Word: trying
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...collects first editions, likes to go fishing in such far-off places as Iceland and Norway. A lawyer turned investment banker, he is little known outside Wall Street. But there Fisherman Randolph has a prize catch on the end of his line. As boss of Manhattan's Tri-Continental Group, composed of six investment trusts with assets of nearly $200 million, Randolph votes huge blocks of stock in scores of top U.S. companies. His two biggest trusts are Tri-Continental Corp. ($86 million in assets) and Selected Industries ($57.8 million...
...among Wall Street's 50-odd closed-end investment trusts (i.e., with fixed amounts of stock on the market), and are favorite stocks for speculators. Since they are "high-leverage" stocks,* they usually outrun the general market both up & down, and speculators give heavy play to both Tri-Continental and Selected whenever the market shows signs of a major move. In the 1950-51 bull market, for example, the common stocks of Tri-Continental and Selected both scooted up about 50%, v. a mere 25% rise in the Dow-Jones industrial average...
Such are the ways of Wall Street that the actual book value of these stocks means little. From 1942 to 1948, Selected common enjoyed a 1,800% rise, from 25? to $4.75-though not until this year have any earnings been passed on to the common stockholders. Tri-Continental common's rise has been almost as spectacular: $5,000 invested in 1942 would be worth nearly $75,000 today. But the most fantastic speculation of all is Tri-Continental warrants, which merely entitle their holders to buy 1.27 shares of Tri-Continental common at $17.76. Tri-Continental common...
Baited Hook. Most speculators have bought or sold Tri-Continental and Selected stocks "for the move," without bothering to find out just what they were buying, or even wondering what Randolph and his colleagues might be doing in their Broadway headquarters. But two months ago, Randolph did something that sent many a stockholder scurrying to find out what he held. Randolph proposed that Selected Industries be merged with Tri-Continental...
Wiesenberger lost his battle. At successive meetings, a majority of both companies voted to approve Randolph's merger. Last week, as Tri-Continental took over Selected's assets, it became the biggest closed-end trust in the U.S. ($144 million in assets) and fifth among all US trusts.* With that big fish in his creel, Francis Randolph this week was planning some other business-a month of salmon fishing in the Pyrenees...