Hershey Trust Company
| Industry | Confectionery, entertainment, education, real estate |
|---|---|
| Founded | April 28, 1905 in Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States |
| Founders |
Milton S. Hershey Harry Lebkicher John E. Snyder |
| Headquarters | Hershey, Pennsylvania, United States |
|
Key people
|
Velma Redmond (Chairwoman) Joseph Senser (Vice-chairman) Robert Cavanaugh (Former Chairman) John Estey (Lobbyist) |
| Website | hersheytrust |
The Hershey Trust Company is a United States corporation incorporated on April 28, 1905, by Milton S. Hershey, Harry Lebkicher and John E. Snyder. The company is majority owner of The Hershey Company and sole private owner of Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company and administrator of the 2,000 student Milton Hershey School. It manages about $12.3 billion in charitable funds.
On April 28, 1905, the Pennsylvania Department of State issued a charter creating the Hershey Trust Company. In 1909, when Hershey founded the Milton Hershey School, Hershey appointed the Trust as administrator of the school trust.
In February 2011, Robert Reese, a former board member and president of the Trust, filed a lawsuit against the Hershey Trust Company alleging that Trust 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.
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 Gov. 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.
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