| Show American Stores Agrees to Submit New Bid for Lucky Salt fake investment firm from interfering with that $235 billion By Joe Rolando City-base- Tribune Business Writer d American Salt Lake Stores Co has agreed to submit a bid by May 17 to acquire Lucky Stores Inc for more than $61 a share or terminate its tender offer for the company That is part of the terms of an agreement American Stores reportedly signed to gain access to certain confidential information about Lucky a Dublin Calif-base- d grocery chain The agreement — announced by Lucky Monday in a prepared statement — also forbids American Stores if its bid is not higher than $61 a share offered by Gibbons Green van Amerongen New York leveraged buyout American Stores attorney Blaine V Fogg in a letter to Lucky 's attorney that was filed with the Security City-base- and Exchange Commission in e Business Tuesday Morning May 10 1988 Section C VA Sells Page 1 He said "The condition Lucky now seeks to impose would permit Lucky to 'shop' any proposal made by American Stores without providing American Stores an opportunity to 'top' another bid and would require American Stores to stand still if its proposal was rejected d Washington D C last week said his company offered Lucky's board $60 a share the day before it accepted the bid from Gibbons Green Mr Fogg was attempting to obc tain Lucky's information so American Stores could make a informed bid for the company Mr Fogg last week quickly rejected a proposal by Lucky for divulging the information however "While permitting American Stores one further bid it arbitrarily freezes any further bidding thereafter and leaves the field clear for the management leveraged buyout" The remainder of the terms of the agreement American Stores signed to secure confidential information from Lucky had not been filed yet with the SEC as of early non-publi- Monday afternoon When American Stores launched its tender offer for Lucky on March 28 Lucky's stock closed on the New York Stock Exchange at 48V8 up Ti Lucky said American Stores also agreed to extend its tender offer for Lucky until the earlier of the expiration of the Gibbons Green tender offer scheduled for June 1 or midnight (EST) on June 13 American Stores also agreed for r a period not to attempt to acquire Lucky unless the price is greater than $61 a share Lucky said However despite Lucky's willingness to cooperate with American Stores it continued to recom $45-a-sha- two-yea- mend that its stockholders accept the Gibbons Green offer as previously distributed to stockholders American Stores owns Alpha Beta grocery chain the sixth larg- - ' est supermarket chain With acquisition of Lucky American Stores would surpass No 1 Kroger Co of Cincinnati in size The Lucky transaction would be by far the biggest ever for Gibbons Green which specializes in lever- aged buyouts However filings before the SEC indicate that Lucky has agreed to pay Gibbons Green $20 million in the event the grocery company backs out of the merger Lucky has also agreed to reim burse Gibbons Green up to $20 1 minion in expenses ior me lever aged buyout 184 Homes In Utah Auction The US Veterans Administration has termed its auction last Friday and Saturday of 203 homes in Utah an overwhelming success and indicated all but 21 of the properties changed hands "When you consider that many of the homes were located in smaller communities and remote areas of the state you can see we had pretty good results" said Gilbert Yocky Jr the loan guaranty officer for the VA's regional office in Salt Lake City J Mr Yocky said the broker for the auction Larry Latham Auctioneers has five additional days to see if it cjan sell the remaining 21 homes i "Several of the unsold homes are close to being sold so we're optimistic that at least a couple of the properties will be sold within the next dbuple of days" Mr Yocky said The auction which was held in the Salt Palace raised $5688240 for the VA's revolving loan guaranty fund out of which the VA pays claims on the mortgage loans for which it guaranteed payment f Ford Hiring New Workers for 1st Time in 7 Years r DETROIT (AP) — Ford Motor Co which earned industry-recor- d profits in 1987 and in the first quarter of 1988 is hiring new workers for the first time since the layoffs of 1981 it was reported Monday if In addition Ford is using hiring techniques learned from foreign automakers who have US factories — methods that include intense testing screening and interviewing Automotive News reported The transplants — Mazda Motor Co Nissan Motor Corp Toyota Motor Corp and Mitsubishi Motors Corp factories in the United States — take as many as 100000 applications to fill 2000 openings " Gold Standard Files Suit To Obtain Mine Profits By Steven Oberbeck Tribune Business Writer Gold Standard Inc's dispute over its ownership interest in the Mercur Mine near Tooele has once more entered the international arena The publicly held Salt Lake City company which is locked in a federal district court dispute over ownership interest in the Mercur mine near Tooele filed suit Friday against a London merchant banking firm Gold Standard claims the United Samuel Montagu & Kingdom-baseCo provided the Canadian-baseAmerican Barrick Resource the current operator of the Mercur mine with confidential information that allowed it to acquire the Utah mine even though Gold Standard had a right of refusal on the property Gold Standard put together the original core claims to the 20 square miles that make up the Mercur property located on the southern