Allan Price Kirby

Background

Allan Price Kirby was born on July 31, 1892 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, United States, the son of Fred Morgan Kirby and Jessie Amelia Owen. His father was a retail merchant and cofounder of the F. W. Woolworth Company.

Education

Young Kirby attended the Harry Hillman Academy in Wilkes-Barre, the Wyoming Seminary in Kingston, Pennsylvania (1906 - 1908), and the Lawrenceville School in Lawrenceville, New Jersey (1908 - 1910). He then entered Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania but left in 1912.

Career

In 1914 Kirby became office manager for the Bathurst Lumber Company in New Brunswick, Canada, beginning a period of approximately twenty-five years in which Kirby was involved in a number of business ventures. Between 1915 and 1922, he was treasurer of the Jenkins-Kirby Packing Company, then became president of the Kirby-Davis Company, a position he held until 1934, when he became president of the Imperial Motor Corporation until 1946. He also served as vice-president of the Second National Bank of Wilkes-Barre from 1922 until 1934.

During World War I, he entered the Naval Reserve as a seaman and served on a "reconverted yacht" that his father had leased to the government for one dollar per year. Kirby's career as a financier and his long association with the Alleghany Corporation began after he was introduced by his father's lawyer to Robert R. Young in 1935. Young had left General Motors to go into financial management and, with a partner, had acquired a broker's seat on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1937, Young and Kirby obtained control of the Alleghany Corporation, a holding company established in 1929 that controlled seven sizable railroads with twenty-three thousand miles of track and assets of some $2 billion; among these only the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad was profitable. Young put up $750, 000; Kirby, using monies inherited from his father, invested $4 million. Kirby became president, and his partner served as chairman of the board and chief executive officer. The personalities and approaches of the two men differed greatly. Young was "flamboyant, " very much in the public view, stressing the need for public relations. Kirby was cautious in financial matters and in effect was a silent partner, avoiding the limelight; he let Young lead but maintained the right to recommend or "veto. "

During the next twenty years the partners improved the position of the Alleghany Corporation. Young, as head of the Chesapeake and Ohio, managed it well; the situation of two other railroads, the Nickel Plate and the Missouri Pacific, was improved during this period. In 1954, Young resigned as chairman of the Chesapeake and Ohio; in the same year, the Alleghany Corporation sold its holdings in this railroad and acquired control of the New York Central Railroad through a proxy fight. Kirby and Young used funds from the sale of the Chesapeake and Ohio, and from other Alleghany activities, to acquire control of Investors Diversified Services, a huge investment conglomerate. In their struggle to obtain the New York Central, they had received help from Clint Murchison, Sr. , a Texas millionaire; and in 1955 Murchison's two sons, Clint, Jr. , and John, acquired control of Investors Diversified Services from the Alleghany Corporation in a stock arrangement engineered by Young.

In January 1958, following Young's suicide, Kirby shed his silent partner image and was elected chairman of the Alleghany Corporation while remaining president. During the next five years, he faced a number of crises and challenges to his leadership.

In 1959, with the help of Charles T. Ireland, Jr. , he thwarted the bid of Abraham M. Sonnabend, a financier from Boston, to take over the Alleghany Corporation. Ireland subsequently became president. At this time the holdings of the company included a controlling interest in the New York Central Railroad system as well as investments in the Missouri Pacific Railroad, Investors Diversified Services, and the Court House Square Development in Denver. Also in 1959, as a result of a lawsuit, Alleghany regained control of Investors Diversified Services, but soon afterward trouble developed between Kirby and the Murchison brothers over its management.

The two sides became involved in a proxy fight for control of the Alleghany Corporation, which was won by the Murchisons in May 1961. Kirby reportedly spent $40 million in an unsuccessful effort to keep control of the company. He did not, however, let his defeat force him into retirement, and began to work to regain Alleghany. He later stated that "pride" was the motivation. "As nearly as I can remember, until the proxy fight with the Murchisons in 1961, I never got licked. I was very upset. " Two and a half years later Kirby achieved his goal with the help of several associates, including Ireland. Kirby once again became chairman and chief executive officer, and Ireland was again president amd later he regained control of the Alleghany Corporation.

Kirby owned a twenty-seven-room mansion on a sixty-four-acre estate in Harding Township, New Jersey; a chateau in Easton, Pennsylvania; a hunting lodge in South Carolina; and a fishing camp on the Gaspé Peninsula in Canada. Nevertheless, he was hesitant to buy a Rolls-Royce because he felt it too much a display of wealth, and he sometimes expressed doubt that he would be permitted by a restaurant's management to open a charge account.

Achievements

• Allan Price Kirby became one of the richest men in the United States, possessing a fortune, estimated in 1961 to be between $250 million and $300 million, that included major investments in F. W. Woolworth, International Phillips Petroleum, International Telephone and Telegraph, Manufacturers Hanover Trust, and the New York Central Railroad, as well as the Alleghany Corporation and Investors Diversified Services.

Connections

On February 14, 1918, Kirby married Marian G. Sutherland. They had four children.

Father:

Fred Morgan Kirby

merchant

Mother:

Jessie Amelia Owen

Spouse:

Marian G. Sutherland

References

• Robert R. Young: The Populist of Wall Street