1,212% Profit

While he was earning his bread & butter ($263,000) last year, President Charles P. Skouras of National Theaters Corp. also managed to earmark some money for luxuries. On a proposed resale of some National Theaters stock which he bought two years ago for $353,125, Charlie Skouras was all set this week to take in a toothsome profit of $4,281,255.

Details of the deal were simple. Along with three other top managers of National Theaters (Elmer C. Rhoden, Harold J. Fitzgerald, F. H. Ricketson, Jr.), Skouras was allowed in 1944 to buy a fair-sized interest ($565,000) in the company as "incentive." The incentive worked well for all concerned--including National Theater's stockholders. Net profits have been increasing steadily, would be more than doubled this year according to the rate of earnings for the first five months ($5,392,000).

When Charlie Skouras & associates offered to sell their shares back to National last month, they asked a price ($7,415,000) that seemed way over the stock's value. Even the directors of 20th Century-Fox, of which National is a subsidiary (and of which Charlie's brother Spyros is president), pointed out that it would take 15 years for the managers' investment to bring in the difference they asked. Then how had the price been set?

That was Charlie's time to show his ace in the hole. What he wanted, he blandly revealed, was the sum that Transamerica Corp., aging A.P. Giannini's vast holding company, had offered him and his colleagues. (Transamerica's deadpan explanation: "It has very good earnings and it is a well-managed company. We want the stock for an investment.") National, according to an agreement, has the right to match this offer.

Its stockholders can take it or leave it. Either way, Charlie gets his.

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