Sale in Plains

Phasing out of peanuts

The President's own financial holdings are in for a reshuffling. His two-thirds share in the Plains peanut warehousing and processing business, which he took over and expanded after his father died in 1953, has been put up for sale. The man behind the move is Atlanta Lawyer Charles Kirbo, the close presidential adviser who manages Carter's assets under a blind trust. (The President will keep his 241-acre peanut farm.) Neither Brother Billy nor Mother Lillian, who own the remaining third of the business, wants to run the warehouse, which has been operated since September by Gold Kist Inc., an Atlanta-based farmers' cooperative.

The main reason for Kirbo's decision is money. In 1975 Carter earned almost $120,000 from Carter's Warehouse, whose annual gross revenues hover around $1 million. Now harder times have come. Drought has savaged the nation's peanut crop, and business at the Carter plant is down 15% from last year. Billy Carter recently valued the business at $3.5 million, which would make the President's share worth roughly $2.3 million. As for an asking price, Kirbo says, "I'm going to get as much as I can. It will be strictly a cold, hard business decision."

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