Deals & Developments

Hub Stores Home. The Lyttons, father & son, were back in control of Chicago's four Hub Stores last week. Henry Charles Lytton, now 86, started the first store 46 years ago with $12.700 capital. He spent $2,500 for fixings, $3.500 for advertising. In March 1929, when the Hub Stores were reported doing a $10,000,000-a-year business they were sold to Fashion Park Associates. Inc., for stock then worth $7,000,000, now worth i/'iooth as much at market prices. How much it cost the Lyttons to buy back their stores was not disclosed.

Father Lytton sat behind his desk last week and, as "last survivor of the old State Street merchants.'' received congratulations and spoke of new policies. But he will soon leave for his winter home near Monte Carlo and the actual management will be handled by his unusual son George Lytton, president.

George Lytton is famed in Chicago for having founded the 44-piece Business Men's Symphony Orchestra which gives about six concerts a year. He plays the bass viol and owns 28, keeping two handy in his office. But boxing, not music, is his real hobby. Now a sparse man of 58, his muscles are as tough as they were when 40 years ago he started to work for his father and installed a gymnasium next to 'his office. For some years he was considered amateur heavyweight champion and boxed with such fighters as Jim Corbett, Bob Fitzsimmons, "Battling" Joe Choynski. When the Illinois Athletic Club was opened in 1904 he took on Jack Johnson. At the end of the fight Johnson said, "I will back Lytton against anyone in the world." Merchant Lytton was a judge at the controversial Tunney-Dempsey fight in Chicago.

Christmas Payment. Depositors in Manhattan's defunct Bank of U. S. will receive a 10% payment by Christmas, it was announced last week. This will bring total disbursements to $75,000,000, or 55% of the total deposits. A further payment of at least 15%, is hoped for next spring.

Receiver for Illinois Life. If you control a life insurance company which has millions of dollars to invest and you also control hotels with mortgages for sale there is an obvious temptation. Chicago's Stevens family, which used to own the Stevens ("World's Greatest") Hotel and the La Salle Hotel, also controlled Illinois Life Insurance Co., a concern with $150,000,000 in policies outstanding, half of them in its home state. Legally, if unwisely, Illinois Life bought $11,000,000 worth of mortgages and securities in the two hotels, both of which have passed into receivership.

Last September Illinois Life, hard-pressed for cash, borrowed $1,000,000 from the R. F. C. Apart from causing interest because it showed that the R. F. C. was aiding life insurance companies, the loan excited comment because it was made on the condition that new directors be drafted, control removed from the Stevens family.

A stockholder filed a receivership petition against Illinois Life last week, charging that the company had been mismanaged, that its $30,000,000 worth of securities are below the legal reserve, that it has $500,000 in unpaid policies. Deciding that, while the company is solvent and can meet claims, it can not make policy loans or pay cash surrender values, Federal Judge James H. Wilkerson granted the petition. The board of directors agreed. Gen. Abel Davis, chairman of Chicago Title & Trust Co., was named temporary receiver.

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