The Big Sixth

From the day he got a selling job with Du Pont at 17, Thomas Steele Nichols has had one battle cry: "What are we waiting for?" Nichols has never waited for anything. Though he never went to college, he became vice president of a Manhattan chemical company at 28, was made president of the old, established Mathieson Chemical Corp. four years ago at 38. Since then, Tom Nichols has more than tripled Mathieson's sales ($91 million last year) and done the same for earnings ($9,653,000).

Last week the man in a hurry announced the biggest deal of his career. Subject to approval by stockholders of both companies, said Nichols, Mathieson Will buy up E. R. Squibb & Sons, $100 million-a-year maker of household drugs, whose brown-labeled bottles and boxes have been standard equipment in medicine cabinets all over the U.S. for nearly a century. If the stock swap (five Squibb shares for three Mathieson shares) is approved by stockholders as expected, the resulting company will be a $300 million giant, sixth biggest chemical company in the U.S.

New Team. At first glance, the merger is a strange one. For years, Mathieson's chief business has been in basic chemicals, Squibb's in consumer products. But following the lead of American Cyanamid, which is now cashing in on antibiotics, Nichols thinks the Squibb merger makes sense and fits neatly into his aggressive expansion policies.

When Nichols took over Mathieson, the company was barely keeping pace with the fast-growing chemical industry. It had only three plants, turning out caustic soda for making rayon, soda ash for glassmaking, and liquid chlorine. By a series of mergers and purchases, Nichols expanded to 20 plants and moved into other fields. He bought a fertilizer company and two of the biggest sulphuric acid plants in. the world, pioneered in the field of petrochemicals by extracting them from natural gas far from the well and close to the customer.

Triple Play. Now Mathieson supplies raw materials for synthetic fibers and for auto antifreeze. Mathieson is also one of the top dry-ice producers and a leader among U.S. fertilizer makers. Its latest product is hydrazine, a secret ingredient of rocket fuels.

Mathieson's assets have about tripled (including half ownership of Baltimore's only skyscraper, the Mathieson Building) to $192 million since Nichols took over. Last year it was one of the few big corporations to show a profit gain (7%) despite a 65% jump in taxes. Squibb's was another. On slightly larger sales than Mathieson, it earned $9,700,000, up 20% from 1950. Tom Nichols thinks that with such products as Squibb's new TB drug (TIME, March 3), he can pull up Squibb's profits still further. To do so in the fastest moving of all chemical fields--the wonder drugs--Fast Mover Nichols will have to step livelier than ever.

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