DATE: Friday, September 12, 1997            TAG: 9709120566

SECTION: BUSINESS                PAGE: D2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY TOM SHEAN, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   33 lines

SOLITE OPERATION TO BE SPUN OFF IN TRANSACTION

Solite Corp., a Richmond-based manufacturer of concrete blocks and building materials, said Thursday that its Chesapeake plant and a handful of other facilities will be spun off later this year as a separate company.

Meanwhile, most of Solite's operations will be sold to a South Carolina cement producer, Giant Cement Holdings Inc., said Lee Facetti, Solite's vice president of finance in Richmond.

The transaction calls for Giant Cement to swap 650,000 of its common shares, valued at about $14.67 million, for all of Solite's stock. Giant also will assume as much as $20 million of Solite's long-term debt.

Solite, which was started in 1947, is privately owned.

Its Chesapeake facility, on Dominion Boulevard at the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River, will continue operating much like it has, Facetti said. There are no plans to reduce its 25-person work force or scale back activities, he said.

Built in 1968, the Chesapeake plant produces masonry and lightweight blocks for use in residential, commercial and institutional construction. It also resells bricks, mortar, glass blocks and other construction materials.

The Chesapeake plant and a handful of other Solite facilities will be spun off because they don't fit the transaction with Giant, Facetti said. These operations will be combined into a separate company known as Northeast Solite Corp., which will be based in Saugerties, N.Y.

Giant, which produces and sells cement in the Southern and mid-Atlantic states, said it will maintain Solite as a separate unit and keep its headquarters in Richmond.

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