The story
Founded by Milton S. Hershey on Apr 28, 1905.1
History
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. It provided banking services and mortgages to residents of Hershey and the surrounding Derry Township. 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.
Milton Hershey died in 1945 and bequeathed the stock of Hershey Trust to the Milton Hershey School Trust.
The company sold the Hershey Bank to PNC Financial in 1986. Meanwhile, the Hershey School Trust sold portions of its stock in Hershey Foods and diversified its assets, leading to an expansion in staff to manage a wider portfolio. With its larger staff and new expertise, the company in 1989 began actively seeking customers for private wealth management services. The Hershey Trust Company moved its offices to the Milton S. Hershey Mansion in 1991 to gain more space for its staff.
Hershey Trust's wealth management business was sold to Bryn Mawr Trust Co. in 2011 for $18 million.
By this time, it had grown to 500 clients with $1.1 billion of managed assets.
2011 investigation of the Hershey Trust Company
In February 2011, Robert Reese (grandson of H. B. Reese the inventor of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups), a former board member and president of the Trust, filed a lawsuit against the Hershey Trust Company alleging that board members had been improperly using the Trust's money. 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. 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.
In 2013, Kathleen Kane, 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.
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2016 developments
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.
Milton S. Hershey Foundation
The company administers the Milton S. Hershey Foundation, which operates:
Hershey Cemetery
Hershey Community Archives
Hershey Gardens
The Hershey Story (museum)
Hershey Theatre
The foundation also endowed the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in 1963 through a gift of $50 million using funds provided by the Milton Hershey School Trust.
From Wikipedia’s article on Hershey Trust Company, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4