Word: humbard
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Conglomerating for Christ has obviously paid off handsomely for Humbard. His headquarters is the $3,400,000 rigged-for-TV Cathedral of Tomorrow in suburban Akron. He lives in a $225,000 house in Akron's West Hill, where the rubber barons reside...
Lately, however, Humbard's evangelical empire has been having some mammon troubles. Officials in six states have banned further sale of the securities sold by the cathedral because they were not properly registered. Last month Ohio commerce regulators won a temporary restraining order prohibiting him from selling securities, from encouraging investors not to redeem their holdings or from disposing of cathedral assets. They accused the cathedral of "unconscionable sales methods" in marketing securities, claiming that its salesmen failed to tell prospective investors that the church is in financial trouble. In addition, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has asked...
...Humbard got into high finance in 1959, a year after building his 5,000-seat cathedral. Finding that TV time to spread the Word was expensive, he followed the example of other religious and educational institutions and began issuing bonds and promissory notes. But he did not sell the securities through licensed brokers. He formed his own traveling squad of 20 salesmen, many of them ministers in the cathedral, who have since raised $ 12 million from small investors in 47 states...
...Humbard turned his corporation into a conglomerate in 1965, when he bought the Real Form Girdle Co. of Brooklyn, N.Y. Since then he has acquired and resold an advertising agency and a printing company in Akron, spent some $3 million to buy and modernize Mackinac College in northern Michigan and $10 million for a 24-story office tower in downtown Akron. Adjacent to the cathedral he has built a 202-unit apartment building for senior citizens and a restaurant (all the dinner you can eat for $3, no smoking or drinking, please). The acquisitions are owned and operated by Cathedral...
Trouble is, Humbard seldom turns a profit. Earnings from the girdle company have gone flabby ("Panty hose killed us," explains Humbard), and Mackinac College has attracted only 150 students for its 700 places. Nearly all of Humbard's available revenues go into buying more television time...