Ward's Free-for-All

The fight over Montgomery Ward was turning into a free-for-all. Last week, while Challengers Louis Wolfson and Fred Saigh, former owner of the St. Louis Cardinals, jabbed away, Board Chairman Sewell Avery got a possible new ally. The candidate: Britain's Isaac Wolfson (no kin to Florida's Louis), chairman of Great Universal Stores, Ltd., a giant mail-order firm with 1,000 retail outlets in Britain and Canada.

Britain's Wolfson, according to a Ward official, had "approached" Avery. The rumor around Ward's was that Isaac Wolfson offered to buy a big chunk of Ward's stock if he could have a voice in management and use Ward's stores to sell the products of his furniture and clothing factories. Avery would stay on as chairman.

In London Wolfson had nothing to say. But it was no secret that he was hunting for U.S. outlets; earlier this year he headed a group of British investors that sought to buy control of Chicago's Spiegel, Inc., third largest U.S. mail-order firm.

On his part, Louis Wolfson announced that he is still buying Ward's stock to add to the 500,000 shares (of 6,500,000 outstanding) he announced he held in October. Two of his firms (New York Shipbuilding Corp.. paintmaking Devoe & Raynolds Corp.) are also holding modest amounts of Ward stock.

If elected to the board at the annual shareholders' meeting next April, said Wolfson, his first proposal would be a 3-for-1 stock split. He would also hire five new vice presidents and a president, whom he described as "one of the country's top merchandisers." For the new officers there would be stock options of 5,000 shares each (10,000 for the president); they would put up 10% of the cost and Ward's would finance the rest, permit the officers to pay for the stock over a certain period. He also described a plan to transfer Ward's real estate and 589 stores to a subsidiary firm worth $50 million--and distribute its stock to shareholders through a tax-free "spin-off."

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