Company type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Trust administration, Investment, Real Estate |
Founded | April 28, 1905 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Founders | Milton S. Hershey Harry Lebkicher John E. Snyder |
Headquarters | , U.S. |
Key people | Maria T. Kraus (board chair) [1] |
Owner | Milton Hershey School Trust |
Website | hersheytrust |
The Hershey Trust Company is an American trust company based in Hershey, Pennsylvania, established in 1905. Its sole business is the management of several charitable trusts endowed by Milton S. Hershey. The largest is the Milton Hershey School Trust, which has $17.4 billion of assets as of 2021, including Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company and a controlling stake in The Hershey Company.
On April 28, 1905, the Pennsylvania Department of State issued a charter creating the Hershey Trust Company, which was incorporated by Milton S. Hershey, Harry Lebkicher and John E. Snyder. [2] It provided banking services and mortgages to residents of Hershey and the surrounding Derry Township. [3] In 1909, when Hershey founded the Milton Hershey School, he appointed Hershey Trust as administrator of the school trust.
In 1925, Hershey Trust established Hershey National Bank as a subsidiary to handle its commercial banking business, allowing the parent company to focus on the growing demands of managing the school trust. [3] [4]
Milton Hershey died in 1945 and bequeathed the stock of Hershey Trust to the Milton Hershey School Trust. [5]
The company sold the Hershey Bank to PNC Financial in 1986. [6]
Hershey Trust began growing its private wealth management business in the 1980s, eventually gaining 500 clients with $1.1 billion of managed assets. [3] [7] The wealth management business was sold to Bryn Mawr Trust Co. in 2011 for $18 million. [8]
In February 2011, Robert Reese (grandson of H. B. Reese the inventor of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups), [9] a former board member and president of the Trust, [10] filed a lawsuit against the Hershey Trust Company alleging that board members had been improperly using the Trust's money. [11] One particular issue was the purchase of the Wren Dale Golf Course, in which the Hershey Trust overpaid for the property, to the benefit of board members who were both owners of the Wren Dale Golf Course and on the Hershey Trust board. [12] [13] Reese withdrew the lawsuit in April 2011, due to deteriorating health. Reese suggested the Pennsylvania Attorney General had enough cause to investigate the Hershey Trust. [14]
In 2013, Kathleen Kane, [15] the Pennsylvania Attorney General, announced the conclusion of a two-year investigation into the operations of the Hershey Trust Company, in which the Office of Attorney General and the Hershey Trust Company agreed that there was a finding of no wrongdoing, but reforms were required of the trust company. [16] [17]
In May 2016, the state attorney general asked the company to remove three members from the ten-person board. The attorney general said that the three had allowed "apparent violations" of the 2013 agreement. At about the same time, in an unrelated investigation, John Estey, former chief of staff to Governor Ed Rendell and a high-ranking executive of the company, was charged with wire fraud, having pocketed $13,000 that an FBI sting operation had given to him in an investigation into illegal lobbying of legislators. [18] [19]
Hershey Trust serves as the trustee of the Milton Hershey School Trust. The trust provides the funding for the 2,000+ student Milton Hershey School, which provides education for lower-income children. [20] As of 2021, the trust had $17.4 billion of assets. [21] Its assets include Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company, a controlling stake in the Hershey Company, and ownership of the Hershey Trust Company itself.
The trust was created in 1909 by a deed of trust from Milton and Catherine Hershey, granting 486 acres (197 ha) of land in Hershey for the establishment of the Milton Hershey School. [22] [23] In 1918, Milton Hershey quietly donated to the trust the bulk of his fortune, $60 million of stock in Hershey Chocolate Company (now the Hershey Company). [24]
The company administers the Milton S. Hershey Foundation, which operates:
The foundation also endowed the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center through a gift using funds provided by the Milton Hershey School Trust.
Hershey Trust also serves as trustee of the Hershey Cemetery Perpetual Care Maintenance Trust.
The company was trustee of the Milton S. Hershey Testamentary Trust until 2012. [25] This trust was established in 1945 upon Milton Hershey's death, endowed with his remaining fortune of $900,000, for the benefit of the Derry Township School District. [26] The trust assets grew to $24 million as of 2012, supporting an annual payment to the school district of $1.8 million. [26]
The Hershey Company, often called just Hershey or Hershey's, is an American multinational confectionery company headquartered in Hershey, Pennsylvania, which is also home to Hersheypark and Hershey's Chocolate World. The Hershey Company is one of the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world; it also manufactures baked products, such as cookies and cakes, and sells beverages like milkshakes, as well as other products. The Hershey Company was founded by Milton S. Hershey in 1894 as the Hershey Chocolate Company, originally established as a subsidiary of his Lancaster Caramel Company. The Hershey Trust Company owns a minority stake but retains a majority of the voting power within the company.
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The Milton Hershey School, formerly the Hershey Industrial School, is a private boarding school in Hershey, Pennsylvania for K–12 students. The institution was founded in 1909 by chocolate industrialist Milton Hershey and his wife, Catherine Hershey.
Hershey is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Derry Township, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is home to the Hershey Company, which was founded by candy magnate Milton S. Hershey, and Hersheypark, an amusement park.
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Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company is a privately held company based in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. Milton S. Hershey established HE&R in 1927 to distinguish and separate his chocolate manufacturing company from his other business ventures. All of his non-chocolate producing businesses were established as Hershey Estates, renamed HERCO, Inc. in 1976 and Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company in 1998.
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A former official involved with the multibillion-dollar charitable trust that controls the Hershey candy company is claiming in a court filing that board members used the trust's considerable assets to pad their bank accounts and treat themselves to luxury hotel stays, limousine rides and free golf.
Reese, a scion of the peanut-butter cup fortune and a former senior executive of the Hershey Co., seeks to have Hershey trustees reimburse the charity $22 million for purchasing the Wren Dale course at an inflated price and improperly commingling funds in Hershey Trust that led to remedial action after the trust company alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Just as the legal battle was heating up, a former insider at the multibillion-dollar Hershey charity has withdrawn his court action that claimed the misuse of millions of dollars meant for educating poor children. Robert Reese, a former Hershey trustee and president of the Hershey Trust Co., took the action Monday, saying deteriorating eyesight made it impossible for him to pursue the case. He added that he believed the Attorney General's Office would investigate his claims, which were filed Feb. 8 in Dauphin County Orphans Court.