A PORK CORNER

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1507, 17 January 1901, Page 13

A PORK CORNER

f<m THOMAS LIPTON \S PROFITS AND MAGNANIMITY. According to a cabled message from Chicago which appeared in the “Daily Mail” of November io Sir Thomas Lipton has closed the pork corner with a profit- of. £70,000. The London agent of a well-known Chicago packing firm read the message in question in the presence of a. “Daily Mail” representative and smiled. “Now I’ll tell you what, as a. matter of fact, the deal amounted to/’ he said. “In the first place, Sir Thomas Lipton through his agents, bought up 54-Ot.o barrels of pork at about eleven dollars a barrel. This was at once unpacked and the pork' in strips was sent down South, and distributed all through the Southern States for retail purposes. Thus the meat was at once and for ever removed from any further possibility of being largely held. The profit in that instance amounted, I should say, to about nine dollars a barrel, which figured into British currency gives a small margin of £BI,OOO. “But that was only a very small deal in comparison with the other stroke or business which Sit 1 Thomas accomplished. To .make the corner thorough be gave instructions for the purchase of 120,000 barrels, at from lOdols to 12dols a barrel, and these ho sold at from 2ldols to 25d01s a barrel. Taking an averageprofit oil that deal of, say, 10 dels a barrel, there remains a little amount of £210,000 as profit on the speculation. Therefore it must be obvious to the veriest amateur in pork and finance that Sir Thomas Lipton must have netted something like £320,000. “Sir Thomas Lipton’,s presence in the corner was never suspected until las agents had full control, so quietly and carefully were the negotiations carried out. “If he had never done anything else, Sir Thomas Lipton might claim the undying distinction of having run a corner, and come out of it with.a reputation lor magnanimity, as the sinali_ men wore never squeezed, .and only the big firms l>ad to pay.