(2 of 2)
ITT also stayed mum on a revelation about the now famous antitrust compromise that allowed it to hold on to Hartford Fire Insurance in return for selling all or part of six other companies. In fact, the Wall Street Journal revealed last week that ITT will not have to sell all of ITT Levitt & Sons. Several weeks after Justice Department officials outlined the terms of the antitrust compromise to the conglomerate's officers, ITT was allowed to buy one of Levitt's fast-growing subsidiaries. The transaction was not reported in any of ITT's financial documents; nor was it publicly reported by the Justice Department, which allowed the purchase.
The former Levitt operation, now renamed ITT Community Development Corp., is the builder of Palm Coast, a planned community on Florida's east coast that is optimistically scheduled to have a population of 750,000 by 1984. Justice Department officials contend that the transfer was proper because ITT subsidiaries had put together the land and arranged financing for the project. It was only after Levitt & Sons was bought by ITT in 1967, they say, that Palm Coast became a Levitt operation. Even so, the disclosure that ITT still owns the project means that the complex divestiture agreement it reached with the Government was even more favorable to the corporation than originally thought.