UNCONTROLLABLE

Evening Star, Issue 18998, 21 July 1925, Page 5

UNCONTROLLABLE

STINNES TRUST SHATTERED WIDOW SELLS OUT SHARES AT BARGAIN PRICES Press Association—By Telegraph—Copyright. LONDON, July 19. Tlio Berlin correspondent of. the ‘Daily Chronicle'’ states that when Herr Hugo Stinnes died he controlled 1,388 concerns. This vast trust has now been pulled down in a few days by Frau Stinnes, his widow, who, with iron nerve and determination, has laid low the tower of hahel which her husband erected, selling desperately in order to rescue a little from the wreck. The two sons proved quite incapable of carrying on their father’s business, and under Frau Stinnes’s orders hundreds of concerns, large and small, have been sold at bargain prices, including .8,000,000 'marks’ worth of shares in the Berlin Haudeisgesellschaft, which had been of immense value when the trust required credit. These shares had become worth 13.000. marks, hut Frau Stinnes sold 10,000,000 to the bank, and therefore Jms shaken oil an undesirable Stinnes interest, and made a profit of 3.000. marks. The Rhineland and Westphalian electricity works, of which Herr Stinnes was specially proud, wore sold to a rival firm called the United Industries Undertakings at a bankrupt stock price, though the nominal capital was valued at 06,000,000. The Stainnes Company for trading in the East will be closed down, as will i.he Russian trading department, and the Stinnes shipping linos will bo sold to American and German concerns. The palatial offices of the ‘ Deutsche Allegeincine Zeitung ’ were sold at an amazingly low figure. The Prussian Government bought a. largo portion of the trust’s landed estates, and now practically the whole of the trust, except a few iron ami coal interests, has been broken up. It was too complicated for anyone to control except a master mind. —A. and N.Z. Cable. DIFFER MM MS BETWEEN BROTHERS. Rumors concerning a probable reorganisation of the Stinnes interests both at home and abroad have culminated (stated the Berlin correspondent of the ‘Sunday Observer’) in the official announcement that Dr Edmund Stinnes, the oldest son of Hugo Stinnes, who died last year, has tendered his resignation to the great complex still administered under the name of Hugo Stinnes, and will in future carry on business independently as bead of the automobile and insurance interests of the firm. A certain readjustment of the Stinnes fortune look place immediately after Hugo Stinnes’s death. The great combine was divided into three groups, witli headquarters at Mulheim (in the Ruhr), Berlin, and Hamburg respectively. This was meuely the continuation of arrangements followed during Stinnes’s lifetime, when he lived at homo with his wife in Mulheim, and only paid business visits to Berlin, where his son Edmund managed, affairs connected with the coal and insurance and newspaper interests of the firm, and to Hamburg, whore his second son Hugo was at the head of the overseas and oil interests. But at his death the head of the linn became nominally the widow at home in Mulheim, whoso expert advisers were the same old and trusted friends of her husband’s lifetime, of whom Dr Yogelor, the Dortmund industrialist, is perhaps the best known abroad. Administration carried on from Mullieim lias remained more or Jess as it was, but it has been commented on for sonic time past that of old members of the firm who came into close contact with Hugo Stinnes, .inn., as manager of the Ruhr interests in Hamburg, very many have already resigned. Of late, differences Tictweoii Hugo and his elder brother, Dr Edmund, have been commented on by uifl’orent sections of the Press. Dr Edmund, who is responsible (or the polities ot the ‘Deutsche Allogemeine Zeituug,’ is Nationalist in spirit; Hugo, in Hamburg, is more Liberal in tendency, and lias made several lively speeches on the subject of the rciuti oduction of prewar protectionist tariffs for Germany, Every new movement of the Stinnes family is eagerly seized upon in Germany as a key to the general situation. Not vertical (rusts, but close centralisation of interests, v.dth production on the Ford system of standardisation, is believed to he the best method of production to-day. The very rigorous taxation on all transactions at the present moment makes the various works, factories, and industries ncouired by lingo Stinnes for a mere song during tbo paper mark: period a constant source of expense, while neeessitaiing. at the same time, expert toebnieal management now that international competition is once more a faelor to be considered. The point of view generally taken is that those who can tide over the next ten years will reap all the benefits the fall of the mark brought them, but (lint long before this the great majority of this class ol profiteer will have to get rid of the ballast so ligbfbeartedly acquired to keep themselves afloat.