Martin Into Market

Glenn Luther Martin Co., whose streaking bombers are the envy of all the world's armies, has only two stockholders--Glenn L. Martin and Louis Chevrolet. The founding president owns 525,000 shares. Mr. Chevrolet, who gave his name to the fastest selling automobile in the U. S., owns 1,000 shares.* This week all that will be changed. Through a banking group headed by Otis & Co. 325,000 Martin shares will be offered to the public at $11.50 per share. Founder Martin will donate 150,000 shares of his personal holding to the company for the deal, the balance being authorized but unissued stock. Though not large as offerings go, it will be one of the biggest attempts at industrial stock financing since the Securities Act was signed last spring.

Glenn Martin was fiddling with bicycles at home in Santa Ana, Calif, in 1903 when the Wright brothers made historic news at Kitty Hawk. By 1907 he was able to build himself a glider and a year later he was the third man in the world to fly a heavier-than-air craft of his own devising. To laymen the name of Glenn L. Martin has today receded into the dim anonymity of military aviation, but in his youth Glenn Martin was his own able pressagent. He barnstormed with a lady parachute jumper who perched in pink tights on the wing of his plane. He made an astonishing flight of 28 mi. offshore to Catalina Island. He took up Mary Pickford for her first flight, turned down cinema contracts.

Glenn Martin's fancy flying was done for the sole purpose of financing further experimentation. By 1912 he had a plane factory running full blast, and a year later received his first Government contract. In 1918 came the first of the famed twin-engine Martin bombers and since then he has built hundreds of Army & Navy planes. The Martin which won the Collier Trophy in 1933 cruises at 200 m.p.h. with two tons of bombs in its belly. Before the House Naval Affairs Committee in Washington last winter Glenn Martin testified that he had done $20,000,000 of government business at an average profit of 6%.

The old California Martin concern was merged with Wright Co. in 1917, but Glenn Martin, whose temper is sharp, soon quit to re-establish his own plant, this time in Cleveland.

In 1929 Glenn L. Martin Co. moved to a superb new plant near Baltimore. To finance this project the company floated a $3,000,000 bond issue. After five lean years Founder Martin realized that he must let the public into his private company as a means of meeting its maturities. The $6,000,000 Martin company has never been a gold mine. Development costs in military aviation preclude bulging surpluses. In 1927 and 1928 Martin reported annual profits of about $500,000 but in 1932 the company just broke even, last year lost $140,000. Martin entered this year with some $3,300,000 of business on the books, largely made up of an Army contract for 48 new bombers and an order for three of the six huge flying boats for Pan American Airways (TIME, June 5).

Now 48, a nobbily dressed bachelor with a flair for plaid suits, Glenn Martin lives in Washington with his mother. He also has living quarters at the plant 45 mi. away where he often stays days at a time. From his company he receives a modest salary of $16,200 per year.

* An oldtime automobile racer, Louis Chevrolet became an engineer, helped William Crapo Durant found Chevrolet Motor Co. in 1911. His brother Arthur, also a racer, was once Mr. Durant's personal chauffeur. Brother Louis acquired his Martin stock in an airplane motor deal.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.