Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 3

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 3 .    By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Hanovia had a plant in Newark that made ultraviolet lamps that were used in plate making equipment. Samuel Reed and Orville Beal, representing Englehard were elected directors of Polychrome. Polychrome also paid $315,658 to Engelhard for their services in conjunction with this purchase and later purchase of Polychrome’s stock by Rhodia.

At some point, Ilford lost interest in the offset plate business and sold their forty percent of Polychrome GMBH to Polychrome. Because of the expense of establishing the photographic film facility in Clark, Polychrome required operating capital. Therefore in July, 1974, Polychrome sold 630,000 shares of common stock to Rhodia. In 1975, Mr. Halpern owned about 15% of Polychrome stock, Rhodia 26% and Englehard interests 11.5%. Richard Piani and Raymond Picard were elected Directors of Polychrome.

Rhodia was a wholly owned subsidiary of Rhone Poulenc, the leading manufacturer of chemicals in France. Mr. Picard, chairman of Rhodia, was in charge of the Rhodia operations in the United States. Richard Piani was the managing director of La Cellophane S.A., also a wholly owned subsidiary of Rhone Poulenc. La Cellophane had a plant in Arques La Bataille where they manufactured diazo papers similar to the Speidel operation. They also had a plant in Avranche that made bi and tri metallic printing plates. When I visited these plants, I was shown the operations by Mr. Weber, the research director. La Cellophane bought and sold Polychrome printing products.

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 2

Numbers of corporations interested in aquiring Polyhrome 2    By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

In 1973, Ben Berkey, the owner of Berkey Photo, who had a plant in northern Queens, met Mr. Halpern and discussed merging Polychrome and Berkey. Mr. Halpern suggested that he start by buying Polychrome stock. When Mr. Berkey did so and acquired about 250,000 shares of Polychrome stock, Mr. Halpern became concerned that he might be able to get a majority of Polychrome stock. At that time Mr. Halpern owned about 20% of the Polychrome stock. Mr. Halpern urged the employees to buy Polychrome stock. Although a number of us pledged that we would, it was not enough to guarantee control. Then Mr. Halpern approached Englehard Hanovia and made an arrangement for Englehard to buy the Polychrome stock from Berkey. 

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 1

Numbers of companies interested in acquiring Polychrome 1     By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

A number of companies tried to acquire Polychrome. Mr. Halpern was flattered by this and let them think he was open to selling Polychrome. I visited a number of such companies. One was Fairchild Semi- conductor who showed us their plant on Long island where they were making the silicon crystals for IC chips by the boat process. Another was Itek who brought us to their plant in Lexington, MA, and entertained us.

Another was a company hat coated paper and had a plant in Charlotte, NC and also one in Wales, England. I took a train from London to visit this plant near Chester and saw the Roman walls that were still standing. Then I took the train to Glasgow to a station where I changed to a one car railroad train that went over the hills to Berwick.

Union relationship

Union relationship                   By Mr. Bob Gumbinner

Even though our starting wage scale was usually ten per cent above the federal minimum, we had a good relationship with the Teamsters Union. We may have had one strike for a few days. Although we spent considerable time with our employees who represented the union, the real negotiations were carried out by Marshall Miller, our labor consultant, and the secretary of the local, who was not an employee. One year we gave the employees a 25 cent per hour raise and nothing to the union welfare. A few months later the secretary came to us very shaken. He told us the people who ran the welfare threatened to kill him. We then offered 10 cents to the welfare that year and 10 cents the next. Bernard Gold and I visited the locals head-quarters in Fort Lee NJ several times. Once we invited the bosses to dinner. We went to a well known Italian restaurant. When I asked for a table for five, I was told there would be an hour wait. When the union members came in, the maitre de said “give me three minutes and I will have a table for you”.