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Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
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Session:         Page of 1029

Cerf:

So we went down to Charlie Allen. On October 2, 1959, Random House stock was issued at $11.25 a share.

Q:

How many shares of stock were...?

Cerf:

We sold over a hundred thousand shares...each of us.

Q:

How much did each of you take?

Cerf:

We each got over a million dollars.

Q:

And how much was public? In other words, I'm trying to get an idea of...

Cerf:

We kept control.

Q:

Fifty per cent?

Cerf:

About. I won't give you the exact figure because I don't remember, but we had more than fifty per cent. That was one thing that we were going to hang onto...actual control.

In my scrapbook upstairs, you may see a facsimile of the check that I got from Allen and Company...for over a million dollars. I nearly fainted when I saw it. Here we had always said that by going into the publishing business we were deliberately passing up real wealth for the joy of doing what we wanted, and suddenly we were rich men despite ourselves!





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