MacMILLAN BLOEDEL CONSIDERS BID
Canadian Pacific joins forest firm takeover game
VANCOUVER (CP) - Directors of MacMillan Bloedel Ltd are considering a bid by Canadian Pacific Investments Ltd. (CPI) Wednesday to Rain controlling interest in the Vancouver-based forest products giant.
The offer by CPI, the investment arm of Canadian Pacific, was the latest offensive in a battle for control of a major slice of the Canadian forest products industry-the outcome of which could create one of the world’s largest forest products companies.
The Montreal-based company, which already owns 2.8 million of MacMillan Bloedel’s 21.2 million common shares, said it intends to make a public offer for all outstanding common shares.
In a news release following a directors’ meeting, CPI said it would offer a convertible preferred share of CPI or $28 cash for each share of MacMillan Bloedel.
The offer would be conditional upon CPI obtaining at least 51 per cent of the shares of MacMillan Bloedel, including the shares it already owns.
CPI holds interests in mining, oil, gas, agricultural
The
20r Copy
Citizen
Thursday, l>ecember 28, 1978 Vol. 22; No. 251 Prince George. British Columbia
businesses, iron and steel, teal estate, plus CP Hotels and CP securities.
CPI’s announcement came only hours before the board of directors of Montreal-based Domtar Inc. completed details of its bid to gain control of MacMillan Bloedel.
Domtar initially announced its intentions Dec. 21 and said it would offer company shareholders one Domtar share plus
$3 for each common share of MacMillan Bloedel. A Domtar spokesman said the offer carried no minimum share requirement.
MacMillan Bloedel has declined comment on Domtar’s takeover bid but, in a surprise move last Friday, made a counter-offer to gain control of Domtar.
MacMillan Bloedel acquired 2.8 million Domtar shares.
about 20 per cent of Domtar’s 14.8 million common shares, from Argus Corp. Ltd. and labrador Mining and Explorations Ltd. for $27 a share.
The company also said it planned to acquire an additional 4.6 million common shares of Domtar at $28 a share on a prorata basis from other shareholders “as part of a program to acquire control of Domtar."
Company spokesmen said the purchase would strengthen MacMillan Bloedel’s place in the world forest products market.
Domtar’s board of directors cautioned shareholders against accepting the offer, warning that they would be relegated to a “minority position in a subsidiary of another company.”
Tom Waterland, British Columbia’s forests minister, said he would prefer to see ownershipof MacMillan Bloedel remain in the West and indicated the provincial government does not view CPI’s bid favorably.
However, he said MacMillan Bloedel’s purchase of Domtar would benefit the B.C. firm.
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'Suspect attempted suicide'
John Wayne Gacy, who is reported to have confessed to the sex slayings of 32 persons, tried to kill himself, says the Chicago Sun-Times. Page 5.
Index
Bridge............... Family................. .......22, 2.1
Business........... Horoscopes.......... .............21
City, B.C........... ........2, :i, 13
Classified.......... ...........15-19 National............... ...............6
Comics.............. ................20 Sports................... ............7-9
Crossword....... ................17 Television............ .............21
Editorial........... ..................1
THE WEATHER
The forecast for tonight and Friday calls for sunny skies and cold temperatures.
The expected high both days is -17; tonight’s forecast low is -37. The high Wednesday was -9, the low -24 with no precipitation.
On this date last year the high was -10, the low *20.
( NOW HEAR THIS)
• With all tlie post-Christmas sales in progress, one harried homemaker was heard to tell her husband: “Maybe Santa should come late next year, it sure would be less expensive.”
• A Prince George couple, who built a Santa and reindeer for outside deocrations 23 years ago, want a thief to show some compassion. They had planned to hand tlie display down to their children, but somebody stole one of the reindeer the other night and came back a day later to take a spotlight. They want the thief toquietly return the reindeer so their display can be nostalgically cbmplete. They say he can keep the spotlight.
