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Alleghany Corporation is a large company involved through its subsidiaries in several different industries. Through Chicago Title & Trust Co. (CT&T), acquired by Alleghany in 1985, the company sells and writes title insurance and provides other related services. CT&T and its subsidiaries Chicago Title Insurance Co. and Security Union Title Insurance Co. make up the largest title insurance combine in the world, with 200 offices and 3,800 agents in 49 states, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and Canada. CT&T also provides financial services such as asset management to Chicago area clients. Alleghany's other major financial institution is Sacramento Savings & Loan, a thrift operating over 40 branches in north central California. Alleghany is also involved in the industrial minerals business through Celite Corporation, which it purchased from Manville Corporation in 1991. Celite is probably the world's leading producer of diatomite, a silica-based mineral. The company also mines and processes perlite (a volcanic mineral) and produces calcium and magnesium silicate products. Another Alleghany division is Heads and Threads, which imports and distributes metal fasteners. About 40 percent of Alleghany's stock is controlled by the Kirby family heirs to the fortune of Woolworth co-founder Fred Morgan Kirby.
Alleghany was founded in 1929 by the well-known and eccentric Van Sweringen brothers of Cleveland as a holding company for their railroad investments. When Alleghany slid into receivership in 1934, control of the company passed to J. P. Morgan and others. Shares of the company floated around among a few different parties for the next few years, eventually landing in the hands of George Ball, of Ball Jar fame. Wheeler-dealer Robert R. Young bought the stock from Ball in 1937. Most of the money Young used to acquire controlling interest in Alleghany was put up by Allan P. Kirby, Fred's son. Young became chairman of Alleghany, while Kirby remained behind the scenes as his silent partner. The centerpiece of the extensive but struggling Alleghany empire was its 2 million plus shares of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad.
Young spent his first few years at Alleghany whittling down the company's massive debt and untangling its gnarled finances. A legal victory against Ball provided much of the desperately needed cash for the task, and eventually Alleghany's books were in order. Under Young, the Chesapeake & Ohio (C&O) underwent something of a facelift. Equipment was modernized and many new conveniences were introduced in its passenger service. In 1945 Young decided to go after another railroad, the New York Central. That year he purchased 225,400 shares of the Central for $4.2 million. Two years later more shares were acquired. Initially, Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) regulations prevented Alleghany from taking control of additional railroads. Several years of maneuvering followed, including the sale of most of Alleghany's C&O stock to associates. Young finally managed to wrest control of the New York Central away from its bank-dominated board of directors in a hotly contested proxy battle in 1954.
Meanwhile, Alleghany was transforming itself from strictly a railroad force into a financial force as well. In 1949 the company purchased controlling interest in Investors Diversified Services, Inc. (IDS), the worlds largest mutual fund group. At the same time Young was purging the Alleghany portfolio of dozens of unwanted holdings. From 66 different securities in 1947, the company pared its collection down to less than ten a decade later. By 1957 Alleghany's investments consisted primarily of a 'big four': the New York Central, now the company's main railroad project; IDS, in which Alleghany still maintained a strong position although actual control had been sold to Texan Clint Murchison, a longtime Young accomplice; the Missouri Pacific Railroad, a holdover from the Van Sweringen empire that had lingered in bankruptcy for decades; and Webb & Knapp, a real estate firm.
In 1958 Young committed suicide. Business had taken a severe turn for the worse, and some speculated that Young was depressed over the possibility of his company's collapse. Whether Alleghany's condition was on Young's mind was never determined for sure. Consequently, the publicity-shy Kirby was forced out of the shadows. He took over as chairman, president, and undisputed leader of Alleghany. The contrast between the two men could not have been more stark. While Young was a flamboyant operator, fond of speaking out in the press about almost anything, Kirby relished his role as silent partner. His style of doing business did not require much in the way of public exposure.
Under Kirby's guidance, Alleghany's fortunes reversed again, and by the end of the 1950s the company had returned to health. Kirby, unlike Young, was willing to delegate day-to-day operations to others, and the companies in the Alleghany fold responded positively to this new leadership approach. IDS started performing particularly well. With nearly $3 billion under management, IDS reported net income of $12.7 million in 1958, earning $1.4 million in dividends for Alleghany. It was quite possibly already the world's largest investment management company by that time.
