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.