245
ŕ
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
זון ומזון
Reference :~~~
CO885/25
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
11
6
However, the production enterprises owned by the concern became so extensive that the three "Metal- lurgical Companies no longer sufficed for their con- trol The Merton concern, therefore, founded intil 1907 a number of other development companies, viz., The Compagnie des Minerais in Liège, with a capital of 2.5 million francs, the Société auxiliaire des Mines in Paris, with a capital of five million francs, and the Compania de Minerales y Metales in Mexico, the capital of which I was not able to ascertain.
It may be mentioned here that, besides these three companies, there was established in 1907 a fourth com- pany which may be regarded as belonging to the Merton concern, viz., the Société des Cuivres et Pyrites in Paris, the capital of which amounts to twenty million francs. Whereas, however, the three "Metallurgical Companies" are in the absolute possession of the Merton concern,
there are interested in the Société des Cuivres et Pyrites a number of other firms, namely, the large French banking house of the Société Generale pour Favoriser, etc., the banking firm of Cahen d'Anvers, and others. The Société des Cuivres et Pyrites was established by all these firms conjointly for the purpose of developing three Spanish copper companies, viz., the San Platon Copper Company, the San Higuel Copper Company, and the Pena Copper Company. The Société des Cuivres et Pyrites is, therefore, what I have termed dependent and special as a good financing companies, and may serve example of what in England and America is called
a promoting or development company. The company
has not as yet been able to pay a dividend; in the first business year the balance sheet showed a loss of 34 million francs, which was reduced up to 1912 to 23 million francs, there having been realized a net profit of 333,000 and 512,000 francs respectively, in the last two years.
As the com- pany has, moreover, a reserve fund of four million francs, and as the sale has improved owing to the rise of the prices of copper and the construction of a rail- way line from the mines to Seville, it is expected that a dividend will soon be paid.
Lastly, there belong to the Merton concern two more companies, which bear testimony to the inter- national character of the concern by their very name, viz., the African Metal Company and the Australian Metal Company of London and Melbourne. These two companies are sub-companies of the Metallgesellschaft and of Henry R. Merton & Company, and transact for the latter firms the purchase and sale of metals in Africa and Australia. They are, therefore, agencies which were given the titles of independent companies chiefly for legal reasons. I have not been able to ascer- tain whether they in their turn are partly interested in the production enterprises of the Merton concern, but that may be taken for granted with some certainty. For personal reasons, that is to say, owing to the predominancy of the Merton family in the possession and management of all these enterprises, the centre of the whole concern lies in Germany. Messrs. Merton or the Metallgesellschaft, respectively, owned, and still own, the largest portion of the share capital of Henry R. Merton & Company, Limited, and of the American Metal Company It may be mentioned here that the
7
Metallgesellschaft has never made any definite state- ment as to its stock capital. It is known, however, that 'the Merton concern is interested, apart from the two
in commercial enterprises,
the above-mentioned African Metal Company, in the Australian Metal Company, and in the Compania de Minerales y Metales, and that the concern possess stocks amounting to 11.38 million marks, to which are to be added 764,000 marks in State loans. That the capitalistic centre of the Merton concern is in Germany is, moreover, apparent from the stocks owned by the Metallurgische Gesell- schaft, the whole capital of which was, as has been referred to above, in the possession of the Metall- gesellschaft until the year 1906. In that year the Metal- lurgische Gesellschaft owned 890,000 marks in shares of their own mother company, the Metallgesellschaft, as also shares of the Henry R. Merton & Company, Limited, 250,000 dollars in shares of the American Metal Company, 15 million marks (paid in at 40 per cent.) in shares of the Metallurgical Company of America; 500,000 francs in shares of the Compagnie des Minerais; 750,000 francs in shares of the Société auxiliaire des Mines (that is, of almost all development companies of the concern); furthermore, 1,363 million marks (of a capital of three million marks) in shares of the Metallhutte Duisburg A.G.: 1-4 million francs in shares of a Belgian zinc mining company-the Société Anonyme des Zincs de la Campine, in which the Belgian development company, the Compagnie des Minerais, is also considerably interested; a further sum of 12-68 million marks is invested in the Usine de Desargenta- tion in Hoboken-Antwerp, in which the Deutsche Gold und Silberscheideanstalt is likewise interested; in the Hedderheimer Kupferwerke A.G., in a syndicate for American mines, in an English and an American mining firm, and in twenty-six smaller investments. The dividend paid by the Metallurgische Gesellschaft amounted during a number of years to 10 per cent., then rose in 1904 to 12 per cent., in 1905 to 15 per cent., and in 1906 to 20 per cent., but fell off in 1907 to 10 per cent., and in 1908 and 1909' to 6 per cent. Up to the year 1910, the capital was raised to nine million
marks.
runs a
Whereas the stock property of the Metallgesell- schaft and the Metallurgische Gesellschaft, comprises the whole concern, that of the American companies is limited entirely to American enterprises. The Ameri- can Metal Company controls the Ohio and Colorado Smelting and Refining Company, which smelting works for gold, silver, copper, and lead in Salida, Colorado, with a capital of three million dollars; as also the Bartlesville Zinc Company and the Banyon Star Smelting Company, both in Bartlesville, Oklahoma. As has been mentioned above, the company holds the greater portion of the capital of the Metal- lurgical Company of America, and is engaged in the Compania de Minerales y Metales in Mexico (the Mexican development company of the Merton concern) and in the Compania Minera de Penoles at Mapimi, Mexico, which is the largest lead producing company of the concern, and is controlled by the Compania de Minerales y Metales, which was established chiefly for that purpose.
In order to illustrate the great sphere
8