Deal Off

Biggest merger news in aviation's his tory was Floyd Bostwick Odium's proposal two months ago to turn over $37,000,000 in capital (securities, cash) of his big Atlas Corp. for new stock in Curtiss-Wright Corp., owner of the No. 1 U. S. aircraft& -engine backlog (TIME, April 1). Announced by Mr. Odium with the approval of Curtiss-Wright's President Guy Warner Vaughan, this super-Burbank financial tree-grafting took Wall Street by surprise, filled at least one class of Curtiss-Wright stockholders with articulate alarm.

Protest came chiefly from Massachusetts Investors Trust, holder of 21,700 shares of the Class A stock which, under the Odium plan, would have been exchanged for common and new preferred. Giving nine reasons against the plan, M. I. T. persuaded the management that the stipulated two-thirds of the stockholders would never approve it. Last week, with still other stockholders joining the uproar, Floyd Odium issued a long announcement, Guy Vaughan a short one. Kernel of both: the deal was off.

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