Seventy-five years ago Marshall Field founded in Chicago the store that bears his name. Now, in Seattle, the $12,000,000-a-year Frederick A. Nelson store is owned by Marshall Field & Co. The new $25,000,000 Merchandise Mart building in Chicago is Marshall Field owned, as is Chicago's Davis Department Store. Marshall Field has retail branches around Chicago, a wholesale branch in Manhattan, 25 mills and many factories scattered throughout the country. Yet it is none of these things that has been Chicago's pride, but rather the claim to being the world's largest retail business under one roof—only a claim because Manhattan's R. H. Macy & Co. has at various times hinted it possesses the same distinction.
Because Marshall Field & Co. has always been a closed corporation, its retail business has largely been a matter of estimate, but gross sales (wholesale and retail) amounted last year to slightly more than $175,000,000. But last week Marshall Field & Co., following the lead of many another closed corporation, decided to let a portion of its stock pass to the public. Of 2,000,000 shares authorized, 1,400,000 are to be outstanding of which 540,000 were offered at $50 last week by Field, Glore & Co. and Lee, Higginson & Co. The remainder will be exchanged for present Marshall Field & Co. shares while 200,000 of the unissued will be reserved for sale to employes at a later date.
The total assets of the company are $134,595,922 against Macy's $51,177,545. Net profits for 1929, after deducting preferred dividend requirements, came to $7,201,000—slightly less than the average for the past five years and slightly less than Macy's $7,566,194.
Interesting as were these disclosures to Chicagoans, even more interesting was the connection of Marshall Field III, grandson of The Founder, to the deal. Born in 1893, Field III has been a soldier, newspaper reporter, bondsalesman, but aside from being a trustee of the estate, has had no hand in the management of the store. Nine years ago he took part in the formation of Marshall Field, Glore, Ward & Co., now Field, Glore & Co., potent Chicago banking house, with an office also in New York. Educated at Eton and Cambridge, he spends most of his time far from Chicago. A great love of horses made him join the cavalry during the War, and enabled him to become a director of the Saratoga Association, over whose track many of his horses have raced. At Lloyd's Neck, Huntington, L. I., he has a great estate, "Caumsett," as well as a house in Manhattan. There he lives with his wife, when she is not big-game chasing with expeditions sent out by the Field Museum of Chicago.
At the same time as the financing, changes were announced in the Marshall Field officers. The most important of these were the elevation of James Simpson from the presidency to the board chairmanship, the elevation of John McKinlay from the vice presidency to the presidency.