CORPORATIONS: Wolfson at Work

In his fight for control of Chicago's Montgomery Ward & Co., Florida Financier Louis E. Wolfson and friends have been buying stock in the $1 billion-a-year store chain and mail-order firm at a fast pace (TIME, Sept. 6). Last week Wolfson arrived in Chicago to set up a proxy-soliciting office right under the nose of crotchety old Board Chairman Sewell Avery, and announced that he and his associates now own more than 500,000 shares (8% of the stock outstanding).

Wolfson does not intend to say any more about his holdings until the annual meeting next April. But he plans to sue Ward in the New York County Supreme Court this week for a list of stockholders from Manhattan's J. P. Morgan & Co., the stock-transfer agent.

At the press conference where he announced his plans, Wolfson also was questioned on how he has operated other companies that he has taken over. Asked one reporter: What about Wolf son's reputation for "milking" companies? Replied Wolfson: "I have been a milker of only one company—[Washington's] Capital Transit Co." This occurred in 1950, when Wolfson and friends bought working control (45.6%) of Capital at $20 a share, quickly paid themselves $30 in dividends from money in the till. Wolfson said that Capital was regulated by a public board, that the shareholders had only been getting a 1.94% return (50¢ a year). Added he: "I wouldn't follow that policy in any but a regulated organization."