Deals & Developments

Frigidaire v. Upstarts. The last five years have brought dazzling growth to the electric refrigeration industry. Production leaped from 390,000 units in 1927 to 965,000 last year. Public utility companies have pushed sales to their customers to build up power consumption. At the forefront of the expansion have been General Electric, Kelvinator, General Motors (Frigidaire), Westinghouse. Servel's Electrolux has led the gas field. During the Depression many a smaller manufacturing concern has added electric refrigerators as a profitable sideline. Examples: Crosley Radio Corp., Grigsby-Grunow Co. (radios), Wurlitzer Co. (musical instruments)--all concentrating on the low-price field. In addition, a large number of independent companies have mushroomed throughout the land, usually buying and assembling the parts. Refrigerator men who have grown up with the industry say that these newcomers are spoiling the market, in many cases foisting off inferior products which give all mechanical refrigerators a bad name.

Aiming at what it regards as upstarts, General Motors last week slashed prices on its smallest Frigidaire from $150 to $112 including tax. General Motors hoped the other big companies would follow, for only through competitive elimination of the upstarts do they feel that a stabilized industry can be achieved. Officials say the quality of Frigidaires has not been lowered, though the guarantee is reduced from three years to one. Led by General Electric, all major producers have hitherto offered the long guarantee. Newcomers seldom offered more than one year.

Old Grocers. "Acker, Merrall & Condit has for a long time catered only to the wealthier people and today they are few enough, so that, combined with the additional burden of high rentals which landlords would not reduce . . . receivership was the only logical step. . . ." Thus trouble came last week to a fancy grocery that had purveyed rich & rare foodstuffs to Manhattan's best tables for 112 years. A. M. & C.'s small, lacquered delivery wagons and well-turned out horses were a familiar sight in pre-War Manhattan. Until Prohibition smart households bought much of their whiskey, gin, ales, wines, liqueurs and cigars from Acker, Merrall & Condit. Its wholesale tobacco business was sold to Faber, Coe & Greggs in 1922.

The receivership was requested by Austin, Nichols & Co. to whom Acker, Merrall & Condit sold their wholesale grocery business in 1923. Since then the firm has operated five retail stores in Manhattan, two in New Jersey, all equipped with restaurant and fountain service. Current assets of the firm dropped from $366,000 at the end of July 1930 to $68,000 last July. President Thomas B. Fisher said a reorganization would be attempted.

Gillette Suit. Just before the merger of Gillette Safety Razor Co. with Auto-Strop Safety Razor Co. a small group of Gillette stockholders started suit to have certain directors return $21,000,000 to the company. The minority group claimed that capital had been impaired by $13,000,000, that $8,000,000 was lost when the directors ordered the company to buy 214,000 shares of its own stock at allegedly excessive prices. Some of the stock was purchased from a pool operated by several of the directors. Since then each director except the late King Camp Gillette has returned his profits to the company. With best Boston legal talent engaged in the fray, the suit dragged on for two years. Last month the court approved a settlement by which the directors agreed to pay the company $525,000 in cash and notes. Last week Judge William M. Prest found that the plaintiffs' counsel were entitled to $307,880 more for legal fees and expenses, more than one-half the sum actually won.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.