Word: coppers
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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When Thomas D. Barrow, 56, resigned as a senior vice president of Exxon in 1978 to become chairman of Kennecott Corp., the nation's largest copper company (1980 sales: $2.3 billion), he probably figured that his days in the oil business were over. But suddenly last week Barrow found himself back with another oil company. Standard Oil of Ohio made a successful bid to buy Kennecott for $1.8 billion in cash...
Wall Street investors expect that other mining companies will soon become targets for takeover bids. They include copper producer Phelps Dodge, Newmont Mining, a major copper and gold producer, and Asarco, the silver and copper concern. Notes Analyst Clark: "The idea is buy low, sell high. And I think copper prices will up faster than oil prices...
Kennecott, on the other hand, was quick to accept the Sohio bid; it needs the fresh cash to modernize its machinery and protect itself from the vicissitudes of the world copper market. As for Barrow, last week's agreement calls for him to stay on as head of Kennecott and thus return to the oil business as a director of Sohio...
Berner nonetheless tried to fight off the Kennecott attack. Curtiss-Wright announced that it would buy back 1 million of its own shares at $44, and the price was soon raised to $46. That was $6 a share more than Kennecott offered. But the copper company, unable to attract enough Curtiss-Wright shares at $40, ended its offer and started negotiating with
Kennecott agreed to hand over its 2.8 million shares of Curtiss-Wright, plus $168 million in cash, in exchange for Curtiss-Wright's Dorr-Oliver subsidiary, a maker of pollution-control and other equipment; Curtiss-Wright returned 4.8 million shares of Kennecott to the copper company, and Berner and two other Curtiss-Wright directors resigned from Kennecott's board of directors. With their proxy fights at last over, Barrow and Berner can now get back to their real businesses of digging copper and building jet engines. -By Julie Connelly. Reported by Frederick Ungoheuer/New York