As boss of the $57 million Atlas Corp., canny Floyd Bostwick Odium has made a habit of buying good properties at bargain prices', improving them, then selling out at a fat profit. Three years ago, he thought he saw a real bargain in Barnsdall Oil Co. Since Barnsdall had proven reserves of at least 140 million barrels of oil, each of Barnsdall's 2,223,307 shares of common stock was backed by roughly $120 worth of oil in the ground. Yet the stock was then selling around $30. Odium began buying large blocks of Barnsdall stock, by late 1948 had acquired...
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