Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, August 19, 1993 TAG: 9308190023
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Knight-Ridder/Tribune
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
"The Fieldcrest Cannon board thinks the shareholders are a bunch of idiots and we're going to just take this," said Eric Longmire, research director for Wyser-Pratte & Co., a New York investment company. "We don't have to take this."
Wyser-Pratte, which specializes in trading takeover stocks, has bought a "significant amount" of Fieldcrest stock. The gamble went bad Friday when Fieldcrest's stock price dropped on word of its $137.6 million offer to buy Amoskeag Co., a Boston management company that controls more than 80 percent of Fieldcrest stock.
The deal means Fieldcrest's stockholders - in line for $27.50 a share under a May offer from Springs Industries Inc. - get nothing. Fieldcrest, a textile maker based in Eden, N.C., operates a towel mill in Henry County.
"Shareholders have a right to decide what they want," Longmire said. "It's not up to the company to decide these things for us."
Wyser-Pratte's president, Guy Wyser-Pratte, has a 20-year history of wresting decisions from corporate boardrooms. This week his workers are compiling a list of investors who might be willing to force Fieldcrest Cannon to sell to the highest bidder.
Since the mid-1970s, when he fought Gerber Products' directors, the son of a French arbitrager has built a reputation for cowing directors he feels aren't acting in shareholders' interests. The New York Times in August 1992 said, "A nemesis of management strikes again" when Wyser-Pratte led and won a shareholders' fight to sell Van Dorn Co.
The Cleveland can maker said it wasn't for sale when Crown Cork & Seal Co. of Philadelphia offered $18 a share for it. Fieldcrest also has said it isn't for sale.
Wyser-Pratte's tactics included getting a dissident stockholder on the board and filing a shareholder lawsuit.
"Chinese water torture doesn't ring real sweet, but it describes what the process," said Ronald O'Keefe, the Cleveland lawyer who represented Wyser-Pratte.
In December, Van Dorn's directors caved in and Crown Cork bought the company for $21 a share, 75 percent above its prebid selling level.
On Monday, Wyser-Pratte signaled it wouldn't let Fieldcrest Cannon ignore Fort Mill, S.C.-based Springs' offer - or other bids - without a fight. "This may be an attempt by Fieldcrest's management and board to entrench themselves at shareholder expense," Wyser-Pratte said.
Fieldcrest has defended its board's decision, saying shareholders are best served in the long run if the company remains independent.
by CNB