• Iton East of Central Interior Cablevision says ABC network programming should be available after hours on cablevision’s Channel 9 “any day now.” He said full ABC programming probably won’t be available now until late 1979.
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TORONTO (CP) - Hudson’s Bay Co., the Winnipeg-based retail giant, has finally obtained control of Simpsons Ltd., ending a bitter six-week takeover struggle that involved Chicago’s big department store chain, Sears, Roebuck and Co.
Hudson’s Bay announced Wednesday that 60 per cent of the common shares of Simpsons — controlling interest — have been tendered as a result of its takeover offer. In addition, the company has received 60 per cent of the Class B shares of Simpsons-Sears.
Of Simpsons-Sears total shares, 18 per cent are Class A, non-voting shares; 41 per cent are Class B voting shares owned by Simpsons-Sears, and the remaining 41 per cent are Class C. voting shares, owned by Sears, Roebuck.
Hudson’s Bay now has acquired 60 per cent of the 41 per cent Class B shares of Simpsons-Sears. This gives it a 24-per-cent interest in Simpsons-Sears. Hudson’s Bay offer extends to the full 41 per cent interest, but a company spokesman said “we don’t expect to get it all."
If Hudson’s Bay fails to obtain the full 41 per cent, Sears, Roebuck will have the controlling interest in Simpsons-Sears.
Meanwhile, Hudson’s Bay said it will extend the deadline to Jan. 10 for Simpsons shareholders to decide whether they accept the Bay’s offer.
A Hudson’s Bay spokesman said it was too early to determine when or how the company would assume its new role as majority shareholder of Simpsons.
“It is difficult to tell, because all the other situations have been what you call friendly takeovers.”
Hudson’s Bay has made it clear that the shares it picks up from Simpsons-Sears as part of the takeover would be regarded as a passive investment. The plan would be to dispose of the shares in Simpsons-Sears at some future date.
Hudson’s Bay won the takeover battle a week ago when a proposed merger between Simpsons and Simpsons-Sears collapsed after Sears, Roebuck balked at the new, enriched proposals.
This mail arrived too early
VICTORIA (CP) - The headmaster of St. Michael’s University School says the outstanding speed and efficiency of the postal service here during the recent Christmas rush has caused him some pain and embarrassment.
John Schaffter said Wednesday he had assured all senior students that no report cards would reach their homes until after Christmas.
He said the reports were placed in the mail on the evening of Dec. 21, which would have ruled out delivery before Christmas.
“Those reports arrived at Victoria addresses, I have since been horrified to learn, on the morning of Dec. 22, by the final delivery before Christinas, and literally within hours of being mailed.”
He congratulated the post office for doing an outstanding job and apologized to the students “whose Christmas joy may have been even slightly beclouded by an unfortunate miscalculation.”
Sun dogs
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Citlwn pho(o by Tim Swanky
The cold that descended on Prince George today and made an Arctic tableau of mobile homes nestled in the Ponderosa Trailer Park also brought out the sun dogs. The "dogs” only appear in extreme cold and are reflections off ice crystals in the air from the “real” sun in the centre. The mercury was at 33 C below zero when Prince George awoke today.
'Egyptians won't side with Syria'
TEL AVIV (AP) — Foreign Minister Moshe Dayan says Egyptian Prime Minister Mustafa Khalil has promised that Egypt would not join Syria if that country started a war with Israel, the newspaper Maariv reported today.
Maariv said Dayan told a meeting of the Israeli Parliament’s foreign affairs and security committee that Khalil had given the assurance at their meeting in Brussels last weekend.
One of the major stumbling blocks to an Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty is the dispute over whether the treaty would supersede Egypt’s security agreements with Arab countries.
FIRST TRIAL OF ITS KIND
Husband 'not guilty' in rape case
SALEM, Ore. (AP) — John Rideout has been acquitted of raping his wife in a trial he says he and his wife will both be “a long, long while" getting over.
