PODUZEĆE “S. H. GUTMANN D. D.” U VRIJEME VELIKE GOSPODARSKE KRIZE (1929.-1934.)
THE COMPANY S. H. GUTMANN D. D. AT THE TIME OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION (1929-1934)

Summary/Abstract: The paper investigates the consequences that the Great Depression (1929-1934) had for the business and the ownership structure of the large, predominantly wood-processing company S. H. Gutmann d. d., headquartered in Belišće, which operated in Slavonia in the period between 1884 and 1941. At the time of the Great Depression, from 1930 to 1934, the Gutmanns subsisted on the acquisitions of the family’s second generation, i.e. on the acquisitions resulting from the policy of buying their own forests. The company did not have to pay for the raw materials it needed to launch its production, and the forests they exploited were bought and paid for, as we have already mentioned, in the previous period. The companies that were not so lucky, on the other hand, had to struggle with sudden price drops and long-term forest exploitation contracts whose prices were set at the time of conjuncture. A change from affirmative to negative attitude can be observed in the state’s treatment of large industrial companies owned by foreigners after the Great Depression. This is confirmed by the regulations of the National Bank of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that proscribed that credits could be granted only to domestic entrepreneurs, as well as by the regulations of the Ministry of Finance that monitored all share transactions carried out by foreign owners.

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