Corn Exchange to the Public

Charles Edwin Mitchell's last great New Era deal was an agreement to merge Manhattan's many-branched Corn Exchange Bank Trust Co. with his National City. Crashing bank stock prices made the terms of the deal look ridiculous, and on Nov. 7, 1929, National City's stockholders failed to ratify the merger. Same day some of Chase National Bank's bevy of affiliates began to buy Corn Exchange in the open market and elsewhere. Albert Henry Wiggin wanted to make Chase the biggest bank in the U. S. He did--but not by gobbling up $245,000,000 Corn Exchange, which advertises "a bank statement that any man or woman can understand." Chase, whose statement at that time no man but Bankster Wiggin could understand, bought & bought until it owned a 20% interest. But Mr. Wiggin was kept busy by other jobs, and the 150,000 shares gathered dust in the Chase vaults. Last week Chase's Chairman Winthrop Aldrich, still raking Mr. Wiggin's cabbage patch, dug out the 150,000 shares of Corn Exchange stock, sold them to Lehman Brothers, bankers. No price was revealed. Two days later Lehman offered 78,000 shares of the bank stock (exempt from the Securities Act) to the public at $54 a share.

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