The Chemistry of Growth

When he is not visiting his plants in Europe, Latin America or Africa--an activity that consumes half his time--J. Peter Grace is apt to spend his evenings studying chemistry in his Long Island home. "I'm not a chemist by any means," he explains, "but things change so fast in chemistry today that any man would have to study just as hard as I do to keep up." Grace's studies have paid off for the firm that he heads, W. R. Grace & Co.

Once solely a shipping and overseas-trading firm (founded by Grace's grandfather in 1854), Grace has become one of the largest U.S. chemical companies. Since 1952, when Peter first plunged Grace into chemicals, its annual sales have risen from $315 million to $815 million; chemicals now account for more than 62% of the total. Last week at the company's annual meeting in Chicago, Peter Grace predicted that chemicals would be the major factor in pushing 1965's sales close to $1 billion.

Liquefying Ammonia. To keep earnings of chemical products increasing at their current 25% -per-year rate, Grace has been busy building new plants and expanding older ones. The company is enlarging the capacity of an $85 million ammonia-plant complex in Trinidad, has just opened an $8,000,000 phosphate plant in Bayonne, France, which it will supply from one of the world's richest rock-phosphate mines, jointly owned by Grace and French interests in the African Republic of Togo. In the U.S., Grace is completing a factory near Buffalo for reprocessing nuclear fuel. In the Midwest, it is opening 200 Grace Green-towns, rural centers at which farmers can get advice and buy Grace fertilizers, insecticides and weed-killers.

Grace has purchased two Dutch chocolate producers, a dairy company in Ireland and a general food company in Guatemala, increased the production of its biscuit, candy and sugar companies in Latin America. Food sales, which accounted for only 4% of Grace's revenues in 1962, reached 13% in 1964.

In its rush for new markets, Grace has not forgotten its founding division. Grace Lines, which sails six passenger ships and 19 freighters between U.S. and Caribbean and South American ports, will receive six new automated freighters later this year. It is one of the only two U.S. carriers that operated passenger ships profitably last year. Panagra, the well-run airline that Grace owns jointly with Pan American, has ordered two supersonic transports for its Latin American runs, earned more than $1,000,000 in 1964.*

More Fingers. Grace, which also produces oil, paper, tungsten and tin, is not certain in which.direction it will expand next, but it is currently spending $17 million annually in research to find out. Says Peter Grace, who mixes his metaphors as successfully as he does his chemicals: "The more fingers we have --the more strings to our bow--the faster we accelerate. As we get bigger, we have more money to build more plants, and more possibilities open up. It can go on and on."

* Grace has agreed to sell its Panagra stock to Pan American, but approval of the sale by the Civil Aeronautics Board is not considered likely.

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