FLOYD ODLUM'S ATLAS CORP. is buying heavily into RKO Pictures Corp., while other stockholders are selling their shares on Howard Hughes's offer of $6. Since RKO sold its moviemaking properties to Hughes, it now has only cash and a corporate name. Odium would like to get the corporate shell, perhaps offset its $20 million in losses against future earnings in new ventures. Atlas, which has more than 17% of the stock, would like to get Hughes's 32% interest.

JOB OUTLOOK is better than ever for this June's college graduates, especially engineers, accountants and business majors. A record number of companies are recruiting on campuses, and those who started after March are out of the running for topflight students. Main reason: number of graduates is down to 343,000 from 374,000 last year, and around 500,000 in 1949 and 1950. Beginning salaries offered are up around 5%.

JOHN L. LEWIS' Mine Workers union, which already owns the National Bank of Washington, third largest in the capital, is buying stock to get control of the Hamilton National Bank, fourth largest. Combined, the two banks would have deposits of $220 million (including the union's welfare fund), and would be 100th biggest in the country.

AMERADA brought in a well near Williston, N.D., which oilmen believe has tapped a new oilfield in the rich Williston Basin.

PROXY FIGHTS this spring are going the rebels' way. On the heels of an insurgent victory in the New Haven battle, Chicago Lawyer Ben W. Heineman unseated (307,859 votes to 219,373) the management of the 1,397-mile Minneapolis & St. Louis Railway, whose main line runs from Minneapolis to Peoria, 111. Heineman, who built his campaign around the lavish expense accounts (up to $100,000 in one year) of Board Chairman Lucian C. Sprague, plans to trim expenses, raise dividends.

IRON CURTAIN countries, turned down once as an outlet for U.S. farm surpluses, may get them under a new proposal. The Agriculture Department is pushing a plan to sell Government stocks to private exporters, permit them to sell to Communist countries for dollars, or even better, for strategic materials.

MISSOURI PACIFIC RAILROAD, in bankruptcy for 21 years, may finally get out. After opposing five different reorganization plans, Robert R. Young's Alleghany Corp. finally okayed a compromise worked out by MoPac Trustee Guy A. Thompson. Alleghany, which owns almost half of the old common, would get 5% or 10% of the road's voting stock under the new plan, depending on what ICC decides.

GENERAL MILLS, whose sales of housewares have been slipping, sold out its small-appliance business (electric irons, mixers, etc.) to Mc-Graw Electric Co. of Elgin, 111. (Toastmaster). Last year General Mills' housewares-division sales amounted to 2% of the company's $483 million gross, but current sales are estimated at less than 1 % or under $5,000,000.

MEAT SUPPLY in 1954 will be the biggest in ten years and the second biggest in history, predicts the American Meat Institute. But the expected supply increase of 160 million Ibs. (to 25 billion Ibs.) will not make up for the nation's continuing population increase. Average meat consumption is expected to drop from 154 Ibs. last year to 151 Ibs. this year, and prices are expected to hold steady or decline slightly.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.