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Ignacio sold Brewster's president James Work on the Miranda Bros, at a 12½% maximum commission. (The purchaser paid for it in higher prices.) Miranda-sold orders poured in from Britain and Holland, both rearming.
Brewster's James Work slashed their commission to 4.6%, then to 4.1%. Needing capital, he sold 50,000 shares of stock to the brothers and Zelcer at $12 ($1.50 above the market and twice what it sells for now). The Mirandas invested $250,000 in Hayes Manufacturing Corp. at above-market prices, to help finance accessory sales to Brewster, and paid $700,000 more to clamoring ex-Brewster foreign agents.
Thus, even before their overhead began, the Mirandas sank $1,550,000 in their Brewster venture, bringing a $107,000,000 foreign backlog to the company.
Brewster's Buccaneer dive-bomber was full of mechanical bugs. The U.S. Navy took over, then moved out in a month and put in aviation oldtimer Charles A. Van Dusen. By this time the Miranda-Zelcer 10% stock interest was frozen in a voting trust, the commissions due them on new deliveries were frozen in stockholders' suits, and Brewster itself was solidly frozen in production and financial red tape. In came still another management — this time Miracle Man Henry J. Kaiser himself.
To other stockholders, who had seen Brewster earn less than $300,000 while the Miranda threesome were due to earn $5,400,000 (and had already earned $2,800,000), all this looked somewhat fancy.
The Mirandas claimed that Brewster bad management was not their fault. To them, Brewster's low earnings had no connection with their own.
Everybody Happy? Last week's settlement, like most compromises, appeared to make everyone reasonably happy. Said the Mirandas' lawyer: "A complete vindication." (The brothers need it to bolster their plea for a Presidential pardon on their prison sentence.) The opposing lawyers pointed out that any "exoneration" of the Miranda group must wait until Justice J. Sidney Bernstein gives final court approval later this month. And some Buccaneers are finally in action. In any case, whatever earnings there are on its current backlog (around $257 million) will henceforth belong to Brewster.
But the Mirandas are too busy planning a bigger & better export business after the war to bemoan the fact that they are pretty much on the sidelines for the duration. Right now they are dreaming of air-conditioning Latin America.