The Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. last week laid its money on the line and walked off with the biggest single cash sale the War Assets Administration had ever made. For $65,013,000, the U.S. Steel subsidiary bought the Government-owned steel facilities it had operated at Homestead, Duquesne, and Braddock, Pa. Everybody was happy. WAA clucked agreeably over the price, which it called 100% of the "fair value" and 73% (including rentals already paid) of the plants' original high wartime cost.
The Pennsylvania plants had been virtually earmarked for Carnegie from the beginning. Reason: they were not complete in themselves, as they had been...