Business & Finance: For Sale

The two men who probably know most about the problem of selling the Government’s future surplus war plants told the Mead Committee last week why they cannot sell the plants right now. Tall, drawling Sam H. Husbands, 53, ex-Florence, S.C. banker, is president of the Defense Plant Corp., which owns about 1,000 Government-built plants, which cost some $6.8 billion to build, including such giants as Willow Run. But most of the talking was done by Hans A. Klagsbrunn, 35, executive vice president and DPC counsel.

Klagsbrunn told the Mead Committee that no plant can be tagged for sale today because tomorrow the military may need it again, to produce some newly critical item. Several plants which were “surplus” a month ago are already being put back into war production.

But DPC is keen to get on with its sales job. Delay in declaring a plant surplus can lessen its sales value, as labor moves away from a plant with an uncertain future. So DPC is now negotiating on a conditional basis for the sale or lease of more than 70 plants, has issued descriptive brochures on 125 others. Most encouraging, DPC is ready to lease the plants, in whole or part, make loans big enough to cover the entire purchase price. Credit will be “liberal,” to make certain that as many plants as possible are used postwar.