Three or Four from One & One

When American President Lines Chairman Ralph K. Davies wants to talk about mergers, he talks to himself. He is at the same time chairman of San Francisco's Natomas Co., a holding company that owns 39% of the Pacific Far East Lines as well as 54% of American President Lines. A.P.L., in turn, owns 93% of Seattle-based American Mail Lines. Last week, having mulled over the idea for two years, he moved to bring the three lines' 47 ships together under the A.P.L. house flag. "We can make several million dollars more in a consolidated operation," he explained. "It is one of those cases where one and one make three or four."

Davies' new line at the least should equal the $150 million in revenue that the three separate lines brought home last year. Though that would put it ahead of the longtime No. 1 U.S. shipper, United States Lines (1965 revenues: $114 million), the new setup is aimed less at U.S. competitors than at foreign opposition--particularly Japanese. In the last year and a half, no fewer than 24 Japanese carriers have merged into half a dozen major lines, become the West Coast shippers' chief rivals along the lucrative transpacific and Far East trade routes.

Upon stockholders' and the Government's approval of the merger, Davies' man on the broad new American President bridge will be Raymond Wilmarth Ickes, 53, who last week moved to the A.P.L. presidency after four years in the same job at Pacific Far East.

Trim, tanned and fit as a Marine Corps drill instructor (he won a Silver Star on Iwo Jima), Lawyer Ickes speaks six languages, has been a Davies lieutenant ever since Davies took him on as general counsel for his American Independent Oil Co. in 1950. The two work together like the barrels of a shotgun--as is only natural. It was F.D.R.'s curmudgeonly Interior Secretary Harold Ickes, Raymond's father, who picked Davies to be wartime Deputy Petroleum Coordinator when he was a vice president of Standard Oil of California. In part because Davies had so faithfully served the old oil-industry scourge, at war's end he found his former job at Standard Oil unavailable. "Honest Harold" bought ten shares in the company and protested at an annual meeting.

The younger Ickes undoubtedly earned his place as the heir apparent. Since he took over P.F.E.L.'s five aging vessels in 1962, its fleet has grown to 14 modern ships, and profits have ballooned 140% to $4,800,000 last year. That at least must have impressed Davies, now 68, whose 24-vessel A.P.L. brought in 63% more revenue ($73 million) but earned only $4,500,000 in 1965.

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