Thursday, April 11, 2013

Mr. Halpern, after Polychrome

Mr. Kei Takahashi, then head of DIC America, heard a rumor that Polychrome was looking for an "investor" so he sent his deputy Mr. Junya Ono to Yonkers to meet Mr. Halpern.         When Mr. Halpern proposed that DIC invest in Polychrome, he probably thought he could get another investor to balance the ever stronger Rhone Poulanc's influence.        Due to the expansion into the film manufacturing venture, Polychrome was short on fund and he relied on Rhone Poulanc for the financial help.        Rhone Poulanc by then apparently was tired of being a major investor without real management input and was said to be interested in increasing its stake in Polychrome to replace the management.          Mr. Halpern, of course, did not like the idea and as before looked for another "investor".         But this time, Mr. Halpern's scheme overran his plan.        Mr. Kawamura, US educated head of DIC, had an eye in expanding his business outside of Japan and had already purchased the Kohl and Madden Ink Company and offered to buy the entire Polychrome stock rather than being a small share investor.           The American Stock Exchange listed Polychrome share jumped to the final $28/share after the bidding war and except for a few percent of shares Mr. Halpern owned all the shares were tendered to DIC and Polychrome became DIC's subsidiary company.      Mr. Halpern continued to run the company but soon felt panicky about his remaining shares.       He thought  DIC might not buy his share in future and his holding may become worthless, he thought.       He flew to Tokyo demanding his share be bought right away by DIC.       Mr. Hideshi Iwata who raised all the money for the Polychrome purchase  scrambled to raise additional fund DIC did not expect to need for a while.         This somewhat soured the relationship between Mr. Halpern and DIC and within half a year Mr. Halpern left the company.           He then set up a consulting company in Dobbs Ferry, near Yonkers, with some of the long term ex-Polychrome employees like Bob Gumbinner, Willie Boshardt and some young ones like, Don Riley and Teresa Wasiak.           After the customary 2 year or so cooling non competing period, the company, Universal High Technology, showed its product at Graphexpo in Chicago.           A few small offset plates were probably imported from overseas but soon the company quietly folded.             Mrs. Halpern who was much older than Mr. Halpern passed away  under the care of a live in male nurse who then became in charge of Mr. Halpern.         Many of the long term employees still had a good relationship with Mr. Halpern.            But one day, Bob Gumbinner who lived only a few houses away and was constantly in and out of Mr. Halpern's house to look after him found that his key no longer works and the male nurse prohibited him to enter the house to see Mr. Halpern.             We then found out that Mr. Halpern adopted the male nurse as his son and both moved away to the west (Arizona?)              We later learned that he passed away when he was around 94 but details are not known.          The millions of dollars he accumulated through building Polychrome part of which he intended to donate to schools are probably in the hand of the adopted male nurse.          This is a somewhat sad ending of otherwise very successful entrepreneur.    He still left his legacy, Polychrome Corporation affecting us all even today.