But his 23-year-old wife Greta says she does not regret bringing the charge. “I was right what I did, but whether it was worth it or not, I’m not sure,” Mrs. Rideout said. The couple’s intimate lives problems were exposed during the trial.
The case was believed to be the first prosecution in the United States of a husband charged with raping his wife while they lived together.
Rideout, 21, was found not
guilty Wednesday of raping his wife by the unanimous vote of a four-man eight-woman jury
that deliberated for three hours.
He said both he and his
JOHN RIDEOUT
GRETA RIDEOUT
ABOARD REFUGEE BOAT
'A mass of humanity'
Associated Press photographer Andy Hernandez boarded the freighter Tung An to get a look at more than 2,000 Vietnamese refugees waitingin MaNila Hay since they were refused permission to land Wednesday. The refugees were turned away from the British protectorate of Brunei last weekend. Here is his story:
ABOARDTHETUNGAN (AP) — Two things hit me when I boarded this black freighter carrying unwanted refugees from Vietnam: tlie sight and smell of a mass of humanity.
Hundreds of sweating faces [jeered over the 225-foot-long Tung An’s rails as I approached.
The Philippine government refused to allow reporters aboard, but I hired an outrigger canoe to try my luck. We mingled with other bancas, or lishing boats, and then went as close to the vessel as we could witlKuit alarming the guards in a nearby Philippine navy fastboat.
We manoeuvred to the side of the freighter opposite tlie fastboat, and 1 signalled to the refugees that 1 was climbing aboad. 1
Refugees aboard the Tung An
pointed to my camera, and they understood. They threw me a rope.
I told my boatman to cast his net and pretend to fish, and then grasped the rope and was hauled aboard the Tung An.
Several refugees could speak English, but I asked them to keep quiet about my presence. I stashed my equipment except for one camera, which I kept under my shirt.
There were people everywhere. Theofficiai figure is 2,300, but Au Hong Tai, who said he was tlie refugees’ representative, said it was closer to 2,500.
I couldn’t count them all. Many were sleeping. Some lined up at the galley for their breakfast ration of rice-and-water gruel, and others held tin cans filled with a tasteless-looking potion.
Clothes were strung everywhere, topside and below. The refugees washed their garments with water scooped from the sea in tin cans at the end of long ropes.
As I climbed back into my boat, the refugees wished me luck and said be sure tlie world knows about the Tung An.
See also page 5
estranged wife “have been hurt pretty deeply” by the trial. “I’m so nervous I can’t say anything but that I’m happy,” Rideout said. “I’m just going home and going back to work.
“It will be a long, long while before either of us gets over it.”
Asked whether he felt bitter toward his wife, Rideout said: “I don’t know how I feel about her.”
Mrs. Rideout, who has filed for divorce and custody of the couple’s 2*2-year-old daughter, said she feels no hostility toward her husband. But she said: “I think men who are probably a lot worse than John will be sitting back and snickering.
“A lot of women who are beaten a lot worse than I was beaten and forced into sex afterwards were waiting to see whether a man could be convicted and punished for what men are doing to them.," she said of the verdict.
"They will feel now that they have no recourse, that they have to put up with it.”
Mrs. Rideout testified her husband beat her and forced her to have sex Oct. 10 during an argument at their Salem apartment. Rideout told the jury he slapped his wife during the argument, but they then made up before having intercourse.
The prosecution was made possible by a 1977 change in Oregon’s rape law that removed marital privilege as a defence against rape. Iowa and Delaware have similar laws.
Policemen get clubs
VICTORIA (CP) - Victoria police will be issued wooden clubs to help them fend off attackers, the city police board decided Wednesday.
Police Chief John Gregory said the clubs, 26 inches long and two inches thick, are non-lethal defensive pieces of equipment that will give police officers a chance to defend themselves without using guns.
He said the men need an intermediary weapon to combat the rising incidence of armed attack.
“The gun is the last resort,” he said. “It should only be used in extreme circumstances.”