Manville, Morgan, Merseles

A series of news items from 1911 to 1925, indicating the preference of young Thomas F. Manville Jr. and his sister Lorraine for cabarets, footlights, chorus girls and comedians, predicted a business event of last week--the passage of the H. S. Johns-Manville Co. of Manhattan, $32,000,000 manufacturer of asbestos and magnesia products, from the family that has built it up since 1858 to bankers who will run it now that there are no suitable Manvilles left.

Thomas Franklyn Manville Sr., father of young Thomas F. and Lorraine, chairman of the company's board, died in 1925. His brother, Hiram E. Manville, continued as president but looked forward to retirement. J. P. Morgan & Co., seeing a big earner with no funded debt, bought a large (many say a controlling) interest and last week it was announced that two Morgan partners (Francis D. Bartow, George Whitney) would become Manville directors, that Hiram E. Manville would be replaced as president by the man whom J. P. Morgan & Co. found to rebuild Montgomery Ward & Co., Chicago mail order house. Mr. Manville succeeds his late brother as board chairman.

The new Johns-Manville president is Theodore F. Merseles, 63. He has been, successively and with much success, a railroader, bicycle maker, cloak and suit mail order man. In 1921, when the price slump had dragged Montgomery Ward & Co. (everything by mail, from engagement rings to fox-traps) into a nine million dollar deficit, he was called in as its president. The 1922 balance sheet showed profits of $4,562,607. He revolutionized the buying and inventory control, tripled gross sales in five years (to some 200 millions in 1926), and made record profits of $11,358,498. When he resigned as president last week Mr. Merseles agreed to stay with Montgomery Ward as executive committee chairman. Montgomery Ward officers denied they planned to merge with their big competitor, Sears Roebuck & Co., and elected vice president George B. Everitt to their vacancy.

What the financial world thought of Mr. Merseles' election was seen when Johns-Manville preferred stock, commonly inactive, jumped six points (to 82%) on the Manhattan Curb the day of the news. What he felt about his election, besides gratification, may have been that this time the company he takes in hand is in no hole. It owns many factories, its own asbestos mines. The Merseles genius will have a clear field to try and put fireproof ("try an' burn it") roofing on the whole U. S. without delay.