Answers .For Armourites

Pestered by questions of minority stockholders who upset his plan for recapitalizing Armour & Co. (TIME, Sept. 11), President T. (for Thomas) G. (for George) Lee last week gave out answers as he had promised. Dissenting stockholders had intimated that Bankers Samuel McRoberts of Manhattan's Manufacturers Trust Co., Albert H. Wiggin, ex-chairman of Manhattan's Chase National, and Arthur Reynolds, ex-chairman of Chicago's Continental Illinois, had each received $100,000 a year for merely voting Armour stock as voting trustees.

Mr. Lee reported that as members of Armour & Co.'s Finance Committee Mr. McRoberts had received $60,000 a year from 1923 to 1931, Messrs. Wiggin & Reynolds $40,000 each. In 1931 (when Mr. Lee took office) their salaries were cut 10%. Since February 1932 Mr. McRoberts has received $18,000 a year; Mr. Wiggin $12,000. Mr. Reynolds was succeeded by James Reader Leavell, present president of Chicago's Continental Illinois National who serves on the Armour committee without salary. Besides salary Samuel McRoberts was paid $10,000 in 1932 for special services connected with negotiations for the merger of Virginia-Carolina Chemical Co. with Armour Fertilizer Works.

Mr. Lee reported further 1) that the present management of the company had not participated in any market manipulation of Armour stock; 2) that 16,500 shares of Armour preferred bought and set aside for resale to company officers had been taken back by the company and retired, the officers forfeiting payments made by them; 3) that lesser employes had been allowed to discontinue payments under the stock purchase plan and take stock equivalent to the amount they had paid in; 4) that the company planned to issue no new preferred stock if the old were retired in reorganization.

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