Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, November 1, 1994 TAG: 9411010080
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: C-7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Short
"They signed it," said Bob Hessler, director of public relations with the Wilmington, Del.-based Hercules. The contract would be effective Jan. 1 if shareholders of the Hopkins, Minn.-based Alliant approve the deal.
"It's a big one," said Rod Bitz, Alliant's spokesman.
Alliant will buy Hercules' aerospace operations, which include seven plants other than the Radford arsenal, for $300 million and 3.86 million newly issued shares of Alliant stock. After the deal is closed, which is anticipated in the first quarter of 1995, sales at Alliant are expected to nearly double to $1.4 billion, and the company will employ 10,200 workers. Hercules will refocus on its $2 billion chemical-sales industry.
For about two weeks in August, after a group of dissatisfied Alliant shareholders succeeded in wresting away control of the company's board, "there was a real possibility that [the sale] might not go through," Hessler said. But after reviewing it, the new board agreed to the deal.
Hessler said Alliant had agreed to honor a four-year labor contract signed last month between arsenal management and Local 3-495, Oil Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union, as well as the plant's newly signed facilities contract, which supporters hope will lure subcontractors to work inside the arsenal.
The only difference workers at the arsenal will notice after the sale, Hessler said, is that, "paychecks will come from Alliant, not from Hercules."
by CNB