£50,000,000 COMBINE.

Otaki Mail, Volume XXVIII, 9 August 1920, Page 4

£50,000,000 COMBINE.

— & i BUYING UP COALFIELDS AND STEEL WORKS. <" At a purchase price of £10,000,000.5 control of the great South Wales steel 1 plate manufacturing firm known as Baldwins, Ltd., is passing into the hands of what is probably the largest shipbuilding combine in the country. An agreement has been entered into between the directors under which the combine purchase practically the whole of the shares in Baldwins. Ltd. By . assets of the combine are now E00.00U.000. Sir McKay Edgar, head of Messrs Sperling's, the City financial house, who has brought off this big coup, explained that the yards belonging to th<> shipbuilding combine have about through? " We canted to forestall :i famine in sieel [dates. " he said, "so we are buying Baldwins, who make them." The men chiefly interested in the combine have been Sir K. McKay Edgar, a Scottish Canadian, and .or R. A. Workman, of Glasgow. Their first step was made two years ago when , they and their ns-ociftte.l directors acquired the Northumberland Shipbuilding Company from Lord Furoess. Afterwards they bought the business of William Doxford and Sou. Ltd.. and . this they followed up by the acquisition Of practically the whole of the I share capital of the Fairfield Ship- I building and Engraving Company. j In order to secure the -upply of raw | materials the Lancashire steel Company and the coalfields of John Watson and Company. Lanarkshire, were then purchased. Their next venture was to take over in conjunction with other ■ concerns at the beginning of thw year the national shipyard at Chepstow. A few weeks later they acquired the whole of the -hares in Workman. Clarke and "Co., Ltd.. the great North of Ireland shipbuilding end engineering firm. *— I