Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 13, 1993                   TAG: 9305130127
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

IN BUSINESS

Brown, Edwards & Co., the largest certified public accounting firm in the Blue Ridge region, said Wednesday it will buy the Lynchburg office of Coopers & Lybrand. The sale will be final May 31. Terms were not disclosed.

Jerry Jackson, managing partner of Brown, Edwards, said it will hire most of Coopers & Lybrand's office employees, but a few will transfer to other Coopers branches.

Coopers & Lybrand closed its Roanoke office at the end of April after losing half its business because of the merger of its client, Dominion Bankshares Corp., with First Union Corp. First Union moved its business to its external auditor, KPMG Peat Marwick.

Robert Morris, managing partner of the Lynchburg office, will transfer to the firm's Richmond operation.

Brown, Edwards has other offices at Roanoke, Bristol and Abingdon in Virginia; Bluefield and Princeton, W.Va.; and Kingsport, Tenn. The company has 16 partners and about 100 employees. - Staff report

\ Earnings . . .

\ Brunswick Corp., Skokie, Ill., operator of a defense products plant at Marion, reported first-quarter sales of $542.8 million, virtually flat with $544.7 million in the 1992 quarter. Earnings declined to $9.8 million, or 10 cents a share, from $11.3 million, or 13 cents a share. Net earnings were $9 million, or 9 cents a share, compared with a net loss of $27 million, or 30 cents a share in the 1992 period.

Net earnings include a net loss of $0.8 million from discontinued operations, vs. a break-even in the 1992 quarter, which included the cumulative effect of accounting changes.

\ Westmoreland Coal Co., Philadelphia-based producer and marketer of coal with operations in Western Virginia, reported a first-quarter loss of $2.7 million, or 57 cents a share, due primarily to mandated accounting changes and a 10 percent price reduction in its contract with Duke Power. The company earned $195,000, or 2 cents a share, in the 1992 quarter.

Revenues were $115.2 million, compared to $153.4 million in the 1992 period. Coal revenue was $113.5 million from 4.2 million tons sold, down from $151.1 million from 5.3 million tons sold.

\ Modine Manufacturing Co., a Racine, Wisc., maker of heating and ventilation equipment with operations in Buena Vista, reported record earnings for both the first quarter and the fiscal year ended March 31, before the effects of a one-time mandated accounting change.

Earnings for the year, before the accounting change, rose 20.2 percent to $33.7 million, or $1.12 a share, from $28 million, or 93 cents a share. After the accounting change, net earnings were $20 million, or 66 cents a share, down 28.7 percent from $28 million, or 93 cents a share. Sales rose 8.4 percent, to $570.8 million from $526.6 million.

Net earnings for the quarter were up 23.8 percent to $9.5 million, or 31 cents a share, from $7.7 million, or 25 cents a share, on a sales gain of 6.3 percent, to $145.8 million from $137.2 million.