New Wrapper

Two New York companies that have made a mint from nickel candy decided last week that life would be even sweeter under one corporate wrapper. Life Savers Corp., whose 14 candy flavors earned $2,750,000 last year, agreed to merge with Beech-Nut Packing Co., third biggest U.S. chewing-gum maker (after Wrigley, American Chicle). The merger, still to be formally approved by directors and stockholders, was a logical move for both companies. Life Savers was eager to expand. Beech-Nut, which also makes baby food, coffee and peanut butter, had been unable to fatten its profit margin: only $3,747,000 last year, about 4% on $91,084,000 worth of sales, v. Life Savers' 13.5% net on a $20,382,000 gross. Said 73-year-old Edward John Noble, Life Savers' executive-committee chairman: "We're both going to earn a great deal more money from now on."

Exuberant Ed Noble, who with Partner J. Roy Allen bought Life Savers for $2,900 in 1913, still holds a controlling interest in the $16 million company he calls a "happy, whimsical little business." A topflight public servant (he was the Civil Aeronautics Authority's first chairman) under Franklin D. Roosevelt, Noble swung the biggest deal in radio history when he bought the old Blue Network (later renamed the American Broadcasting Co.) for $8,000,000 in 1943. In 1951 he traded his 58% stock interest in the network to Paramount in a $25 million share swap, still serves as ABC-Paramount's finance committee chairman.

Ed Noble is expected to be top boss of the merged company, Beech-Nut Life Savers Inc. W. Clark Arkell, 68, Beech-Nut board chairman (and son of Founder Bartlett Arkell), will have stock control, with some 10% of the 3,500,000 shares. Beech-Nut stockholders will get 1.2 shares in the merged corporation for each Beech-Nut share; Life Savers stock will be traded in on a share-for-share basis.

The new management will consolidate sales organizations and let Life Savers (which also makes Pine Bros.' cough drops) take over Beech-Nut's chewing-gum business. Noble plans other economies. For example, Beech-Nut, which started out making hickory-cured ham in Canajoharie, N.Y. 65 years ago, has had an increasingly tough job competing in food lines with such giants as General Foods, Standard Brands and H. J. Heinz, could branch into higher-profit products. Bubbled Noble last week: "This will be one last fling."

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