United Fruit Co

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Marc Levinson, Please, No More Bananas. The story of Sam Zemurray's rise from peddler to power broker has been told many times, but for want of reliable sources, factual details vary. Wall Street Journal , July 2, 2012
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB ... SJ_Books_LS_Books_8
(book review on Rich Cohen, The Fish That Ate the Whale; The life and times of America's banana king. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2012)

Note:
(a) This is what the book review says about Mr Zemurray: "the entrepreneurs Minor Keith, Lorenzo Baker and Andrew Preston set up the United Fruit Co. in 1899, buying up smaller players to become the dominant force in the banana trade. Sam Zemurray, Mr. Cohen's subject, entered the picture as a small-time banana dealer in the 1890s. Around 1905, he and a partner purchased a steamship company and the troubled Cuyamel Fruit Co., which owned banana lands in Nicaragua. United Fruit secretly took stakes in both."

It is unclear how Mr Zemurray took control of the company.

United Fruit Company
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Fruit_Company
(The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of Minor C Keith's banana-trading concerns [based in New York City] with Andrew W Preston's Boston Fruit Company; The merger formed the United Fruit Company, based in Boston, with Preston as president and Keith as vice-president)

Quote: "In 1930, Sam Zemurray (nicknamed 'Sam the Banana Man') sold his Cuyamel Fruit Company to United Fruit and retired from the fruit business. In 1933, concerned that the company was mismanaged and that its market value had plunged, he staged a hostile takeover. Zemurray moved the company's headquarters to New Orleans, Louisiana, where he was based. United Fruit went on to prosper under Zemurray's management;[2][3]  Zemurray resigned as president of the company in 1951.

(b) Philander C Knox (1853-1921) is secretary of state (1909-1913) under (Republican) President William Howard Taft.
(c) caveat lector (Latin): "let the reader beware"
www.m-w.com