More Work for Bankers

Almost forgotten in the current swirl of corporate financing is the fact that three onetime Insull utility operating companies succeeded in refunding $65,000,000 of notes in the dark summer of 1932. Cost did not much matter: important thing was to lift the load of short-term debt. Typical of the three big units, operating in & about Chicago, was Commonwealth Edison, a triple A credit which had to sell $17,500,000 of 5 1/2% bonds at a discount of 7 points from par.

Since then Samuel Insull has fled, returned, been tried and acquitted on numerous charges, and his stigma has faded from his former companies. How much it has faded was clear last week when Commonwealth Edison filed a registration statement for $29,500,000 of bonds bearing a coupon of 3 3/4%. Proceeds will be used to retire the 5 1/2's floated three years ago and an older issue of 4 1/2's.

No one knows who will inherit the underwriting mantle of J. P. Morgan & Co., no longer in the investment field. But among the aspiring heirs none is more favored than its most famed rival, the House of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., which just garnered $50,000,000 of National Steel financing. Hanging fire, until President Tom Girdler is sure that the Government has definitely dropped anti-trust proceedings, is a big Republic Steel issue. And last week Kuhn, Loeb was virtually assured of $50,000,000 of refunding business from Armour & Co. Confirming long-reported plans for retiring two high-coupon bond issues, the big packing house called a special stockholders' meeting for next month to approve certain technicalities of the proposed deal.

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