Pershing Square Activist Presentation Deck
The Great Salad Oil Scandal of 1963
AmEx was known for its highly profitable, growing businesses in credit cards
and travelers checks
AmEx had a healthy franchise which was growing robustly, with revenues and
operating income growing over the prior decade at 12% and 11% compound annual
growth rates, respectively
AmEx's Warehousing Division, a relatively new business line, made loans to a
company called Allied Crude Vegetable Oil Refining Corp. run by con-man
Anthony "Tino" De Angelis
De Angelis had previously swindled the government under the National School
Lunch program, and went bankrupt
► AmEx's security was Allied's inventory of soybean oil stored in large tanks,
valued at more than $150 million (~$1.2 billion in 2015 dollars). De Angelis'
claimed inventory exceeded the entire U.S. inventory of soybean oil as reported
by the Department of Agriculture
► The tanks were filled with water topped off with a thin layer of oil. When plumbed
with a dip stick, the tanks appeared to be full of soybean oil
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