Buy for Ward

Rolling along in his high-gear expansion drive, Montgomery Ward's aggressive Chairman John A. Barr last week dipped farther into the $198 million capital reserve long hoarded by penny-pinching former Chairman Sewell Avery. To put Ward on Chicago's State Street, the city's retail center, Barr announced purchase of the Fair, an 82-year-old department store with three thriving suburban branches, controlled by Five & Ten Mogul Sebastian S. Kresge's charitable Kresge Foundation. For $7,532,500, Ward bought 301,300 shares of the Fair stock from the foundation at $25 a share, will try to buy the remaining 70,800 shares from 1,500 private owners at the same price for a total investment of $9,302,500. Said Barr, who is also building suburban stores in Detroit, Kansas City, Mo. and Gary, Ind.: "We aren't through expanding."

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