Mergers

Chicago bankers were busy, last week, considering facts, and denying rumors. The facts:

Stock of the Continental National Bank & Trust Co., Chicago's biggest bank, seventh largest in the U. S., mounted in three weeks from $545 to $676. And stock of the Illinois Merchants Trust Co., second biggest in Chicago, tenth in the U. S., jumped from $875 to $1,282.

From Santa Barbara, Calif., came a report that Hero Charles Augustus Lindbergh was piloting Banker John J. Mitchell Jr. to Chicago. As every Chicagoan knows, young Banker Mitchell's father had been President of Illinois Trust for nearly 50 years. Deep and abiding was the impression made by the elder Mitchell on U. S. finance. Himself the son of a banker, he became a power not only in Chicago but in Manhattan's Wall Street. His counsel guided such tycoons as George M. Pullman (Pullman cars) and Cyrus H. McCormick (International Harvester Co.).

A year ago, Mitchell the Elder died. Nearly 7,000 shares of stock in the Illinois Merchants Trust went to his five children, together with the exotic, octagonal summer house at Lake Geneva, Wis., once the Ceylon exhibit at the Chicago fair, transplanted bodily by Banker Mitchell.

Of the Younger Mitchells, the most famed is gay and debonair John J. Mitchell Jr. His marriage to Lolita Armour, meatpacker's heiress, thrilled society in the U. S. & Europe. This Armour connection assumed possible importance when Chicagoans recalled that the name of Philip D. Armour heads the list of directors of the Continental National Bank & Trust Co., whose stock, like that of Illinois Trust, has been skyrocketing. Close are the ties which bind the Armour interests and Continental. President Arthur Reynolds of Continental is also a director and member of the finance committee of Armour & Co.

On these three facts--the rising bank stocks, the Lindbergh flight, the Mitchell-Armour alliance--it was possible to construct an arresting theory.

They might mean consolidation of Chicago's two largest banks into a $1,000,000,000 institution, second in size only to the National City Bank (N. Y.). Listed in order of deposits, the new U. S. banking chart might read:

National City $1,275,041,964

Continental-Illinois Trust 924,656,845

Chase National (N. Y.) 792,339,491

Guaranty Trust (N. Y.) 720,029,171

Bank of Italy N. T. & S. A. (San Francisco) 645,002,138

Directors of the two banks issued denials. But other bankers undeniably titillated, foresaw important results of such a merger. Among them: increased prestige for Chicago in Wall street; attraction of new financing to Chicago.

Other mergers, acquisitions, consolidations, reported last week, were:

Other Banks. Last May, the Bank of United States absorbed the Central Mercantile Bank & Trust Co., increasing its resources by $65,000,000. Last week, it added another $10,500,000 by merging with the Cosmopolitan Bank. Resources of the Bank of United States now total $180,000,000.

And in Philadelphia, directors of the

Oxford Bank & Trust Co. and Corn Exchange National Bank & Trust Co. voted to consolidate resources of $95,000,000.

Women's Wear. To the basements and second floors of Schulte-United 5-c- to $1 stores, there came, last week, cloaks, suits, dresses and millinery of Miller, Inc. Acquiring the Miller stores, the Schulte-United chain planned reorganization, retailing of women's wear through its 1,000 units.

Piggly-Wiggly. To acquire outstanding stock of Piggly-Wiggly-Grimes Co. of Denver, operating 78 grocery stores in Colorado and New Mexico, the Continental Food Stores, Inc., was organized last week.