Blast from the Past: Mergers & Acquisitions

In a I gave an extremely brief history of the Powder Works.   The DuPont family had purchased the California Powder Works in 1903.  By 1913, the federal government had declared the company to be a monopoly and ordered its breakup.  It was split into two companies, one being the Hercules Powder Works.

This meant, of course, that now Hercules was in direct competition with its former owners.  By the early 1920s, the company decided that it, too, needed to get into the acquisitions business in order to remain competitive.  It had its eyes on the Aetna Explosives Company, based in New York.  In 1921, with the government's blessing, the two became one.

The following article announcing the merger appeared in the Pacific Rural Press on June 25, 1921.  It appears here with original spelling and grammar.

BIG DYNAMITE MERGER

Freight rates determine the location and wide distribution of explosives factories more than almost any other industry. Only within a certain distance of its factory can any explosives company compete with others who may be nearer a given point. From this standpoint, only an organization managing plants well distributed over the entire country is well fixed to supply the demand everywhere. But for the same reason, it is necessary to watch well the tendency toward combination in restraint of trade. Some years ago, the duPont Powder Co. became so powerful that it was adjudged in court to be a combine;  and the Hercules Powder Co. was created by decree of the court to restore a measure of competition. The Aetna Explosives Co. also has established factories in various territories unoccupied by factories of the other companies, and has thus kept them more or less at a distance. For many months, a petition has been in court to allow the Hercules company to purchase the Aetna company on the plea that it would enable the former to compete more effectively with the duPont people. The court in May 4, 1921, sanctioned the purchase; and the Aetna stockholders on June 6 voted to complete the sale. This gives the Hercules company nine new plants for manufacture of various kinds of explosives, all east of Ohio, one in Canada. Adding these to the western plants of the Hercules company makes it undisputably a national manuafcturing concern.

Article courtesy of the California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside.  All newspapers published before January 1, 1923 are in the public domain and therefore have no restrictions on use.