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Empire Building. Last February Riklis had a chance to sell Butler Brothers to City Products Corp. for $50 million—of which $34 million was in cash. With the cash he set up B.T.L. as a corporate shell, and went shopping. For $7,000,000 in cash he bought 38% working control of United Stores—which in turn controls the McCrory-McLellan chain of stores—from the H. L. Green chain, which was having its troubles. (Green had merged with Maurice Olen's chain of stores in the fall of 1958, but Olen has been charged with overstating his assets by some $4,000,000, now awaits trial for fraud.)
Now Riklis has his eye on the 372-store H. L. Green chain. He says that he controls 15% of the outstanding common stock, will continue to buy until he gets control (an estimated 20% of the common stock). If he succeeds in acquiring Green, his chain-store empire will be second only to Woolworth's.