Ford Aerospace Communications Corp

Shortly after the U.S. 1986 military strike against Libya, C. E. Grubbs, a manager at Ford Aerospace in Newport Beach, read a newspaper article about the key role that his company's sophisticated bomb-targeting system had played in the raid. He called a friend at Ford Aerospace headquarters in Detroit to talk about the exciting news.

In a deal valued at $197.5 million, Loral Corp. said Wednesday that it will acquire the 41% stake in the former Ford Aerospace Corp. that it does not already own. The defense electronics company said it signed an agreement with a unit of Shearson Lehman Brothers to buy the rest of Loral Aerospace Corp. in Newport Beach for 6.15 million shares of Loral stock.

On a Sunday afternoon in October, 1963, Michele and Bob Roof climbed into their Chevrolet and drove 45 miles from their home in Santa Monica to Huntington Beach. They were eager to get a glimpse of Douglas Aircraft's new aerospace plant, where they would begin working the next month. To Michele Roof, 20 and newly married, the unfamiliar landscape of Orange County seemed a world away from the Santa Monica neighborhood where her family had lived for three generations. Her uncle and grandfather had begun working at Douglas' Santa Monica airplane factory in 1934.

Pension-Excess Wrangle: Settlement negotiations between Loral Corp. and the Pentagon over who is entitled to excess money in a pension fund at the former Ford Aerospace unit appear to have come to a standstill. On July 9, the Defense Logistics Agency, which monitors defense contracts, issued a letter to the New York-based defense contractor, saying the company owes it $133.7 million, according to Linda Nichols, an agency spokeswoman.

Since Loral Corp. announced last month that it was buying Ford Aerospace here, Julio Sierra has heard nothing but rumors that the sale somehow involved pension funds. The 61-year-old former marketing manager, who lives on a $2,500-a-month pension, is concerned that his good life will change. He worries that the deal will wreck his retirement. "I have a lot of questions," said Sierra, who worked at Ford for 26 years. But there have been few answers.

Ford Aerospace Corp. said Friday that it has agreed to pay $200,000 to settle a 5-year-old dispute in which the federal government claimed that the defense contractor used improper accounting practices on the ill-fated Sgt. York weapons program. The claim dates back to 1984 when the Justice Department alleged that Ford had improperly billed the government for certain labor costs on the Sgt. York anti-aircraft gun. The claims arose from a series of reports by Pentagon auditors.

Not Part of the Deal: There's one business unit associated with Newport Beach-based Ford Aerospace, the defense and communications subsidiary of Ford Motor Co., that was not included in the $715-million cash purchase by New York-based Loral Corp. Ford Microelectronics Inc., which employs about 200 people in Colorado Springs, Colo., was not part of the deal, said Ford spokesman Tom Rhoades.

In one of the first attempts by a major American corporation to pull out of the defense industry since the revolutionary changes now sweeping Eastern Europe began to place intense budget pressure on the Pentagon, Ford said Friday that it plans to sell its Newport Beach-based Ford Aerospace division and concentrate more of its resources on the car business.

The Pentagon has reduced an earlier estimate and now claims that Loral Corp. owes it $133 million from the overfunded pension plan of Newport Beach-based Ford Aerospace Corp., which Loral, a New York-based defense contractor, purchased 11 months ago. The pension dispute arose when Loral allowed Ford Motor Co. to keep Ford Aerospace's $213.3 million in excess pension assets as part of the purchase price for Ford Aerospace.

An Army reservist said Friday that he rejects an apology from an aerospace company that fired him when he left his job to serve in the Persian Gulf War and intends to pursue a lawsuit he has filed against his former employer. Maj. Stephen McConnell returned home earlier this month with a Bronze Star after serving nearly nine months in Saudi Arabia. He was away on vacation with his family when the New York headquarters of Loral Corp.

The Defense Department is seeking to recover $178.3 million from an over-funded pension program that Loral Corp. used to acquire a Ford Motor Co. defense subsidiary last October, according to documents obtained by The Times. In a letter dated Dec. 21, the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees Pentagon contracts, asked Loral to return $178.3 million in excess pension assets that Ford Motor retained as partial payment for the sale of Ford Aerospace Corp. in Newport Beach.

A Defense Department agency is seeking to recover $178.3 million of an overfunded pension program used by Loral Corp. in acquiring a Ford Motor Co. defense subsidiary here in October, according to documents obtained by The Times. In a letter dated Dec. 21, the Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees Pentagon contracts, asked Loral to return $178.3 million in excess pension assets retained by Ford Motor as partial payment for the sale of Ford Aerospace Corp. in Newport Beach.

In an unusual action, a Defense Department agency is demanding that the government receive a portion of an over-funded pension plan used by Loral Corp. in acquiring a Newport Beach defense firm from Ford Motor Co. last October, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday. The Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees Pentagon contracts, asked in a letter dated Jan. 8 that Loral Aerospace, formerly Ford Aerospace Corp.

In an unusual action, a Defense Department agency is demanding that the government receive a portion of an over-funded pension plan used by Loral Corp. in acquiring a Newport Beach defense firm from Ford Motor Co. last October, an agency spokeswoman said Wednesday. The Defense Logistics Agency, which oversees Pentagon contracts, asked in a letter dated Jan. 8 that Loral Aerospace, formerly Ford Aerospace Corp.

Ford Aerospace & Communications Co. of Newport Beach has been awarded a Navy contract worth more than $215 million to develop electronic warfare simulator systems, the company said Thursday. The purpose of the Simulator Device Development Support system is to simulate actual combat conditions that naval aircraft and surface ship crews would encounter in the modern electronic warfare battlefield, the company said.

The Defense Logistics Agency said Ford Motor Co. has failed to supply necessary information about an overfunded pension fund at the car maker's former aerospace division in Newport Beach. When New York-based Loral Corp. acquired Ford Aerospace earlier this year, Loral allowed Ford Motor to keep about $100 million of surplus funds in Ford Aerospace's employee pension program.