Crofter's Crop

When a poor crofter's son named Daniel Macmillan went to London to make his fortune, he had little more than his Scottish canniness and a strong desire to become a book publisher. In 1843, from friends and Author Charles Kingsley, he and younger brother Alexander got a little capitaland something more valuable. Kingsley wrote Westward Ho! for the new firm and got it off to a flying start. By 1896 business was good enough to set up an American firm under British-born George P. Brett and controlled by Macmillan in London. The offspring soon grew bigger than its parent company, and, the book trade estimates, is the second largest publisher in the U.S. (only Doubleday, with five big book clubs in tow, is larger).

But Connecticut-born George P. Brett Jr., who became president of The Macmillan Co. in 1931, was still not satisfied. He thought that an American publishing firm should not be controlled abroad, tried to persuade the British owners to sell out. Last week, President Brett was well on his way to getting what he wanted. Macmillan & Co. Ltd. of London filed a registration statement with SEC to sell its 60% holdings in the U.S. Macmillan Co. (167,015 shares) on the open market; it would keep only 5,000 shares.

London's Macmillan Ltd. had given in to Brett's arguments partly because the Macmillan family feared that the Labor government might pass a capital gains tax and thus eliminate the tidy profit it can now get on the stock.

The SEC registration gave outsiders their first peek at Macmillan's financial statement. In the last ten years, its gross had risen from $6.8 million to $13.2 million in 1950. Net profit last year was $627,700; dividends totaled $1.50 a share. Macmillan had been able to pay a regular dividend every year since 1898 by concentrating on the educational and textbook field, where the profit margin is higher than that for trade (i.e., general reader) books.

In the stock deal, Brett runs little chance that some U.S. publisher will be able to buy control of the company. The stock will be spread among so many brokers it will have to be bought in small blocks.

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