Enter the Du Ponts

Something interesting had been going on in the stock of Chicago's Butler Bros., world's largest wholesaler of general merchandise. As the market in Butler edged up last year, LaSalle Street was full of rumors about who was trying to buy Butler's stock. Last week the secret was out: the buyers were the potent Du Ponts of Delaware, and assorted relatives.

The deal was managed by Hugh R. Sharp Jr., 37, cheerful, stolid son of the late Isabelle du Pont Sharp (sister of Irenee, Lammot and Pierre). Though Sharp, who shares Uncle Pierre's Wilmington office, minimized his family's holdings in Butler Bros, ("a good deal less than 10%"), there was no mistaking who was in the saddle. Sharp, who joined the Butler board early this year, last week persuaded President Thomas B. Freeman, 60, to kick himself upstairs into the board chairmanship. In as president went G. Robert Herberger, a handsome, hustling merchandiser.

Old Friends. Bob Herberger was no stranger to Butler Bros. His father has been a Butler customer for all the 58 years he has run a store in Osakis, Minn. Bob, who was born over the store and clerked in it during his school years, worked for Butler's Minneapolis house and became a Butler customer himself in 1927 when, at 22, he opened his own store in St. Cloud, Minn. (pop. 25,000).

His store mushroomed into a chain of seven with the help of his folksy stunts. He held annual breakfasts for grandmothers, sponsored school essays and let winners come to dinner with Bob Herberger and boss one of his departments for a day. He also had a deft touch with employees. He bought each one a cake on his birthday, gave brief parties in the store and held ten-minute get-togethers each morning to plan selling strategy. Bob's technique paid off: his St. Cloud store sells 3 1/2 times the national average per square foot for stores in its class. Last year his small-town chain grossed $8,000,000. Says he: "All you have to do is watch your inventories."

New Plans. Butler Bros, could use some such watching. In the first quarter this year, it lost $542,098, chiefly because of an inventory squeeze between manufacturers and price-wary retailers. In his new job, Herberger planned to intensify Butler's concentration on small-town retailing which furnishes merchants with all services from bookkeeping to advertising displays.

Last week, as Bob came home from Chicago to St. Cloud to a 50-piece band, a Chamber of Commerce luncheon and a huge horseshoe of roses, he said enthusiastically: "Butler Bros, can become the General Motors of merchandise; the Du Ponts did it with automobiles. All the small-town merchant will have to do is stay home and take care of his store. Butler Brothers will do the rest."

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