Kademian v. Ladish Co.

792 F.2d 614
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedMay 28, 1986
DocketNos. 84-2758, 85-1280 and 85-1300
StatusPublished
Cited by33 cases

This text of 792 F.2d 614 (Kademian v. Ladish Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Kademian v. Ladish Co., 792 F.2d 614 (7th Cir. 1986).

Opinion

CUDAHY, Circuit Judge.

Ladish Company was a closely-held corporation until October 1981, when it became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Armco, Inc., through a corporate merger.1 This merger resulted in a number of lawsuits, which are consolidated here. William Dixon, Jane Schennum and Robert Eisele represent a class of Ladish shareholders (the “class plaintiffs”) whose Ladish shares were converted to shares of Armco as a result of the merger. Charles Kademian, Stan Janes, Michael Deutsch, Herbert Ende and J.M. Browning are all former vice-presidents of Ladish (the “vice-president plaintiffs”) who sold the bulk of their Ladish shares to ACF Industries immediately prior to the merger. Both sets of plaintiffs sued Ladish; Armco; Victor Braun, former President and Chairman of the Board of Ladish; the Board of Directors of Ladish; the Victor F. Braun Foundation and the Herman W. Ladish Family Foundation, two tax-exempt foundations with substantial Ladish holdings; and certain other Ladish shareholders, asserting claims under the federal securities laws and Wisconsin corporation law. The district judge entered summary judgment for the defendants on the federal claims and dismissed the state claims for failure to state a claim. We affirm as to the federal claims, reverse as to the state claims and remand for further proceedings.

I. FACTS

Like the district court, we will accept as true the facts as presented by the plaintiffs.2 The district court recounted the plaintiffs’ version of events as follows:

The plaintiffs describe the financial history of the Ladish Company as a conspiracy to maintain rigid control over the value of the company and to make it appear to be much lower than it actually was. Victor Braun was Chairman of the Ladish Board. Its chief officer was John Ladish. Their primary goal, in the plaintiffs’ view, was to block any free market activity in Ladish securities, “to keep the reported value and trading prices of the Ladish Co. stock as low as possible.” (Complaint, H 31.) The underlying purposes in doing so were two-fold: First, since much of the Ladish stock was held by charitable foundations which were run by Braun and Ladish, Braun and Ladish could maintain control of the company only if these foundations could avoid disposing of their stockholdings pursuant to IRS requirements for tax exempt foundations. By keeping the price of the stock low, the charitable [618]*618foundations were able to maintain substantial holdings of Ladish stock, and Braun and Ladish were able to maintain control of the company. Second, keeping the stock price low enabled Braun, who had reached the age of 85 and who owned a substantial amount of Ladish stock, to pass on an estate whose value for tax purposes was significantly less than “its true worth” (Complaint, 11 31d).

In pursuit of these goals, the plaintiffs allege that Braun intervened in and controlled transactions of the stock by arranging sales at preset prices and by regulating the number of buyers and sellers in the market. (Complaint, 1133a.) Braun also allegedly took steps to discourage transactions at the corporate level by restricting access to the company’s financial information and by concealing or quashing bids for the company’s control.

All of this alleged control over the market for Ladish shares began to come to an end when certain Ladish vice-presidents sought out a merger partner for Ladish. They hoped to earn a rate of return better than what Braun made available, a deal which might reflect what they believed to be Ladish’s true worth. However, they were unable to escape the force of Braun’s control. For example, some officers approached Arm-co, who had long been a supplier and purchaser for Ladish, and who had allegedly coveted Ladish for years (Br. in Opposition at 15). However, Armco was concerned about offending Braun and losing Braun’s cooperation in securing control of Ladish at some later date. Thus, according to the plaintiffs, Armco refused to purchase any shares without Braun’s approval.

In late 1980, Ladish Vice-President Charles Kademian turned the attention of these maverick officers to ACF Industries, a Ladish customer which had expressed interest in pursuing a merger. Braun, however, attempted to dissuade ACF. He misrepresented the term of ACF’s proposal to the Ladish Board, he informed the ACF Chairman that any purchase of Ladish stock would be considered an unfriendly act, and he attempted to dissuade the mavericks from seeking offers for their stock.

However, ACF was undeterred. On June 13, 1981, it agreed to purchase stock from a group of vice-presidents. It acquired approximately 5% of outstanding Ladish stock at a cost of up to $2,000 per share — nearly 20 times the price which Braun had “predetermined” for sales of Ladish stock.

Through these purchases, ACF obtained a portion of shares sufficient under Wisconsin law to demand access to Ladish financial records. It was at this point, according to the plaintiffs, that Braun gave up hopes of controlling the company and began to pursue merger negotiations with Armco “regardless of the cost to Ladish shareholders” (Br. in Opposition at 17).

And so, according to the plaintiffs, a race to settle the merger ensued. It was in Braun’s interests to declare a quick merger with Armco, the plaintiffs believe, in order to short-circuit a complete unraveling of the details of his prior stock manipulations and still maintain control over Ladish. It was in Armco's interests to settle the merger as quickly as possible in order to preempt a bidding war with ACF.

Within a week after AGF’s 5% purchase, Braun contacted Armco representatives. He met with them several times immediately after. At these meetings, Braun negotiated with Armco on the basis of studies prepared for him by the Ladish treasurer. These studies indicated that the company’s true per share value was much higher than the $2,000 offer which ACF had proposed as its purchase price. Among the valuations which Braun defended were $3,468 per share, $3,738 per share, and $4,074 per share. Braun once calculated that when the company’s “good will” was factored into valuations, the true worth of Ladish was $700 million — in excess of $6,000 per share. However, the deal settled much [619]*619closer to the ACF offer. Armco proposed to exchange 60 Armco shares for 1 Ladish share, a value to Ladish shareholders of $2,100 per share. Armco’s Chairman William Verity admitted at his deposition that the $2,000 mark was the “hurdle” Armco had to surpass.

Next the merging companies swiftly turned their attention to locking up their deal. According to the plaintiffs, this was necessary in order to head off a bidding war prompted by ACF. The Braun family, John Ladish and the two foundations together controlled nearly a majority of the outstanding shares of Ladish stock. Purchase agreements were executed with these and other shareholders on July 2, 1981. They consisted of conditional promises by Armco to purchase Ladish shares. Armco would buy the Ladish shares owned by those who signed the agreements if the merger failed to go through, but only on the condition that none of the contracted group commit itself to “vote any of the shares in favor of any merger or in favor of any sale of all or substantially all of the assets of the company with or to any company other than Armco” (Br. in Opposition, App.Ex. 11). Thus, regardless of the wishes of other directors or shareholders, Armco would have control of Ladish through this fait accompli.

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Bluebook (online)
792 F.2d 614, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/kademian-v-ladish-co-ca7-1986.