Our Own Hall of Fame
VICTOR EMANUEL
SAVED AVCO FROM DEATH
Vic Emanuel Chased Fox, Caught Several Fortunes.
DAYTON DAILY NEWS, FEBRUARY 25, 1961
BY MARY ELLEN LYNCH
Daily News Staff Writer
Victor Emanuel retired when he was 28 with a fortune estimated at $40 million and moved to England to live in a castle and go fox hunting with the Prince of Wales.
Yet, a few years later, the native Daytonian was back in America—and back in high finance. This time he led a group that won control of a $1,119,000,000 public utility empire encompassing 20 states.
Then the depression hit, the mammoth holding collapsed, and Emanuel lost most of his personal fortune.
But money and power were never to elude the nimble-witted “boy wonder” for long. When Emanuel died last November, he was president ant chairman of the board of the sprawling Avco Corp., which had produced everything from a battle ship (the South Dakota) to self-sterilizing toilet seats.
VICTOR EMANUEL was born in Dayton on Jan. 31, 1898. The son of a prosperous utilities pioneer (his father owned the Dayton Street Railway Co. among others), he grew up two doors away from the barn where Charles F. Kettering was inventing the self-starter.
The Wright Brothers were fluttering overhead in their flimsy ‘flying machine’ while young Victor was walking to Longfellow school.
In 1915 he was graduated from St. Mary’s Institute prep school (now the University of Dayton) and a dozen years later gave UD $300,000 to build the Albert Emanuel library as a memorial to his father.
HE SERVED in the Air Corps in World War I, got a bachelor of arts degree from Cornell university, almost became a teacher, but went into business with his ailing father instead.
When he was 25, Emanuel and a Chicago banker bought out the senior Emanuel’s holdings for $5 million, sold them three years later for $13 million.
Then came the lavish English period. Emanuel owned more than 100 horses, was a master of the chic woodland Pytchley hunt, once imported 300 guests from the United States for a party, paying their roundtrip fares.
When he headed a group that acquired the tottering Aviation Corp. (later re-named Avco) in 1937, it was close to death from mismanagement. Four years later, it paid the first dividends in its history—15 cents a share.
DURING World War II, a revitalized Avco and its associated companies produced more that $4 billion worth of vital military equipment ranging from motors to B24 bombers to aircraft carriers.
Emanuel himself served as director of the Aircraft War Production council.
After the war, Avco stepped out strongly as a manufacturer of diversified consumer goods—farm and industrial equipment, household appliances, radio and TV. It also played an important role in space and missile technology.
A FLAMBOYANT operator who knew his way around Washington, “V.E.” dressed in pinstriped double breasted suits, wore large flowered ties, rarely gave interviews, chain smoked and doted on lemonade.
Emanuel retained close ties with the University of Dayton, served as a lay trustee and played an active role in the campaign to raise funds for Wohlleben hall.
He never tapered off. When he died at 62, financier Emanuel was a director of 12 other firms in addition to Avco.
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