Word: bata
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...until last week did the astounding truth about the obscure Swiss company come out. Actually, Leader, A.G. owned the whole foreign empire of Czechoslovakia's shoe king, Thomas Bata, which was left when he died in an airplane crash in 1932. Leader's entire stock consisted of the 2,000 shares, issued merely to "bearer." Since the bearer had been Muska, he technically controlled Leader...
...Muska, and how did he get the stock? The mystery started to clear up when Thomas Bata Jr. (rhymes with got ya), 34-year-old son of the shoe king, and Jan Bata, a half-brother of Thomas Sr., launched a court fight in New York for control of the empire. Each claimed the 2,000 shares, and demanded, as a starter, an 826-share block which Muska had deposited in a Manhattan bank...
Last week in Manhattan, after deliberating over the case for nine months, Justice Benjamin Schreiber of New York County's supreme court awarded the stock-and thus 40% control of the Bata empire-to Thomas Jr. and his mother. In doing so, he also unfolded a fantastic tale of international high finance and skulduggery...
Swiss Dummy. Switzerland's Leader, A.G. had been formed by Bata Sr. in 1931, said Justice Schreiber, for the "admitted purpose of concealing his own ownership of Bata companies and assets outside Czechoslovakia" to evade income taxes. To conceal his own ownership, he had turned the shares over to Muska, lifelong friend and trusted aide...
Flight Abroad. Jan thus took the empire over for a fraction of its worth and continued to run it, with the help of Thomas Jr., until 1939. Then, just before the Nazis took over Czechoslovakia, both fled the country. Thomas went to Canada, where he started a huge new Bata factory at "Batawa" near Frankford, Ont.; Jan came to the U.S., where he started a factory at Belcamp, Md. Muska had also fled, taking the Leader shares with him, but telling neither Jan nor Thomas about them. Not until 1942 did Muska privately reveal the existence of the shares...