In 1959 Kirby faced his first challenge for control of Alleghany. That year, Boston real estate speculator Abraham Sonnabend began picking up Alleghany stock in large chunks. He also managed to gain the support of Alleghany Vice-President David Wallace, a close friend of Young's. Kirby responded by firing Wallace, which alienated Young's widow, also a major stockholder. Kirby emerged from the skirmish with his control of the company intact, but it was the first sign that his grip on Alleghany was vulnerable.
In his next proxy fight, Kirby was not as successful. In 1961 he lost control of Alleghany to the Murchison brothers, Clint Jr. and John, the sons of Young's former ally. At the heart of the struggle was a philosophical clash. The Murchisons were freewheeling businessmen in the Texas tradition, while Kirby conducted his affairs with an extreme degree of caution. The brothers managed to convince many shareholders that Kirby's conservatism was holding the company back, eventually gaining enough support to oust him from power. This proved to be a short-lived victory, however. With 35 percent of Alleghany still in hand, Kirby was able to block all of the Murchisons' attempts to overhaul the company. By 1962 they were ready to give up. John Murchison resigned as president of Alleghany and was replaced by Minneapolis businessman Bertin Gamble, to whom the brothers sold much of their Alleghany stock at a loss. Gamble had sold his controlling interest in IDS to Alleghany 13 years earlier, just before its stock began to skyrocket.
Like his associates the Murchisons, Gamble was also unable to work with Kirby, and in 1963 controlling interest in Alleghany was sold back to Kirby and his allies. Kirby now owned 43 percent of Alleghany's common stock, and another 16 percent belonged to his associated and friends. Kirby returned to the position of chairman, and longtime associate Charles Ireland was named company president. Control of the company has remained firmly in the hands of the Kirby family ever since.
In 1965 Fred Kirby II, Allan's son, was elected chairman of the IDS executive committee. Fred continued serving as executive vice-president of Alleghany, a position he had held since his father's return to power two years earlier. The company sold most of its shares of the New York Central in 1966, marking the end of its railroad-controlling era. In 1967 Alleghany won another legal battle, preventing a reorganization plan from taking place at Missouri Pacific that would have severely diluted Alleghany's holdings in that company. Later that year, the elder Kirby suffered a major stroke. Fred II and his brother, Allan Jr., were named guardians for their father, by then generally acknowledged to be one of the richest men in America, and Fred took over as chairman of Alleghany.
After years as Alleghany's principal legal tactician, Ireland left the company in 1968 to take a job at International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation, on whose board he had sat as Alleghany's representative since 1965. In 1970 Alleghany acquired Jones Motor Co., a motor carrier of modest size. This was done primarily in order to avoid being reclassified as a personal holding company by the Internal Revenue Service. Jones never performed as hoped, and it was sold off in 1982.
Despite its legal classification, by 1974 Alleghany was for all practical purposes the family holding company of the Kirby family, who now held nearly half of the company's stock. That year Alleghany took a major step in its attempt to transform itself into more of an asset management company. First, the legal wrangling over reorganization of the Missouri Pacific finally ended for good, with Alleghany trading in its shares for $42 million in cash and $7.2 million more in new common stock. Alleghany then purchased MSL Industries, a metals fabricating company, using cash from the Missouri Pacific deal. Alleghany's other involvements around this time included its 44 percent interest in IDS; a $15.5 million investment in Court House Square, a real estate development in Denver; and its holdings in Missouri Pacific, TI Corporation, USM, Pittston Company, and United Corp.
Further cautious attempts to diversify peppered the remainder of the 1970s, with as many assets shed as added. Alleghany's last batch of Missouri Pacific shares was sold to Mississippi River Corporation in 1975. The following year, the company sold its Court House Square Square property for cash and acquired Allied Structural Steel Company. In 1979 Alleghany paid $198 million for the 45 percent of IDS it did not already own. By 1981 95 percent of Alleghany's income was coming from the investment business. IDS had $6 billion worth of mutual funds under management and $11 billion of life insurance (hawked by the same 3,400-person sales team) in force. In September of that year, the company sold off the IDS Center building in Minneapolis to a Canadian development company for about $200 million, producing a huge capital gain. Another investment management company, New York's Gray, Seifert and Co., was acquired in 1983.
