Ballplayer's Tough Inning

1. (for Ignatius) John Billera recalls that when he became chief of U.S. Industries, Inc., in 1965, the conglomerate was so troubled that "we were just one step ahead of the sheriff." He brought prosperity by acquiring more than 100 small and medium-sized companies, in fields as diverse as mobile home manufacturing and secretarial training. Because Billera kept the old owners on as presidents of their companies, while he and the Manhattan staff controlled financing and planning, he called U.S.I. "a confederation of states." Lately, rebellion has been rumbling in some of those states.

Billera, an Italian immigrant's son who was a semipro baseball player before shifting to finance, had made so many small acquisitions that he had trouble controlling them all. Earnings faded from $81 million in 1972 to $66 million in 1973 and the firm's shares plunged from a 1972 high of $28.25 to $7.50 last week. Some of the presidents formed a dissident group; they controlled 3% of the stock and threatened to start a proxy fight in hopes of raising their share to 25%.

The dissidents complained that they have no real say in top management, and called on U.S.I, to improve the companies that it already owns instead of buying more firms. Like all resourceful men, Billera, 61, knows when to strike a compromise. He has already appointed five U.S.I, division presidents, none of them dissidents, to the board of directors. That, together with some as yet unannounced additional concessions, seems to have calmed some of the rebels. If their fellows agree, they hinted last week, they will drop the campaign against Billera.

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