last week, they displayed a rational approval of his address covering Italo-U. S. co-operation in developing Italian power potentialities.

Naturally Mr. Aldred did not stress that his great competitor in the placing of Italian electric power securities is the house of Blair & Co., of Manhattan, who are handling more than $50,000,000 of such paper.

The Aldred interests are notably fostering a $10,000,000 bond issue for the Edison company of Milan and a $6,000,000 issue for the Adamello General Electric Co. operating throughout Lombardy. Not thus concentrated in Northern Italy are the operations of Blair & Co. who are financing a whole series of companies in Northern, Central and Southern Italy. Most notable, of course, is their issue for the Hydro-Electric Company of Piedmont, the S. I. P. (Societa Idroelettrica Peidmonte), famed because it is controlled by Il Duce's Finance Minister Count Giuseppe Volpi.

*A kilowatt hour equals 1,000 watt hours. For example, an ordinary 50 watt lamp bulb consumes one kilowatt hour of electric energy for every 20 hours of burning.