Slugging Operation

When Financier Leopold Dias Silberstein started to move in on Fairbanks, Morse & Co. in January, President Robert H. Morse Jr. predicted that he would "run into a buzz saw." Last week Silberstein got cut up. The New York Stock Exchange agreed to list 141,890 new shares of Fairbanks, Morse stock, giving the Chicago company the additional shares it needed for a stock trade with Canadian Locomotive Co. (TIME, Feb. 6), which it already controls. Thus President Morse, whose family and management own nearly 350,000 (of 1,228,590) shares of stock in the 98-year-old company, hopes to offset the 200,000 shares that are claimed by Silberstein's Penn-Texas Corp. and friends.

In addition a U.S. District Court threw out a suit of Silberstein, president of Penn-Texas Corp., to block the Canadian Locomotive-Fairbanks, Morse stock swap. Ruled Judge Joseph Sam Perry: Penn-Texas "looks like a conspiracy of some type to raid the stock market . . . A slugging operation." After hearing testimony that Penn-Texas still owed $2,300,000 on $4,300,000 it paid for 100,000 shares of Fairbanks, Morse stock, the judge said he had "grave doubt" that Penn-Texas legally owned the shares it claimed. Crowed Bob Morse Jr.: "Obviously, Silberstein has much to learn about legitimate American business."

But Silberstein, with an acknowledged minimum of 115,000 Fairbanks, Morse shares, had already won the right to seat one director at the company's stockholders' meeting late this month. Last week he filed an opposition slate of directors for the seats to be voted at the meeting.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.