RETAIL TRADE: A. & P. Unlocked

Among the pleasant oddities of the Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Co., the world’s biggest grocery, is the unique form of its management. For 42 years A. & P. has operated under a family trust whose proprietors were so deliberately obscure that most of the 145,000 A. & P. employees had never seen them. Last week the death, at 92, of George Ludlum Hartford finally ended the trust. For the first time since it began as a Manhattan tea store in 1859, the giant $545 million chain and its 4,200 stores is headed entirely by a management minus the Hartford name.

In 1915, two years before he died, Founder George H. Hartford began the odd A. & P. system by leaving each of his five children equal shares of the business in the form of the George H. Hartford Trust. As sole trustees, he appointed his sons George L., a reticent financial wizard who carefully tested A. & P. coffee every morning, and John A., a gregarious merchandising genius (TIME Cover, Nov. 13, 1950). John loved to boast to banker friends: “We had 100% stockholder attendance at our last annual meeting.”

When eyebrows arched, John replied: “Well, George and I were there, weren’t we?” It tickled John, and it was literally true. Though they owned only 40% of the stock, they also controlled the other 60% held in trust for the heirs of their two sisters and brother Edward,* who could neither vote nor trade it.

After John died in 1951, at 79, George held a meeting with himself, and named A. & P. President Ralph Burger to replace John. With the death of George, Sole Trustee Ralph Burger now has one remaining responsibility: to dissolve the trust by distributing the stock, although what form this will take will not be known until George’s will is probated. The ending of the trust turns 60% of the stock over to the heirs who can vote it, or sell it, although they have privately agreed not to sell any for three years.

George’s will may add his 20% to John’s 20% in a foundation to hold the brothers’ 40% share of A. & P. in one bloc. But A. & P. ownership is now split off from management, since Burger, 68, is neither an heir nor a trustee of the Hartford fortune. So far, all the Hartfords want him to continue managing the store. Since the stock earned $19.21 a share last year, up from $16.09, and paid $7 a share dividend while A. & P. grossed $4.5 billion, there is no reason to change.

*All deceased. Brother Edward’s two children, George Huntington Hartford II (the art and theater entrepreneur) and Mrs. Josephine Bryce, share 10% each of A. & P.’s stock, as do Mrs. Allan Mclntosh and Mrs. Charles Robertson, daughters of sister Marie Louise and Mrs. Rachel Carpenter, granddaughter of sister Marie Josephine whose five other grandchildren share the remaining 10%.