Word: zelcer
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...Brewster's main financial tangle: a stockholders' suit claiming that the corporation had been milked by three supersalesmen who took enormous commissions on foreign war contracts that Brewster would have got anyway. The salesmen: the brothers Alfred J. and Ignacio J. Miranda, and their partner, Felix William Zelcer. The settlement: the trio got clear title to $2,800,000 in commissions already paid them, to $800,000 they were paid as brokers on accessory sales, and to $500,000 of the $2,300,000 still due them...
...they tied up with Major Alexander P. de Seversky, sold transport planes for him in Europe and Asia. They hawked Captain Melvin Maynard Johnson's famed semi-automatic rifle, finally landed him a big Dutch order. Through Seversky they hooked up in 1938 with Felix William Zelcer, a Polish-born ex-speakeasy operator with a yen for aviation...
Brewster's James Work slashed their commission to 4.6%, then to 4.1%. Needing capital, he sold 50,000 shares of stock to the brothers and Zelcer at $12 ($1.50 above the market and twice what it sells for now). The Mirandas invested $250,000 in Hayes Manufacturing Corp. at above-market prices, to help finance accessory sales to Brewster, and paid $700,000 more to clamoring ex-Brewster foreign agents...
Brewster's Buccaneer dive-bomber was full of mechanical bugs. The U.S. Navy took over, then moved out in a month and put in aviation oldtimer Charles A. Van Dusen. By this time the Miranda-Zelcer 10% stock interest was frozen in a voting trust, the commissions due them on new deliveries were frozen in stockholders' suits, and Brewster itself was solidly frozen in production and financial red tape. In came still another management - this time Miracle Man Henry J. Kaiser himself...
...Engel wanted to know what service the Mirandas & Zelcer could render to justify the payment of such commissions, which must ultimately be added to the taxpayers' bill...