The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1897-09-22
WHY THE DEAL FELL rHRoUGH.
History of the Abortive Attempt to Buy
the New Haven Gaslight Company.

History of the AbOrtive Attempt to Buy
the New Haven Gaslight Company.
President De Forest of the New Ha-
ven Gaslight company announced yes
terday that negotiations for the sale of
his concern to New York syndicate
which had been in progress for the past
three months, had been abandoned, and
were the brokers working the DEAL and
the United States Mortgage and Trust
company Of New York We're to finance
it. One reason given that the negotia-
lions were closed is that the proposed
purchasers did not guarantee that all
the stock would be bought at $50.
President A. W. De Forest gave out
the following statement to the press
yesterday:
"The sale of the stock of the New
Haven Gaslight company to a New
York syndicate, or other party will not
take place.
"All negotiations looking to that end
were closed last week, and will not be
resumed"
AS was stated in this paper several
times Of late, the New Haven Gaslight
company directors required that the
syndicate should not only furnish
enough money to pay for the majority
of the stock, but should put up enough
money to enable every holder to sell his
stock at the purchase price of $50 per
share If the holder should desire to
SELL That was something of a setback
for the syndicate, which, while it was
q strong one, had one or two other large
deals on it's hands and therefore asked
that the time limit, within which it was
stipulated that it should purchase the
stock and complete the negotiations, be
extended to October /. In the meantime
the syndicate ascertained that the
United States Mortgage and Trust COM
pany of New York would loan $1,000, 900
upon deposit of the gas stock with this
Trust company. Furthermore, as is ap-
parent, this requirement of the Gas
company upon the syndicate was for
the protection of it's own stockholders.
There was somewhat of a hitch in
the negotiations as the money was not
Forthcoming promptly and the matter
was delayed for over a month. On the
other hand, it is stated that the syn
dictate was not very urgent in pressing
the deal in view of the requirement
that big amount of money, the whole
purchase price in fact, be put up, and
in view of the fact that the charter of
the Gas company was not broad enough
to suit the syndicate, as it did permit
that a mortgage should be placed
upon it. The mortgage difficulty,
however, 1t was the syndicate's inten-
ton to get around by bonding the
company and obtaining the necessary
money by placing a forty years col
lateral time bond with the United
States Mortgage and Trust company as
trustees and depositing the whole block
of stock with that company as security.
In the meantime there had arisen an
important public sentiment in New
Haven that strongly Influenced the di-
rectors of the Gas company. The feel
ing was inimical to the transfer of the
home corporation to the tender mercies
of foreign corporation whose object
manifestly was to use 1t for speculative
purposes, or to sell the stock at high
figure to investors, thereby pocketing a
large profit. In view of the delay and
these other attendant circumstances the
directors at their meeting yesterday
voted to call the deal off.
A prominent financial man says: mo
paper has before published the makeup
of this syndicate. 1t was composed of
Il. II. Gay & Co., who are the financial
agents of the syndicate; Price McCor-
mick & Co. of New York; Charles Fair
child, the well known banker; Dumont
Clark, ex-president of the American
Exchange National bank, New York;
"a. n. Kidder & Co., and others. Some
of the above named parties in the deal
enacted the Columbus, O., deal and
purchased that company, making d
handsome profit therefrom."
A rumor was current yesterday that
the price of the Gas company's stock
had advanced in consequence of the
deal being off. 1t was, however, stated
that this was due more to feeling of
satisfaction over the fact that the home