Sir James Goldsmith, 64
Goldsmith, whose company once owned Grand Union Co., Wayne, N.J., and other supermarket chains, died July 19 at his home near Malaga in southern Spain. He was 64 and had been battling pancreatic cancer, said a friend of the family.
Goldsmith, a citizen of both the United Kingdom and France, was chairman and president of Generale Occidentale, a holding company based here, and was known as a cunning corporate raider who amassed a personal fortune of $2.5 billion through Wall Street transactions in the 1980s.
Having built a stable of food and drug manufacturing interests in the 1950s and 1960s, Goldsmith turned his attention to retailing in the decades to follow. His U.K.-based group, Cavenham Ltd., formed an American division, Cavenham U.S.A., for the purpose of acquiring Grand Union in 1973, and later Colonial Stores and Weingarten. In the United Kingdom, Cavenham acquired the Caters chain.
By 1980, Generale Occidentale was one of the world's largest food-retailing operations, with U.S. sales of $4.84 billion and U.K. sales of $1.76 billion. Two years later, Goldsmith agreed to sell Allied Suppliers, a grocery chain, to Argyll Foods for $235 million and used $119 million from that sale to upgrade Grand Union. In 1986, Goldsmith held 2.2% of Stop & Shop Cos., Quincy, Mass., and was said to be mulling a takeover. In 1987, he sold all but 5% of Generale Occidentale for an estimated $450 million, just before the global stock-market crash in October of that year.
Goldsmith retired from the business world in 1990 and turned to politics, leading British and French movements against the unification of Europe. He married three times and fathered eight children.
Larry Korman, 74
PHILADELPHIA -- Funeral services were held here for Larry Korman, a former owner of 15 Shop 'N' Bag stores, who died in a local hospital July 15 at the age of 74.
Korman opened his first Shop 'N' Bag store in 1967 and expanded to 15 units in Philadelphia, South Jersey and Delaware. He sold the stores in 1990 and went into real-estate development and management until his death.
He is survived by a son, Lee; a daughter, Marilyn Rubin; and five grandchildren. He was the widower of Frances Gordon Korman.
