Albert Warner an office in the Bakewell building in downtown Pittsburgh with a loan from Max Fleischer. Harry then sent Sam to New York to purchase and ship films for their Pittsburgh exchange company, while he and Albert remained in Pittsburgh to run the business. In 1909, the brothers sold the Cascade Theater to open a second film exchange company in Norfolk, Virginia; through this second film exchange, younger brother Jack joined his three brothers' business. Afterwards, Sam and Jack went to Norfolk, while Harry and Albert stayed in Pittsburgh. However, one serious threat to the Warners film company was the advent
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