4 - not enjoyed any special popularity with the investment fraternity. There are other reasons common to the companies engaged purely in construction which may contribute to this relative lack of investment appeal. In the first place, the book assets of a typical construction company consist primarily of working capital and equipment -- the kind of equipment which has a relatively short life and depreciates rather rapidly in value. Assets in this category have almost no opportunity to increase in value above their original cost and thus the construction company does not present the dynamic prospect for great increases in asset values that are possible in other industries where the inherent earning power of the asset may bear little relationship to its cost as in the case of an oil well or the formula for Coca Cola or the patent protection and know-how in a company like I.B.M. The result is that construction companies grow from retained earnings and with relatively few exceptions their stocks tend to sell around their book value and rarely in ranges that would exceed book value by as much as 50%. The second reason is that sustained earning power is primarily a function of management, since all of the other assets can be duplicated by anyone with money. Management is the principal asset of any construction company, for it embodies the ability of the company to obtain and perform work consistently at a profit while using the same tools available to its competitors. Characteristically, construction companies are started by young and adventurous men, most disappear from the scene in the first five years, and others may enjoy rapid growth and prosperity. However, the ownership tends to be concentrated in the hands of the founders and the top management staff, and is not usually made available to the investing public until the founders are well along in years, are worrying about their health and their estates,