Word: simon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...Simon sold Val Vita, which made him a young millionaire, for $3,000,000 to neighboring Hunt Bros. Packing Co. Simon had been buying up Hunt stock for two years, and he now demanded a place on the board of directors; though he had about 25% of the stock, management refused and a series of battles followed. Simon succeeded in getting control of the company, changed its name to Hunt Foods. He bought a can-making plant, made himself unpopular with wholesale grocers by discontinuing, just when wartime shortages made it difficult to find new canners, Hunt's unprofitable practice...
...Simon's advertising led to his first major acquisition. The Ohio Match Co., which was churning out millions of matchbooks with Hunt recipes on the cover, seemed to Simon worth more than its stock was selling at. He began buying in, got controlling interest in 1946 by snapping up a 20% block of Ohio stock that the bigger Diamond Match Co. had been forced to surrender by federal order. From matches Simon turned to railroads, using Ohio Match money to buy a substantial block of stock in the Northern Pacific Railway...
...more Simon looked into Northern Pacific the more its sloppy operating practices irritated him. He set out to win control, but was frustrated by a curious coincidence: the discovery of oil on Northern Pacific land...
Unable to buy more stock because of skyrocketing prices, Simon turned around and sold Ohio's share for a $2,800,000 profit. He put his oil profits into cottonseed oil, in 1946 acquired New Orleans' Wesson Oil for $76 mil lion. He quickly doubled its size, strengthened its marketing and distribution systems...
Looking around for new areas to enter, Simon noticed that many publishing stocks seemed to be undervalued because of the onslaught of TV and its potential threat to magazines. He bought up stock in several publishing companies, decided that McCall's offered him the best opportunity and continued buying until he had won control. He installed many of his own men, but their exhortations to improve the editorial product and sell more advertising bruised feelings at McCall's; Editor-Publisher Otis Wiese walked out, followed by most of the top editors. Simon then hired as editor Herbert Mayes...