Alleghany undertook a major and more rapid shift in strategy in the mid-1980s. In January 1984 the company consummated a blockbuster deal initiated the previous summer in which IDS was sold to American Express Company for $800 million in cash and securities. When Consolidated Rail Corporation (Conrail) went up for sale, Kirby put in a bid to go back into the rail business using the proceeds for the IDS transaction. Instead, the government took Conrail public, and Alleghany's focus turned toward the title insurance business. Toward the end of 1984, Alleghany Financial Corporation was formed as a wholly owned subsidiary for acquiring insurance and other financial oriented concerns. Its most important acquisition in that area came in 1985, with the purchase of Chicago Title and Trust Co. from Lincoln National Corporation for $60 million in cash and a six-year $68 million note. Two more insurance moves followed in the next two years. In 1986 the company acquired Shelby Insurance Co. for $40 million. SAFECO Title Insurance Co., later renamed Security Union Title Insurance Co., was purchased by the Chicago Title subsidiary the following year. The acquisitions of Chicago Title and Security Union made Alleghany the nation's leading title insurance outfit, while Shelby gave the company entry into the property and casualty insurance arena.
Meanwhile, Alleghany shareholders approved a plan for liquidating the company in December of 1986. Under the terms of the plan, most of the company's nonfinancial holdings would be disposed of, and the surviving Alleghany Financial subsidiary would be renamed Alleghany Corporation. Shareholders would receive $41 cash and a share of new Alleghany Corporation stock for each old Alleghany share. One of the first things to go was most of the company's substantial holding in American Express, acquired in the IDS deal. Among Alleghany's other 1987 deals was the June acquisition of the steel and nonresidential construction business of Cyclops Corporation from Dixons Group plc of London. These businesses were then immediately spun off to Alleghany stockholders as a new public company, Cyclops Industries Inc.
Alleghany initiated a new round of acquisitions beginning in about 1989. That year the company acquired Sacramento Savings & Loan Association and two associated companies for $150 million in cash. By the end of 1992, Sacramento Savings had total assets of $2.8 billion, and deposits of $2.6 billion. In March of 1991 Chicago Title acquired Ticor Title Insurance Co., a California operation that expanded Alleghany's reach in that business. Later that year Alleghany purchased Celite Corporation, Manville Corporation's filtration and industrial minerals business, for $144 million. Shelby Insurance Company, Alleghany's property, casualty, life, and annuity subsidiary, was sold to The Associated Group for cash at the end of 1991. For 1991 Alleghany had net income of $64 million on $1.42 billion in revenue.
Fred Kirby II stepped down as chief executive officer of Alleghany in 1992 at the age of 72. He retained his position as chairman of the board, as well as an active voice in company affairs. Kirby's hand-picked replacement as CEO was John Burns Jr., who had been with the company since 1968 and served as president since 1977. Burns was the first CEO at Alleghany from outside the Kirby family since 1957. During the last few years, Alleghany has increased its participation in both the insurance and minerals industries. In November of 1992 the company acquired Harborlite Corporation, a producer of the volcanic material perlite. Underwriters Reinsurance Co. was purchased in 1993.
Like his father, Fred Kirby II is about as secretive about business as the head of a public corporation can be. The Institutional Voting Research Service in Belmont, Massachusetts once called Alleghany 'the most heavily insulated company we have ever analyzed.' The company is historically mistrustful of the press and not at all eager for publicity. In spite of these characteristics, Alleghany and the Kirby family cannot seem to avoid the spotlight of controversy. Bitter disagreements between Fred Kirby II and his siblings threaten the kind of unity that gives family owned businesses the advantage of long-term planning. Several family members resent Kirby's autocratic control of the company and question the legitimacy of that control. The success or failure of the Kirby family to smooth out its differences will play an important role in future developments at Alleghany.
Principal Subsidiaries: Alleghany Financial Corporation; Chicago Title & Trust Co.; Heads & Threads; Sacramento Savings & Loan Association; Ticor Title Insurance Co.; World Minerals; Celite Corporation; Allied Structural Steel Company; Cyclops Industries, Inc.; MSL Industries; Pittston Company; Harborlite Corporation; Underwriters Reinsurance Co.
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