Word: ltv
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...Justice Department blocks the LTV-Republic merger...
...Reagan Administration has approved some of the biggest corporate mergers in history: Du Pont and Conoco, U.S. Steel and Marathon Oil and, tentatively, Texaco and Getty. Last week, in a stunning reversal, it blocked the planned marriage of LTV and Republic Steel. Proposed in September, the deal would have created the second-largest steel company in America, behind U.S. Steel. Assistant Attorney General J. Paul McGrath, named two months ago to succeed William Baxter as the Justice Department's antitrust chief, said the merger would violate the Clayton Act, which bans excessive concentration in any industry...
McGrath feared that LTV and Republic would dominate the market for sheet stainless steel and for hot-and cold-rolled carbon and alloy sheet steel, products used in automobiles, small appliances, ranges and refrigerators. Together, the companies would have become the largest domestic producer of those types of steel. In the area of stainless sheet, the new firm would have controlled almost half of U.S. production capacity. Said McGrath: "We concluded that the increased concentration would be unacceptably high...
...middle managers would be needed, excess capacity would be reduced, and spending for raw materials to produce steel would be lessened. That consolidation would make U.S. firms more efficient and better able to compete against foreign steelmakers, which have captured one-fifth of the American market. Officials of LTV and Republic claimed that their merger would save $300 million a year in operating expenses...
...Justice Department, however, questioned whether the LTV and Republic merger would bring about that much increased efficiency. It also said that the threat of foreign competition in the kinds of steel most affected by the merger was not great enough to overcome the risks of domestic collusion to increase steel prices...