[TheForge] [META] Re: Kaowool

[Mike Spencer]

> As to AP Green products, in business or out, their products will
> still be obtainable somewhere;...

I was curious about why an established name like A. P. Green would go
out of biz.  A not-so-quick google reveals an mare's nest of corporate
take-overs, lateral passes, flights-by-night, litigations, hubris,
cunning, pay-offs and so on, all apparently part of a game of legal &
financial musical chairs.  When the music stops, the corporate entity
left without a chair will be liable for the accumulated asbestos
personal injury claims.  With luck, this losing player will be in
Chapter 11 or will be an empty shell.  At the moment, it seems that
A. P. Green and all its related companies are in Chapter 11.

Apparently an Austrian company (RHI) gleefully commenced to acquire US
refractories assets and was in deep before discovering the extent of
the asbestos liability.  Haliburton, Honeywell and other heavies are
players in all this. It's not clear to me (and won't be without I go
back to school for a degree in commerce and finance) whether
Haliburton simply shucked its liabilities and suckered RHI or if it's
wayyy more complicated than that.

Ahhh, it's always "more complicated than that." Gak!

Now back to your regularly scheduled Useful Discussion...

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer                  Nova Scotia, Canada       .~. 
                                                           /V\ 
mspencer at tallships.ca                                     /( )\
http://home.tallships.ca/mspencer/                        ^^-^^