tip of the Oquirrh Mountains south of Tooele in the early 1970s It now claims Getty Texaco and Barrick breached contracts and improperly converted its 25 percent participating interest in the property into a 15 percent net profits interest The company's claims against Samuel Montagu & Co proceed the 1985 acquisition of the mine by American Barrick Resources from Texaco Gold Standard maintains that prior to Barrick's purchase of the Mercur property that it was in negotiations with Montagu to provide it with financing to acquire the property d n Me M n?k t May 9 1988 VOLUME 166320000 By Joe Rolando Tribune Business Writer HELPER Carbon County — The layoff of 86 hourly and 12 salaried employees which Castle Gate Coal Co announced Friday will lower the operation's coal production capability to about 700000 to 750000 tons a SHARES UNCHANGED J 481 ISSUES 0 TRADED year 1983 DOWN 975 NYSE 14528 - 060 Index 25654-09- S&PComp Dow Jones 4 199735- - 1011 Stock Prices Post 4th Straight Loss NEW YORK (AP) — Stock prices posted their fourth straight loss Monday in a session dominated by dividend-relate- d trading and takeover news Analysts said fears of a continued increase in interest rates kept the market on the defensive The Dow Jones average of 30 industrials dropped 1011 to 199735 extending its loss over the past four sessions to 6101 points d of Monday's toNearly tal however was concentrated in a single issue — Houston Industries which was unchanged at 30 on turnover of 485 million shares Analysts cited trading strategies keyed to the electric utility holding company's impending quarterly dividend Gold Standard said it trusted Montagu not to reveal its confidential information to anyone But the company alleged that Montagu allowed its information to be used to help American Barrick acquire the property Montagu according to Gold Standard concealed the fact that it was actively pursing the acquisition of financing so that Barrick could acquire the Utah mining property The Salt Lake City company says as a result of the misappropriation of the confidential information that it is entitled to all profits and fees which Montagu and its subsidiary Montagu Mining Finance Ltd earned on the Mercur deal O UP 527 17 property n ii New York Stock Exchange The Salt Lake City company says under its original joint operating agreement with Getty which was acquired in 1984 by Texaco that it had the right of first refusal to acquire any remaining interest in the property which it did not then hold It maintains that as part of its negotiations to secure financing to purchase Getty's interest in the property that it provided confidential information such as detailed computer simulations and projections on the Mercur's potential to the London-base- d merchant banking firm Gold Standard alleges that Montagu after it received the valuable information on the Mercur property subsequently informed it that they were no longer interested in joining with Gold Standard to acquire or finance the acquisition of the Mercur d Castle Gate Coal Lays Off 98 Matching Manpower Market The Market In Brief one-thir- Without the layoff the company anticipated producing about 15 million tons of coal a year said Castle Gate's Robert Gossman manager of employee relations Monday But he said the reduced tonnage and manpower is more in line with the company's sales a reflection of the depressed coal market The layoffs don't necessarily preclude the company from calling back those workers however Mr Gossman said "We've tried to structure the company so w5 can respond to any market opportunity" He said the layoffs were "not necessarily" prompted by any cancellations of coal contracts "We were selling any excess tonnage on the spot market and basically the spot prices are not good enough to sell coal" he explained "So we dropped the production level to match production demand" Asked if the company foresees further layoffs Mr Gossman said there may be some very minor work force adjustments But he said for the most part the work force is at an adequate level Mr Gossman said the layoff leaves the company with 88 hourly miners 27 employees at the preparation plant (located at the former Castle Gate town site north of Helper) and r— FA ( h k Itr 1 k L tua'' ftnB i it I jam -- salaried employees He said no' one was laid off from the prepare tion plant The hourly employees including those at the preparation plant are ' members of the United Mine Work-- ' ers of America union and those laid'' off will be eligible for panel rights at the company according to the provisions of the 1988 Coal Operators Association labor " ' contract Castle Gate Coal is owned by AMAX Inc which purchased the' property previously known as the Price River Coal Co's Nos 3 and 5 ' underground coal mines and prepa- ration plant from American Electric Power Service Corp in February 1986 for an undisclosed amount When AMAX purchased the oper- ation Jeff Weber an AMAX spokes-- ' man in Indianapolis Ind told The Tribune the property had in excess ! of 100 million tons of coal reserves and was capable of producing 15i million tons of coal at full operation Mr Gossman said "Both mines were shut down for some time and obviously the mines deteriorated So we spent the better part of three' months doing rehabilitation work in No 5 mine In the No 3 mine we spent three or four months to rehabilitate it and still have areas we're working on opening up" The No 5 mine is accessible from the old Spring Canyon coal- - 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