Word: cna
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Insurance firms and banks have been hit especially hard by the shortage, but the effects are also being felt in such "glamour" industries as publishing, television and advertising. Chicago's First National Bank has been giving $500 bounties to employees who recruit new secretaries, and the big CNA insurance firm offers color TVs. Sears, Roebuck and California's Crocker National Bank have held open house parties in an attempt to attract applicants...
...need of diversification, given its dramatic rise in profits. Even so, the international oil companies, facing the certainty of takeovers of their overseas wells by many foreign governments, have been seeking to hedge their bets. Gulf Oil, for example, in the last year has tried unsuccessfully to buy the CNA insurance business and even the Ringling Bros.-Barnum & Bailey circus. Last week Mobil Oil went it one better by announcing plans to make a tender offer for 51% of the stock of Marcor Inc., the parent company of the Montgomery Ward retail chain and Container Corp., a packaging giant...
Although the world's growing dependence on petroleum seems to guarantee it a prosperous future, Gulf Oil Corp. has been casting a covetous eye on companies in unrelated industries. Last week it announced which it would like to pick: Chicago's CNA Financial Corp. (1972 revenue: $1.6 billion), which has interests in insurance, consumer credit and real estate. Gulf proposes to pay in securities worth roughly $800 million, making the prospective acquisition one of the biggest ever...
...taking over CNA, Gulf management hopes to buy a form of profit insurance. Kuwait, from whose oil fields Gulf gets more than half its worldwide crude supply, put curbs on production last year, and Gulf has been seeking ways to cushion the blow. Taking over CNA would also be attractive for other reasons: Gulf has a lot of excess cash on hand that could be used to greatly expand the insurance company's operations. The special tax benefits that Gulf enjoys as an oil company could provide a tax shelter for part of CNA's already considerable profits...
...CNA's board appears likely to approve the takeover, even though Gulf is trying to pick up CNA at a bargain price: Gulf securities worth about $19 for each CNA share, only slightly more than the stock's book value of $17.50. But even if CNA's stockholders go along, the deal could still be challenged by state regulators or the Justice Department, which has been unenthusiastic about giant corporate mergers...