0
Although the company's primary activities were still concentrated in coal, iron ore, blast furnaces, and lake shipping, they were set off into separate companies with Hanna exchanging its assets for common stock of large affiliates like National Steel Corp., Consolidation Coal Co., and eventually, Hanna Mining Co. The Hanna company had three primary spheres of operation in the 1930s. The oldest was the ore and lake coal group, which incorporated Hanna's 20 Lake Superior ore mines, a mine in Missouri, and one in New York. National Steel became a "cash cow" for this division of Hanna--it could count on the associated company as a customer in bad times, like the Depression, yet continue to sell to National's competitors as well. The ore and lake division also included the Franklin Steamship Corp., a subsidiary that provided shipping on commission for other companies. In 1945 Franklin Steamship was consolidated with the rest of Hanna's iron ore businesses as Hanna Coal & Ore Corp. Later named Hanna Mining Co., Franklin Steamship would evolve into Hanna's primary business in the 1960s. Hanna's Susquehanna Colleries division, the company's second sphere of operation, handled the company's anthracite coal assets, which included three Pennsylvania mines with combined capacity of 12,000 tons daily by 1946. And the company's third division concentrated on investments in a wide variety of industries, including rayon, oil, plastics, copper, tobacco, and banking. The division grew increasingly important in the 1930s and 1940s. Hanna purchased significant interests in: Standard Oil (.3 percent); Seaboard Oil of Delaware (.8 percent); Cleveland's National City Bank (5.1 percent) in 1933; Industrial Rayon Co. (17.2 percent) in 1935; Union Bank of Commerce (8.4 percent) in 1941; Consolidated Natural Gas (.3 percent) in 1943; Durez Plastics & Chemicals (11.6 percent) in 1945; and Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal (37.8 percent), which was formed in 1945. In 1946 Hanna transferred its stock holdings in Northwestern-Hanna Fuel Co., which operated six coal docks in upper lake ports, and all of its coal mine operations in Ohio, to the Pittsburgh Consolidation Coal Co. for $2.43 million and 325,000 common shares. Hanna retained management of the shipping and mining interests as part of its lake coal business. The company's sizeable investments entitled it to a voice in the management of many of the companies it financed, and, by the end of World War II, Hanna decided "to concentrate our holdings in a few companies in which we have confidence and then help in every way we can to build those companies into the strongest possible position in their respective fields." M. A. Hanna closed 1946 with $77 million in assets and holdings in some of North America's most important companies. Its own operations were conducting research to make lower grades of Lake Superior ore available, and exploring manganese deposits in Arizona and minerals deposits in South America. During the 1950s M. A. Hanna evolved through exchanges of stock and property into an investment company, while the Hanna Mining subsidiary concentrated on production and shipping. In 1951 M. A Hanna acquired Canada's Empire Hanna Coal Co., Ltd., and made it into a division. Hanna Mining Co. went public in 1958 and purchased 84,300 class B shares in M. A. Hanna. M. A. Hanna, in turn, owned 46 percent of Hanna Mining. The two companies also shared several board members. The 1950s also saw Hanna Mining Co. in a controversy over government nickel contracts. As the only nickel miner in America, Hanna Mining produced emergency military stockpiles of the metal between 1953 and 1960. The United States Senate accused Hanna Mining of excessive profit-taking during hearings in the early 1960s, charging that the company made $10 million profit after taxes on an investment of $3.6 million. In 1961, after Gilbert W. Humphrey (son of George M. Humphrey) had advanced to president and CEO of M. A. Hanna, the company announced plans to dispose of direct business activities. By doing so, M. A. Hanna became the United States' largest closed-end investment company, with assets of about $500 million. As part of the plan, mining, shipping, and dock operations of companies affiliated with M. A. Hanna and the company's substantial investment in Iron Ore Co. of Canada were sold to Hanna Mining Co. M. A. Hanna's anthracite coal properties were sold to a new independent group, Empire Hanna Coal was purchased by outside interests, and Hanna's Great Lakes coal and vessel fueling business was sold to Consolidation Coal Co. Within just three years, the market value of M. A. Hanna's three principal holdings--National Steel Corp., Consolidation Coal Co., and Hanna Mining Co.--had grown to $422.9 million. In 1964 Hanna Mining's directors were so confident in the new organization of their company that they proposed a three-for-one stock split and a dividend increase. But in less than a year, the company's fortunes changed, and M. A. Hanna proposed that it be liquidated, leaving Hanna Mining as an autonomous corporation. Hanna Mining purchased one million shares of National Steel from M. A. Hanna and became the operating agent for National Steel iron ore mines and ships. M. A. Hanna sold its bituminous coal properties to Consolidation Coal Co. for $5.5 million. http://www.fundinguniverse.com/company-histories/M-A-Hanna-Company-Company-History.html
