Word: murchison
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...temporarily, in the use of the most powerful financial weapon at his command, the Alleghany Corp., a railroad holding company. By purchasing Alleghany in 1937, Young was able to get control of the Chesapeake & Ohio. Later, Alleghany supplied the funds that Young lent to those impecunious oil millionaires, Clint Murchison and Sid Richardson, so that they could buy Central stock to vote in Young's favor in the proxy fight...
Appearing in baggy tweeds and unshined shoes, Clint Murchison told for the first time how he had happened to buy the Central stock. It was, he insisted, a strictly run-of-the-mill investment, and not a slick maneuver to help Young win the Central. In fact, said Murchison, he had even done his best to see if Harold S. Vanderbilt, then a Central director bitterly opposed to Young, had first wanted to buy the 800,000 shares owned by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. Drawled
...Murchison: "There was a rumor in Texas Vanderbilt wanted to buy these shares. I got [my lawyer] to go to Vanderbilt. He said the rumor was fiction." With that, Murchison went ahead with the deal. He asked Partner Sid Richardson, one of the world's richest oilmen, to come in with him because $20 million "occurred to me as a pretty big bite to take alone." Well, how much was Mr. Murchison worth? asked court-appointed Referee Robert J. Fitzsimmons. Answered Murchison : "About five, six or seven million." As it turned out, though, he did not need any money...
When he heard of Murchison's testimony, ex-Central Director Vanderbilt told a diametrically opposite story. He admitted that he had indeed seen Murchison's lawyer, but flatly denied that he had said he had no interest in buying the Central stock. Snapped Vanderbilt: "I not only never made any such statement, but I was interested in buying said shares when I saw him. I shortly afterwards made an offer to purchase all of said stock for $20 million...
There the matter rested. But before he went back to Texas, Wheeler-Dealer Murchison got back on the stand and cleared up one point. When Referee Fitzsimmons tartly observed that a $20 million deal "was a pretty big bite for a man worth only one-third that amount," Murchison amended his original estimate of his personal wealth. He was really worth, he guessed, "about $30 million." Added Murchison: "I consider money to be the same as manure. If you pick it up and put it out in the fields and till it, you get good returns . . ." Cracked Referee Fitzsimmons, dryly...