Votes for A. & P. Stockholders

The world's biggest grocery, The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., last week announced plans to give shareholders outside the Hartford family a vote in how the family-controlled corporation will be run. Some 19% of A. & P. stock is now held by the public, but the shares carry no regular voting power. The move is the first step in what Wall Street believes is a plan for the heirs of A. & P. Founder George H. Hartford* to sell part of their 81% stock interest in the food chain (last fiscal year sales: $4.8 billion).

To lay the groundwork for the sale of stock, A. & P. President Ralph W. Burger outlined a proposal, expected to be approved at a meeting in December, to 1) replace present nonvoting common and preferred stock with a single class of voting common stock; 2) split all outstanding common shares on a 10-for-1 basis and issue three shares of common for each preferred share; 3) apply for listing of the new common stock on the New York Stock Exchange.

There will be only a single issue of A. & P. stock of 21,639,206 shares outstanding (of the 28 million authorized) when the changes are approved. Each share, both family and publicly held, will carry one vote. More shares will probably be offered later. In addition, the heirs and the Hartford charitable foundation are expected to lighten their holdings in order to diversify their investments or for inheritance tax purposes.

When word first circulated on Wall Street in October 1957 that a plan was being considered to broaden public ownership in the company, the nonvoting common stock was selling for about $175 a share on the American Stock Exchange. It has risen steadily since then and closed at $445 a share the day before the plan was announced. Next day it scooted up 40 points to close at week's end at $485.

* Four of Founder Hartford's grandchildren and a great-granddaughter each own 10% of the voting stock. They are George Huntington Hartford II, theatrical producer and art fancier, of Manhattan; Mrs. John F. Bryce of Manhattan; Mrs. Charles Robertson of Huntington, L.I.; Mrs. Allan J. Mclntosh of Bedford Village, N.Y.; and Mrs. Henry G. Carpenter of Shelter Island, N.Y. Five other descendants each own 2% of the outstanding voting stock, and another 40% is in the John A. Hartford Foundation set up by brothers John and George Hartford (TIME, Oct. 7, 1957).

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