William Rockefeller - Business Career

Business Career

In 1865, he entered the oil business by starting a refinery. In 1867, his older brother (John D. Rockefeller)'s partnership of Rockefeller & Andrews absorbed this refinery. In 1870, that company became Standard Oil.

William was considered far more personable and receptive man to work with than his more conservative older brother. However, he was very adept in business matters. Rockefeller served as the company's New York representative until 1911 when Standard Oil of New Jersey was split up by the United States Supreme Court. He also had interests in copper, railways, and public utilities, and built up the National City Bank of New York, now part of Citigroup.

In the late 1890s, Rockefeller joined fellow Standard Oil principal Henry H. Rogers in forming the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, a holding company that intended to control the copper industry. Rockefeller, along with Henry Rogers, devised a deceptive scheme which made them a profit of $36 million. First, they purchased Anaconda Properties from Marcus Daly for $39 million, with the understanding that the check was to be deposited in the bank and remain there for a definite time (National City Bank was run by Rockefeller's friends). Rogers and Rockefeller then set up a paper organization known as the Amalgamated Copper Mining Company, with their own clerks as dummy directors, saying the company was worth $75 million.

They then had the Amalgamated Copper Company buy Anaconda from them for $75 million in capital stock, which was conveniently printed for the purpose. Then, they borrowed $39 million from the bank using Amalgamated Copper as collateral. They paid back Daly for Anaconda and sold $75 million worth of stock in Amalgamated Copper to the public. They paid back the bank's $39 million and had a profit of $36 million in cash. So, by deceiving Daly, the bank, and the public, Rockefeller and Rogers had made Amalgamated Copper a $36 million profit before the company was even operating.

With help from banker John D. Ryan, Amalgamated acquired two large competitors, and soon controlled all the mines of Butte, Montana, later becoming Anaconda Copper Company, fourth largest company in the world by the late 1920s.