Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Bennett CerfBennett Cerf
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Session:         Page of 1029

Suddenly all these unseasoned stocks began to escalate. It was frightening because they went up without rhyme or reason. In one week, for instance, Random House went up more than the price for which we had issued the stock and you won't believe this, but it got up to $45 a share...this stock that had come out at $11.25. We got out a secondary at that time. That was one of the smartest things that we ever did. We sold some more stock at $45 a share. That's what it was selling for in the open market. So we got another big check, still owning control. A little while later we wished that we had sold a great many shares more at that inflated price because then came the crash.

Before that, my burning ambition had been to get listing on the New York Stock Exchange. Having worked on the stock exchange floor as a boy, I knew that this was the place to be in Wall Street. Having your stock on the over-the-counter market, which is where Random House was traded, was minor league stuff. Nor did I want to get listed on the American Exchange. That seemed to me only one small step up the ladder. I wanted to be on the New York Stock Exchange. I wanted the firm that I had started, Random House, to be on that list with U.S. Steel and DuPont. In order to qualify, we had to get more stock into the hands of the general public. There's a rule on the minimum number of shares required. So we had a stock split. We gave four shares for three. In other words, for every three shares that you had, you got four back. That reduced the price of our original issue from $11.25 to about $8.50 a share. You have to remember that, considering the later fluctuations of





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help