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Magazine Publisher Theodore Cross stands to earn a windfall after making a play last week for Harper & Row. Cross, who is already Harper's leading shareholder with 6% of the stock, offered $150 million for the rest of the book-publishing company. One day later Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a publishing conglomerate, bid $220 million.
In the gambling business, the action in corporate boardrooms is almost as furious as it is at the craps tables. Real Estate Developer Donald Trump last week announced a $101 million acquisition of Resorts International. Resorts owns two Atlantic City, N.J., casinos, including the Taj Mahal, which will rank as the world's largest gambling hall when it is completed next year. When the merger is accomplished, Trump will control some 15% of Atlantic City's assessed real estate.
Even as Trump and his fellow moguls were sorting out the final details of their deals, legislators in Washington were fuming about the latest spate of mergers. Some believe the Justice Department has acted irresponsibly in failing to challenge so many takeovers. While the volume of mergers has more than doubled since 1980, the number of federal court challenges to proposed transactions has declined by more than a third. Complained Democratic Senator Howard Metzenbaum of Ohio during hearings held last week by a Senate subcommittee: "Merger mania is rampant in this country today because the Reagan Administration has turned its back on antitrust laws." Metzenbaum has proposed legislation that would limit hostile takeovers.
The 50 state attorneys general last week voted unanimously to adopt merger guidelines that are stricter than those used by the Justice Department. Many states may now try to block some deals, no matter what the Federal Government says. Still, any legislation and legal action to curb megadeals will take time. Until then, says Wallace Turner, a broker at Manhattan-based Smith Barney, "takeover plays are alive and well." And plenty of stockbrokers, investors, traders and dealmakers intend to get in on the action while it lasts.
CHART: TEXT NOT AVAILABLE
Credit: TIME Chart by Nigel Holmes
Caption: A WEEK OF MERGING
Description: Five illustrated charts, actual or proposed mergers involving Dart Group, Supermarkets General, USAir, Piedmont, Harcourt, Harper & Row, Reebok, Avia, Donald Trump, Resorts International.