Business: Wolfson Steps Out

With the satisfied air of a man who lost the battle but won the war, Financier Louis E. Wolfson resigned last week as a director of Montgomery Ward & Co. Less than a year after the proxy fight that netted him three seats on the nine-man board, Wolfson stepped out because “my objectives are either already realized or within sight.”

The credit, said Wolfson, goes to Ward’s President John A. Barr, who changed Ward’s cautious, old-fashioned approach to selling, renovated hundreds of stores and laid plans to add 100 new catalogue-order offices, stepped up advertising, put new emphasis on installment selling. As a result, gross sales for 1955’s final eleven months were up 10.1% to almost $1 billion, and are expected to grow even faster in 1956. Furthermore, the annual dividend was boosted from $3.50 to $4, plus a year-end extra of $1.25.

Wolfson will not sell the 59,000 shares of Ward stock he and his family own, believes that “under its present management, Montgomery Ward cannot fail to continue its progress.” Since the proxy fight started, Ward progress has already brought Wolfson dividends of more than $600,000 and a paper profit of $857,000 at Ward’s current market price of 87.