Simon's Assemblage

As an avid collector, Los Angeles Industrialist Norton W. Simon, 61, over the past four months alone has acquired, among other art works, a Picasso, two Cezannes, three Pissarros and a millon-dollar Manet. As a company collector, Simon has been buying up businesses for years. Now, he is forming the bulk of his collection into one assemblage. Last week the directors of his Hunt Foods & Industries and two companies it controls--McCall Corp. and Canada Dry Corp.--agreed to form a single company, which will be called Norton Simon Inc.

When the merger takes effect next month, it will certainly be a Simon-sized work. The three companies, which did a total of $920 million in business last year, should easily reach a billion dollars this year. This would be only appropriate for what may be Simon's last great corporate stroke. Simon, who will give up his post as chairman of Hunt's finance committee, will be only one among the new firm's directors, says that he has "looked forward for several years to devoting more time to personal and public affairs."

Orderly House. Why is he stepping out now? Simple weariness could be one reason. He has extricated Hunt from long-troublesome investments in Wheeling Steel and W.P. Fuller Paint Co.; Crucible Steel, in which Hunt has a 23% interest, has agreed to merge with Walter Kidde & Co. With those moves made, Simon has been heard to say that "our house is in order now." As for the merger, he says that "we could have waited for years, but since we appeared to have just the right management, the time seemed ripe."

Chairman and chief executive of the new company will be Hunt's present chairman--tough, acquisition-minded William E. McKenna, 48, whom Simon lured from Litton Industries last year. Under McKenna, as president, will be David J. Mahoney Jr., 45, a onetime Colgate-Palmolive marketing whiz who was hand-picked by Simon 18 months ago to turn ailing Canada Dry around, and did. Third member of the triumvirate will be Hunt President Harold M. Williams, 40, who joined Hunt 13 years ago as a tax lawyer. He will take over Simon's job as chairman of the finance committee.

Simon himself plans to devote more time to his interests in art and education (he is a member of the University of California's Board of Regents and the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education). But he will certainly have a say in Norton Simon Inc. When the new company's stock, which will be swapped for Hunt, McCall and Canada Dry shares, begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange, the man commanding the biggest block of Norton Simon Inc. shares will be Norton Si mon himself. At a likely price of around $40 a share, the collection of Norton Simon Inc. stock certificates controlled by Simon and his family stands to be worth about $70 million.

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