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Pacemaking Jonathan Logan also is a leader in the technology of garment making. Its factory at Spartanburg, S.C., is in a mechanical sense the industry's first "integrated" plant. "Raw wool in one door and finished dresses out the other," beams Schwartz.
On to Wall Street. To raise working capital in a business where inventories are high and accounts receivable often precariously higher, Schwartz has brought off some imaginative deals. Two years ago, Jonathan Logan merged with Montana's moribund Butte Copper & Zinc Co., took over its assets, earned $2,700,000 after taxes. Through Butte, Jonathan Logan got a listing on the New York Exchange (current trading symbol: JOL), became the first ladies' ready-to-wear maker to make the Big Board. The highly competitive garment business had been suspicious of "going public" because that requires a company to publish intimate financial details. But after Schwartz showed that public listing also opens better lines of credit, there was a rush from Seventh Avenue to Wall Street. Schwartz's nearest competitor, Bobbie Brooks ('61 sales: $44 million), has become listed, as have several other gar-mentmakers.
Several years ago Schwartz considered retirement, but his subordinates, as he tells the story, twisted his arm to remain because "the company would make more money if I stayed on." Now he is determined to stay at least until Jonathan Logan cracks the trade's version of a sound barrier—the $100 million sales year.