Kaisertech Ltd

Morgan Stanley & Co. settled a controversial Securities and Exchange Commission action Thursday that charged it with selling stock it allegedly wasn't entitled to trade after the 1987 stock market crash. Last March, the SEC claimed that Morgan Stanley improperly sold more than 2.4 million restricted shares of KaiserTech Ltd. to satisfy margin deficiencies in an account of former KaiserTech Chairman Alan E. Clore. Morgan Stanley neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the settlement.

Morgan Stanley & Co. settled a controversial Securities and Exchange Commission action Thursday that charged it with selling stock it allegedly wasn't entitled to trade after the 1987 stock market crash. Last March, the SEC claimed that Morgan Stanley improperly sold more than 2.4 million restricted shares of KaiserTech Ltd. to satisfy margin deficiencies in an account of former KaiserTech Chairman Alan E. Clore. Morgan Stanley neither admitted nor denied wrongdoing in the settlement.

On a May evening in Houston, a mock logger with a real chain saw dismembered a hunk of redwood at the 50th birthday banquet of financier Charles E. Hurwitz. Just a poke in the ribs, Texas-style, for Western environmentalists' most hated foe. Over the decades in Northwest timber country, there have been many objects of environmentalists' scorn.

Jefferies & Co. said companies controlled by former KaiserTech Chairman Alan E. Clore paid Jefferies about $6.9 million to satisfy a debt resulting from Clore's purchase of KaiserTech limited common stock last October. The stock purchases, ordered by Clore and entities he controlled, were responsible for almost all of a loss reported in the fourth quarter of last year by Jefferies, the Los Angeles-based securities firm that executed the order.

Ten years ago, Texas-born Charles E. Hurwitz sashayed into Los Angeles and waltzed away with McCulloch Oil Co. Since then, the mild, owlish-looking takeover artist has been building a natural resources empire centered in California. Adding to the oil and extensive land holdings acquired with McCulloch, Hurwitz picked up one of the world's largest holdings of redwood timberland in Northern California by acquiring Pacific Lumber Co. in 1986.

KaiserTech Ltd. reported a net loss of $389.1 million for the second quarter, primarily because of previously announced writedowns of various operations. The loss included $357 million in writedowns of the company's electrical-products manufacturing business and its idle aluminum-making operations. By comparison, KaiserTech, which is the recently formed parent of Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical Corp., posted a $30.6-million loss in the second quarter of 1986.

On a May evening in Houston, a mock logger with a real chain saw dismembered a hunk of redwood at the 50th birthday banquet of financier Charles E. Hurwitz. Just a poke in the ribs, Texas-style, for Western environmentalists' most hated foe. Over the decades in Northwest timber country, there have been many objects of environmentalists' scorn.

KaiserTech Ltd., parent company of Kaiser Aluminum & Chemical, said Monday that it has agreed to a cash buyout offer of about $718 million from Los Angeles-based Maxxam Group. Maxxam, a real estate and forest products company that is the world's largest producer of redwood lumber, controls 32% of the stock in the Oakland-based KaiserTech. Maxxam is offering $19.375 a share for about 37 million outstanding shares that it doesn't already own.

KaiserTech said Thursday that it has formed a special committee of directors to evaluate "one or more" offers to buy the firm. The bids are expected to be submitted soon by the aluminum company's management and its largest shareholder. Cautioning that the board "has not yet decided to sell the company," KaiserTech revealed that it has adopted a limited shareholder rights plan that would allow shareholders to buy new stock in the company for $1 per share to help ward off a hostile takeover.