Industrial Rayon Corporation: Celebrating a Special Workplace
Newspaper Articles About Industrial Rayon
Vote Set for Midland-IR Merger (March 31, 1961)
Stockholders of Midland-Ross Corp. and Industrial Rayon Corp. will hold special meetings April 27 to vote on a proposal under which Industrial Rayon would be merged into M-R.
The meeting date was announced in proxy statements mailed yesterday to shareholders of both companies. Midland-Ross meeting will be at 10 a,m, in corporation offices in the Illuminating Building. The Industrial Rayon group will meet also at 10 a.m. in Room 345, Hotel Statler-Hilton.
Directors of both companies approved the merger Feb. 21. If it is ratified by shareholders, IR would operate as a Midland-Ross division, Frederick L. Bissinger, Industrial president, would become Midland-Ross group vice president, directing the activities of the rayon division.
Under the terms of the merger, each of the 1,851,255 common shares of Industrial Rayon would be converted into two-fifths of a share of M-R common, leaving a total of 1,422,527 Midland common outstanding. Midland now has 682,025 common shares outstanding and 139,377 shares of 5½% cumulative first preferred stock. Both types will be included in the vote.
In a letter to shareholders, accompanying the proxy statement, Wade N. Harris, Midland president, said that as a result of the greater number of shares outstanding after consolidation there is likely to be a temporary dilution of M-R’s per share earnings until excess working capital of the acquired corporation is invested.
IR Net Worth: $65 Million Plus
As of Dec. 31, IR had a book value net worth of more than $65 million and working capital in excess of $41 million.
Harris said that "In the absence of a substantial unfavorable change in the business of the combined companies, there will be no reduction " in the current $3 Midland-Ross annual dividend rate of his company’s common stock.
On the basis of the proposed stock conversion ratio, this dividend rate is equal to $1.20 a share on present stock of Industrial Rayon, whose last dividend amounted to 25 cents a share, paid December, 1957.
