In 1902, promoter John W. Young persuaded Nixon to preside over the consolidation of Crescent Shipyard with six other shipyards on the East and West Coasts, to form a single shipbuilding trust, under the name United States Shipbuilding Company. Unfortunately, however, "the one thing consolidated firms lacked, individually and collectively, was a realistic prospect of earning sustained profits." As the newly formed company's president, Nixon had personally convinced Charles M. Schwab, U.S. Steel Corporation president and Bethlehem Steel owner, to help underwrite the new business, while Schwab agreed to add Bethlehem Steel to the venture. However, the terms that Nixon and Schwab had negotiated for Schwab's financing were so one-sided in favor of Schwab and Bethlehem Steel that, when United States Shipbuilding failed almost immediately, it damaged the business reputations of both Nixon and Schwab. Within a year of its incorporation, the company's mortgageholders forced it into receivership. It emerged from receivership, without Nixon, as Bethlehem Steel and Shipbuilding Company, in 1904. One of its first actions was to close Crescent Shipyard. By then, Nixon had re-entered the shipbuilding business by leasing a yard in Perth Amboy, New Jersey.