Par

In 1817, Canada's Price Bros. & Co. began a mighty career in lumber, later branched into paper. Its own printed currency was long accepted locally as legal tender. Were Price Bros. banknotes circulating today they would find few takers. Competetive ferocity in a traditionally ferocious industry ground down newsprint prices from the post-War $110 per ton to a Depression $40. Short on profitable U. S. contracts, long on overhead, Price Bros. defaulted interest payments on its bonds in 1932. Promptly mustered was a bondholders' protective committee chairmanned by Boston's W. (for Willard) Eugene McGregor, who had been with Harris, Forbes & Co. when that banking house marketed the Price Bos. bonds to the public. Last week Banker McGregor earned the rare distinction of having protected his bondholders so well that they will get 100-c- on the dollar and back interest to boot.

After it defaulted, Price Bros. had a short period of grace to make good. Knowing there were only some $11,000,000 of bonds out against saw mills, power sites, 8,000 square miles of timber, two newsprint mills capable of 1,100 tons daily, the bondholders' committee prepared to hang on. Meanwhile many a potent user and producer of newsprint eyed the ailing company's assets with interest. When the bankruptcy ax finally fell eight months later, officers began to appear from such sources as Britain's Bowater's Paper Mills Ltd., a syndicate headed by Montreal's Robert Oliver Sweezey, newsprint users like Lord Beaverbrook, Lord Rothermere and William Randolph Hearst. For three years outside interests proposed and counterproposed, stockholders and creditors wrangled among themselves and with outsiders. Most likely plan was offered in 1934 by Bowater's acting for a Beaverbrook. Bondholders were offered new bonds for principal and cash for the interest. Banker McGregor's committee thought this fair enough. The Plan fell through, however, when stubborn preferred stockholders blocked approval. Still undaunted, Banker McGregor dug in again and waited. By this time, because of his insistent demands for 100-c- on the dollar, the dogged banker had earned the title "Par" McGregor. Last week it was apparent that the stockholders' mulishness had saved, ironically enough, every stitch of the bondseller's shirts.

During the past few months, gains in business volume* have lofted hopes that Price Bros, may soon be in the black again. Fortnight ago a new combination jumped into the picture. Front for this group was a new company called Pacona Ltd., sponsored by the Manhattan firm of Lehman Bros., and Canadian affiliates of Aluminum Co. of America, including Saguenay Power Co., Price's largest unsecured creditor. Pacona's offer was the answer to a protective committee's dream: cash for principal, back interest and all committee expenses.

This week not only those Price bondholders who deposited their securities with Banker McGregor but even those who held off will be able to turn in paper for cash on the line. Banker McGregor lives in fancy Chestnut Hill outside Boston, is fiftyish, greying, handsome. New Hampshire-born of his family's eighth generation in this country, he went early to work for Harris, Forbes & Co., became its president in 1930. Now out of investment banking, he takes up his time with golf, directorships, an occasional reorganization, lays the blame for his partial leisure upon the SEC and "a man named Roosevelt."

*Canadian newsprint production for March was 243,900 tons, an all-time record.

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