Albert Warner of Thomas Edison's Motion Picture Patents Company (also known as the Edison Trust), which charged distributors exorbitant fees. In 1910, the Warners sold the family business to the General Film Company, for "$10,000 in cash, $12,000 in preferred stock, and payments over a four-year period for a total of $52,000". After selling their business, the brothers found work distributing films for Carl Laemmle's Independent Motion Picture Company in Pittsburgh. In 1912, Sam Warner would help the brothers earn a $1,500 profit by distributing the Italian film "Dante's Inferno" in the United States. Harry Warner, encouraged by the success of "Dante's
Simmer and Jack Sarel Meyer. Simmer & Jack, a trading company in Harrismith which ran a shop in Chrissiesmeer had, a year earlier, acquired half of Meyer's farm. In September 1886 John Jack registered the mining rights on the farm to Simmer & Jack. With the founding of the company in August 1887 Simmer and Jack took on board the entrepreneur Sir George Farrar, whose family imported drilling equipment to South Africa. Also added to the team was Harry Struben who from 1884 had run a small gold mine in Roodepoort. The town of Germiston was established and named after John Jack's birthplace