Adams Bank & Trust history

The Staten Island Advance proved to be the foundation of the publishing empire Newhouse established in the 1920s.

By 1922 Newhouse was ready for another acquisition and with Lazarus bought 51 percent of the stock of The Staten Island Advance for $98,000.

As far back as the 1924 statement of Advance's purpose, Newhouse had a declared intention of publishing magazines.

Many newspaper stands were at first reluctant to carry the Advance, but Newhouse increased circulation by adopting a Brooklyn newspaper's home-delivery system, and by 1928 he had made enough to buy out his two partners in the company for $198,000.

Despite the challenge to the Advance by the Staten Islander and a politically motivated libel suit, Newhouse was able not only to prosper during good times but to survive the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.

Newhouse had invested his company's profits in the newspaper, not in stocks; thus, in 1932 the bank account of the Advance stood at close to $400,000.

The first of these acquisitions, in 1935, was a 51 percent share in the Newark Ledger of Newark, New Jersey.

Newhouse repeated this merger strategy when he bought the Newark Star-Eagle and merged it with the Newark Ledger to form the Newark Star-Ledger in 1939.

In 1942 Newhouse bought for $1.3 million the only remaining Syracuse newspaper, the morning Post-Standard, establishing a highly profitable monopoly during World War II, even with shortages of newsprint and other supplies.

His culinary talents earned him the nickname "Pierre" and when he founded his own business selling frozen food products to restaurants in 1946, he lent it his nickname.

In 1947 Newhouse acquired the Patriot Company, publisher of the Patriot and the Evening News in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

With the purchase of the Portland Oregonian in 1950, he paid a record $5.6 million.

For example, one paper, the Newark Star-Ledger, supported right-wing senator Joseph McCarthy during his ascendancy, while other Newhouse papers attacked McCarthy. It also persuaded the Hanson family to sell the Birmingham News and the Huntsville Times in Alabama to Newhouse in 1955 for $18.7 million.

The 1959 purchase of Condé Nast Publications for $5 million was supposedly suggested by Mitzi Newhouse, S.I. Newhouse's wife.

In 1961 Newhouse established a newspaper monopoly in Portland with his purchases of the Oregon Journal for $8 million.

The publisher of Advance's Birmingham, Alabama, paper in 1962 was an unabashed racist, while Newhouse himself was staunchly liberal.

When the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications was opened in 1964, President Lyndon Johnson gave the dedication speech.

Newhouse's largest deal of the decade turned out to be his acquisition of the Cleveland Plain Dealer for $54.2 million in 1967, breaking his own record for the highest price ever paid for a newspaper and again requiring a bank loan.

Advance bought 49 percent of a massive paper mill in Catawba, South Carolina, in 1970.

In 1971 Advance bought both the Bayonne Times, the paper at which Newhouse had started his career, and the Newark Evening News.

Decades later, in 1973, another chapter of the AdvancePierre Foods story was written when Paul Allen and David McLaughlin founded Advance Food Company, an Oklahoma-based manufacturer of hamburger patties and breaded beef.

In 1976 he purchased for $305 million Booth Newspapers, publisher of eight papers in Michigan, as well as Parade magazine, a syndicated Sunday newspaper magazine supplement.

In 1978 the company changed its name from Advance Stores to Advance Auto and took other steps to become a high-volume retailer of auto parts.

Newhouse, as quoted in The New York Times (August 1979), was "not interested in molding the nation's opinion."

The first was in 1980, when they paid $70 million to RCA Corporation for Random House publishing, the leading general-interest book publisher at the time, thus acquiring the third type of media listed in Advance's statement of purpose.

By selling its five television stations to the Times Mirror Company for $82 million, the Newhouses were also able to finance their expansion into cable television systems, becoming the eighth-largest cable operator in the United States in 1981.

Perhaps the most notable acquisition was the New Yorker for $200 million in 1983.

In 1985 Taubman reached his original goal of 100 stores, but by now he began to envision the creation of a much larger company.

The spots were a hit. As a result, business continued to boom and in 1986, Advance moved to its current headquarters, a then 24,000 square foot building at 10755 York Road in Cockeysville.

With a solid foundation in the Baltimore marketplace, and increasing demand from Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Advance opened a second location in Annapolis in 1988.

Given that Newhouse operated, according to the November 27, 1989 issue of Barron's, "not only one of the most powerful, but one of the most secretive family businesses in America," the public curiosity was understandable.

Also, in 1990 the long-standing litigation with the IRS was settled in the Newhouses' favor.

Together they launched an aggressive expansion program, so that by 1991 the chain included 211 stores, making it the country's eighth largest auto parts retailer.

In 1993 the company offered $500 million to back QVC's bid to purchase Paramount, though QVC later lost their bid to Viacom.

In 1994 Advance acquired 25 percent of the computer and multimedia magazine Wired.

Also in 1995 Advance purchased American City Business Journals for $269 million.

By 1996 Forbes magazine listed Si and Donald Newhouse as sharing a fortune worth at least $9 billion.

In September 1997 Taubman stepped down as CEO in favor of Smith, although he stayed on as chairman of the board.

At the end of 1999 Smith retired after 43 years with Advance, citing a desire to spend more time with his ailing wife, although he remained on the company's board of directors.

In 2000, Jeff was named Chief Operating Officer and has been instrumental in not only the company’s growth, but also its expansion into electronic document management.

A more important deal was struck in November 2001 when Advance acquired Discount Auto Parts, Inc., a southeastern chain operating 577 stores with some $660 million in annual revenues.

In November 2002 Sears announced that it planned to sell the 8.4 million shares it received in Advance for the Western Auto chain.

A public company traded on the New York Stock Exchange, Advance became a member of the Fortune 500 in 2003.

In 2005, after much demand from its architectural, engineering and construction customers, Advance took customers beyond standard sized office paper into the world of monochrome KIP wide format copying, printing and scanning.

Pierre Foods, Advance Foods and Advance Brands united in 2010 to create AdvancePierre Foods.

In 2011, the company further deepened its expertise with the purchase of Barber Foods®, a maker of stuffed chicken breasts and other chicken products based in Portland, Maine.

In 2014, Advance saw a great need with our customers to support IT in their businesses which was the catalyst for Advance entering this arena and the construction of a state-of-the-art IT Command Center at its Cockeysville headquarters.

On July 15, 2016, AdvancePierre Foods Holdings, Inc., began trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol “APFH.” Transitioning from a private company to a public entity marked an exciting and important milestone for the company.

In September of 2018, Advance opened its third office location and state-of-the-art showroom in Rockville joining existing locations in Cockeysville, Baltimore and Frederick.