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

DATE: TUESDAY, January 12, 1993                   TAG: 9301120133
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

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IN BUSINESS - BRIEFLY . . .

Hanson Industries, the U.S. arm of Hanson PLC, on Monday confirmed that it is in discussions with Santa Fe Pacific Corp. about exchange of the gold assets of Hanson's Gold Fields Mining Co. for the coal and quarry assets of Santa Fe. The companies said no agreement to complete a transaction has been reached. Hanson PLC is the British owner of Grove Worldwide Co. in Salem and MW Manufacturing Inc. of Rocky Mount.

More than 47,000 businesses, mainly retail and service firms, will become eligible for Small Business Administration loans and for government procurement programs under a major overhaul of SBA rules, the agency said. It said eligibility has been expanded, the financial assistance process has been streamlined and standards have been reduced.

Stone Mountain exchange customers of Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Co. in Bedford County have voted for a plan allowing them to make local instead of long-distance calls, eliminating toll charges, to Lynchburg. The plan requires the approval of a majority of Lynchburg exchange customers, since it would increase basic C&P rates there.

Executives in the South Atlantic region say they will increase their middle management and professional staffs at a rate above the national average in the first half of 1993, according to a survey by Management Recruiters Inc. Almost 40 percent of 2,600 executives responding said they will increase their staffs, compared with 35 percent in the nation, the Cleveland, Ohio, company said.

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