Chester H. Roth (April 13, 1902 – July 26, 1977)^[1] was an American businessman who founded the Chester H. Roth Company and served as president and CEO of its successor Kayser-Roth Corporation.

Biography

Roth was raised in a Jewish family in New York City where he attended the New York Textile School.^[2] As a youth, he worked at the General Merchandise Exchange, a clothing distributor, where In 1925, he started The Chester H. Roth Company, a hosiery manufacturer.^[2] In 1958, he merged his company with the Julius Kayser Company which began as a manufacturer of silk gloves and later expanded into lingerie, swimwear and hosiery.^[2] The new entity, the Kayser-Roth Corporation had sales of $56 million and by the time that Roth sold the company to Gulf & Western in 1975, sales had grown to $505 million.^[2] After the purchase, Roth remained on as chairman and CEO of Kayser-Roth and served as a director at Gulf & Western.^[2] In 1993, Kayser-Roth was sold to Mexican hosiery manufacturer Grupo Synkro for US$230,000,000.^[3]

He served on the Board of Overseers of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, as chairman of the executive committee of the New York Anti-Defamation League Appeal, as a director of the North Carolina Textile Foundation, and as an honorary member of the New York Academy of Science.^[2][4]

Roth was married to Janet Falk Roth (preceded him in death); they had three children, David J. Roth, Andrea Roth, and Lynn Roth Cott.^[2] He married again to Yvonne Russell‐Farrow.^[2] Roth died at the Hotel Pierre in Manhattan; services were held at Temple Emanu‐El in Manhattan.^[2]

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