S D Warren Co

Scott Paper Co. said Monday that it will sell S.D. Warren Co., its printing paper division, to an investor group led by South Africa's Sappi Ltd. for $1.6 billion. The highly leveraged deal is the first significant foreign acquisition by a South African company in the United States in 20 years. It would make Johannesburg-based Sappi the world's largest producer of coated wood-free papers. The other investors are DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and its affiliated funds, and UBS Capital Corp.

Scott Paper Co. said Monday that it will sell S.D. Warren Co., its printing paper division, to an investor group led by South Africa's Sappi Ltd. for $1.6 billion. The highly leveraged deal is the first significant foreign acquisition by a South African company in the United States in 20 years. It would make Johannesburg-based Sappi the world's largest producer of coated wood-free papers. The other investors are DLJ Merchant Banking Partners and its affiliated funds, and UBS Capital Corp.

Stocks ended higher in light holiday trading Monday as investors shifted their attention from inflation and interest rates to upcoming third-quarter earnings reports. Stocks sensitive to the economic cycles, such as autos, papers and technology led the market higher as investors bet profit reports from those areas would be among the strongest. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 23.89 points to 3,821.

Stocks ended higher in light holiday trading Monday as investors seemed to shift their attention from inflation and interest rates worries to third-quarter corporate earnings reports. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 23.89 points to 3,821.32, the biggest one-day rally since Sept. 15. In the broad market, winners topped losers by 2 to 1 on the New York Stock Exchange. But analysts noted that trading was light as the Columbus Day holiday kept many investors away.

Scott Paper Co.'s chairman and chief executive, Alfred J. Dunlap, stands to pocket up to $100 million from selling the company to Kimberly-Clark in a $6.8-billion deal announced Monday. But he says he's the "biggest bargain in corporate America." Dunlap said Scott's shareholder value has increased by $4.5 billion since he took over in April, 1994, and began a series of deep cost-cutting moves at the paper maker. "My entire focus from the first day I joined Scott has been . . .

The Supreme Court will take up a property rights case today that could greatly curtail the federal law credited with cleaning up the nation's rivers, lakes and bays after decades of industrial pollution. The Clean Water Act of 1972 made it illegal to discharge pollutants without a permit into the "navigable waters of the United States."