Word: sec
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Ever since the Supreme Court upheld the registration provisions of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, the utility industry has resembled a poker game with vast stakes and SEC Chairman William O. Douglas dealing. Last week, Bill Douglas dealt a new hand to an intriguing set of opponents-lean, smart, Floyd Odium of Atlas Corp., fat, cunning Howard Hopson of Associated Gas & Electric Co. and bald, battle-worn Harley Clarke, late president of Utilities Power & Light Corp. As this hard-bitten trio of utility financiers studied their cards, kibitzers gathered thick around. For the play was the first test...
...death sentence" (section 11B) of the Act provides that once the utility holding companies have registered, SEC has the power to force simplification of any utility pyramid into a single geographically integrated system. Most commentators have expected that whatever company Bill Douglas chose to chop up first would ap peal the "death sentence" to the Supreme Court. Here, Bill Douglas was smart - he picked $303,813,000 Utilities Power & Light, which is already in 776 receivership. SEC must pass on such reorganizations anyway. Last week, Chairman Douglas jubilantly called newshawks to his office, announced that it would be unfair...
Other factors also made U. P. & L. the perfect SEC choice. Promoter Harley Clarke threw together this "scatteration" of properties in 588 communities in 24 States and Canada in the 1920s, then floated three stock issues and two bond issues. By 1935, when U. P. & L. debentures sold as low as 20¼? on the dollar, Floyd Odium's big investment trust. Atlas Corp., bought up enough of them to gain control in a complex deal with RFC. which had its hands on Harley Clarke's key holding company (TIME, July 22, 1935). Harley Clarke was soon shoved...
...Began an investigation of the investment policies of insurance companies. By the Securities Act of 1933, new security issues must be registered with SEC before sale unless the entire issue is to be sold to one buyer. With their huge cash resources, insurance companies habitually buy entire issues. Investment bankers estimate the total of such purchases as high as $1,500,000,000 a year. SEC Chairman William O. Douglas last week commented that this gave "insurance companies a preferred status over other investors." As a part of the current Monopoly Investigation, SEC will study the subject...
...Exempted small utility holding companies from the Public Utility Act of 1935 ("death sentence"). Promulgated by SEC was the new rule exempting from all provisions of this law utility holding companies and subsidiaries whose entire system gross revenues derived from the utility business did not exceed $150,000 in the last fiscal year. Utility men estimated the number of such companies at about...