No Rest at 89

Ed Ball hangs on to an empire

For Edward Ball, the debate about extending the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 70 (see cover story page 18) must seem like a plentiful waste of time. A peppery 89, Ball is a monumentally stubborn, bourbon-sipping, union-busting, Government-fighting apostle of 19th century free enterprise. As senior trustee of the estate of the late chemical heir Alfred I. du Pont, he regularly puts in a full, often tumultuous work week managing one of the nation's greatest private treasuries. Operating out of a spartan office in Jacksonville, Fla., the 5-ft. 5-in. entrepreneur has long been an awesome political and financial power in the state. Lately, though, Ball's iron rule has been seriously challenged by some dissident trustees, including Alfred du Font's grandson, Alfred du Pont Dent. As a result, the crotchety octogenarian is now in the fight of his life, battling a series of legal moves to oust him and sell off part of the estate.

The stakes are enormous. When Ball took over management of the estate at Alfred's death 42 years ago, it was worth $27 million after taxes. Today it is estimated at more than $2 billion. The mainstay of the estate is its rich stock portfolio, which includes 1.1 million shares of General Motors Corp., in which the Du Ponts once had a huge investment, and 702,880 shares of E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. itself.

Still, much of the trust's growth is the result of Ball's ability to buy or start businesses cheap and build them into moneymakers. For example, there is the estate's controlling interest in St. Joe Paper Co., which Ball founded and expanded until today it is practically a private holding company itself. St. Joe controls a score of paper mills and boxmaking plants in the U.S., Britain and Ireland, two profitable railroads, the Florida East Coast and the Apalachicola Northern, and owns 23% of Charter Co., a Jacksonville-based conglomerate that is in myriad undertakings from gasoline refining to planning a model city for the Shah of Iran. In building the estate, Ball also made a string of profitable investments for himself. His personal wealth is about $50 million much of it derived from his huge individual interest in the repetitively named Florida National Banks of Florida, Inc a holding company with 32 subsidiary banks across the state.

The Du Pont estate also owned 52% of Florida National--but in 1966 Congress forbade charitable trusts to hold interests in both banking and nonbanking businesses. Disposition of the estate's stock in the bank holding company then became the cause of a skirmish between Ball and Fellow Trustees Dent and William B. Mills, a former bank president jr a long, complicated fight, Ball a few months ago found a way to meet the letter of the law without losing control-the r individual owners of the bank holding company's stock--including Ball himself --voted to buy the estate's stock for $18 a share. Thus Ball maintains his clout in the banks' affairs. In an eleventh-hour effort to wrench control from Ball, Mills came up with another buyer, Hugh Culverhouse, Mills' law partner, who offered $18.50 a share. Despite Culverhouse's higher bid, the court refused to block the Ball-engineered sale of the stock, and last month the Federal Reserve gave its reluctant blessing to the deal.

Ball's troubles are far from over. He is also fighting a suit brought by Mills to have him ousted as trustee. Mills charges that Ball, who has suffered four heart attacks and undergone two cataract operations, is not physically up to the job. Mills and Dent also criticize Ball's urge to go on expanding the estate by putting so much of its earnings back into the trust's varied enterprises and not enough into charity. They insist the will stipulates that earnings from the estate be used to aid the crippled children of Delaware, a research institute and a hospital. For starters, Mills and Dent want the estate to sell off St. Joe Paper Co. and use the income to help the estate-funded Alfred I. du Pont Institute in Wilmington, Del. Says Ball:

"I can't think of anything worse. If we'd listened to the likes of Mills and Dent, the trust would still be about $27 million."

That unbending attitude is typical of Ball, who was born into one of Virginia's oldest families, quit school early and moved from job to job in search of fame and fortune. He was peddling law books when his sister Jessie became Alfred du Font's third wife, and shortly afterward Ball was hired as the millionaire's aide Du Pont, a onetime chief director of the family business, had been forced out in a corporate power play and was seeking to build an empire of his own in Florida Before and during the Depression, Ball made regular swings through Florida for Du Pont, buying up businesses and land at bargain prices. When Du Pont died in 1935, Ball was the obvious choice to manage the estate.

Ball's mulish and ruthless uses of power are legend. Rather than bend to union demands in 1963, he took a nine-year strike on the Florida East Coast Railway. He ran the line with scab labor, and managers trimmed featherbedded jobs and produced the road's first profits since World War II. Another time, when Ball decided that the taxes of several Florida counties were too high, he simply paid half the bill; only Dade County had the temerity to sue for the rest.

Despite his pugnaciousness in business, Ball, a divorcee, seeks to present a personal air of courtliness, especially to women. As a manager, he leaves operating details to underlings and sticks close to -- financial matters, stacking trust records in cardboard boxes in his office. He lives frugally, owns only four suits, and long ago he bought up a batch of cheap dime-store spectacles with progressively thicker lenses that he keeps in his office safe. After each working day, Ball holds court at his apartment, downing ginger ale and bourbon and spinning yarns for his cronies. It is a life that suits him, and until he "crosses the creek," he intends to go on with it.

Says he: "What is retirement, anyhow, except sitting in a rocking chair and listening to your arteries harden?" -

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