A Helping Hand

In his 28 years in Europe with Armco Steel Corp., silver-haired, silver-tongued Robert A. Solborg, 57, has learned to speak eleven foreign languages. Last week Solborg signed three contracts that made good reading in any language. The biggest deal called for Armco to supervise construction and operation of Italy's first continuous strip rolling mill, at the Cornigliano steel plant near Genoa. The mill, which will cost $87 million, will be financed by ECA (32%) and the Italian government, and is one of the first joint attempts by ECA and U.S. private enterprise to help Europe's steel industry.

Solborg also signed up Armco to install a continuous strip process in the Fiat auto plant at Turin, and to help with a $4,300,000 modernization of a sheet steel mill at Terni, 34% financed by ECA funds. Said Solborg: "This is the sort of thing ECA should have been doing from its very beginning. The only way to impart American know-how to European industry is through people who do it best--American business and industry."

Both the Cornigliano and Terni plants are owned by Finsider (Finanziaria Siderurgica), a government-owned steel trust set up by Mussolini to modernize Italy's steel industry. (It now controls 45% of the industry.) The trust did not do very well with the production of rolled steel: total production last year was only 300,000 tons, barely half the country's requirements. When it reaches capacity in about two years, Cornigliano alone will roll 458,000 tons, and should be able to undersell other Italian-made steel by 25%. Armco will send 60 technicians to Italy to train Cornigliano executives, bring 150 Italians to the U.S. for schooling at Armco. For all this, Armco is charging a flat fee, will get an undisclosed royalty on Cornigliano's output, up to 350,000 tons a year for ten years.

Two other U.S. companies announced overseas development projects last week, without benefit of ECA funds.

P: Akron's General Tire & Rubber Co. bought a minority interest (60,000 shares, worth $168,000) in the first tire-and-tube company in the Middle East. It will supervise construction of a $1,750,000 plant near Haifa, Israel, to employ 300 people, and will supply plant management and processes to produce 80,000 to 100,000 tires and tubes a year.

P: New York's Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., Inc. joined with Powell Duffryn, Ltd., Britain's largest coal firm, to build a $30 million oil refinery in Coryton, England. Under the deal, Socony sold a half-interest in its British subsidiary. Vacuum Oil Co., Ltd., to Powell Duffryn, in exchange for -L-3,500.000 ($9,800,000) and the refinery site. Socony has put $3,000,000 in new capital into Vacuum Oil, will loan it $2,800,000 more to help start up refining operations. The deal will permit Socony to sell refined products in the sterling area despite Britain's recent drastic restrictions on imports of dollar oil.

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