Koppers Co Inc

Beazer PLC, a British-American home-building and construction materials company, said it signed preliminary agreements for the sale of three Koppers Co. units for about $60 million. Buyers' names were not disclosed. The units sold were Koppers International Canada Ltd., a steel culvert pipe manufacturer based in Cambridge, Ontario; Ivy Steel and Wire Co. Inc., a welder wire producer based in Houston, and Meadow Steel Products Inc., a Tampa, Fla.

A group led by a British construction firm launched an unsolicited tender offer Thursday for Koppers Co. that values the construction and chemicals company at about $1.3 billion. The Pittsburgh-based Koppers declined to comment on the offer, but traders on Wall Street speculated that the bidding might go higher by sending the price of Koppers' stock well above the $45-a-share offer. Koppers rose $6.625 a share to $51.75 on the New York Stock Exchange.

Residents realized they were in for trouble when an early morning explosion shook the Koppers Co. wood-treatment plant south of Oroville, pushing up a tower of acrid black smoke that burned their lungs and blistered their skin. When small but unhealthy traces of the toxic material dioxin turned up a few months later in locally produced eggs, chickens and beef, they realized the problem was not going to go away.

Koppers Co. on Friday announced the collapse of a $660-million deal to sell its chemicals division to a management-led group. The sale would have helped British construction magnate Brian Beazer finance his $1.8-billion purchase of Koppers. Beazer said he was optimistic that other buyers could be found for the chemicals business.

The $660-million leveraged buyout of Koppers Co.'s chemicals business has apparently hit a snag, putting a hitch in Brian Beazer's plan to use the proceeds to help finance his $1.8-billion takeover of Koppers. The British industrialist, who prevailed June 1 in a bitter takeover battle against Koppers' former management, did not deny the rumors, which surfaced Thursday, nor would he reaffirm a prediction he made Monday that the chemicals buyout would close Aug. 8.

British construction giant Beazer PLC said Monday that it had reached an agreement to sell the chemical operations of Koppers Co. to a management-led group for $660 million as it had previously pledged to do. Beazer bought the Pittsburgh-based company last month for $1.8 billion after a long, much-publicized struggle with Koppers. Beazer at the time said it wanted to sell the chemical operations because they did not fit in with the construction group's overall strategy.

Koppers Co. dropped its fierce resistance to a hostile takeover bid Wednesday, succumbing to a $1.7-billion offer from British industrialist Brian C. Beazer and abruptly ending a three-month battle that caught congressional attention. The sudden collapse of Koppers' opposition to the takeover spelled the end of independence for the construction materials and chemicals company, one of the largest U.S. road repair concerns and a major Pennsylvania employer.