Word: craned
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...classic response by a company facing an unwelcome takeover bid is to try to sell itself to another firm. Anaconda Co. did just that-for understandable reasons-after New York's Crane Co. came calling last year. Anaconda is in the red, and Crane Chairman Thomas M. Evans is known for his ruthless sacking of money-losing managers. Last week Anaconda found a giant protector: it and Houston-based Tenneco Inc. announced plans for what would be one of the biggest mergers ever in terms of total revenues-if it can be brought off over Evans' opposition...
...Bids for One. Spotting a company that seemed ripe for takeover, Crane, which produces steel, valves and aerospace equipment and has sales of more than $1 billion a year, made its bid last fall. It offered a debenture with a market value of $17.58 paying 8% interest for each of 5 million Anaconda shares, or 23% of the total. Tenneco proposes to take all Anaconda stock in exchange for a new issue of Tenneco preferred, convertible into common. The terms work out to stock worth about $22 for each Anaconda share; Anaconda closed last week...
...catch is that the deal needs approval by holders of two-thirds of Anaconda's stock-and Crane already has gathered in 18% of the shares, or more than half the amount needed to block the merger. Evans, a master of the takeover game, is no man to back away from a fight. "He loves a contest, thrives on it," says a onetime associate. "He's an asset player-buys them cheap." Predictably, Evans declared last week that he would vote Crane's shares against the Tenneco merger...
...Crane says now that such moves are something new, abusing a system of reform government designed to eliminate the politics of hiring and firing city managers. But such deals have been more a matter of course in recent years than exceptions...
...transact their regular business without interference. It was only after the marathon session of '48 that the council agreed that it could move other business before it found a new mayor. During that long winter of '48, while the council fished for a mayor, it "couldn't do anything," Crane remembers, "except maybe pass an order for an emergency snow removal...