New Transfusion

When Westchester County Banker Charles E. Stahl and Ohio's Michael Di Salle, onetime U.S. Director of Price Stabilization, bought into U.S. Hoffman Machinery Corp. last month (TIME, April 15), the company sorely needed a transfusion. New President Stahl and Executive Committee Chairman Di Salle hoped to gain working control of the company by buying the 224,938 shares of stock held by President Hyman Marcus, who moved up to become board chairman. They also hoped to raise $2,000,000 to refinance the shaky corporate empire (23 subsidiaries manufacturing everything from candy to tin cans). But the team raised only enough to buy 60,000 shares. Last week, for the second time in seven weeks, ailing U.S. Hoffman got a new transfusion. The donor : Harold Roth, president of Continental Industries, Inc., a vending-machine manufacturer and distributor.

Roth and associates had already lent $1,000,000 to U.S. Hoffman when Stahl and Di Salle were unable to pay the April 30 dividend. When the corporation could not meet its loan deadline. Roth agreed to buy Di Salle's and Stahl's shares at about a share (giving each roughly a $25,000 profit), Marcus' shares at about $7 each. Roth, who with his new directors has already lent the corporation another $1,500,000 and worked out financing for most of the parent company's $4,365,000 bank debt, will be Hoffman's new president. Stahl resigned ("I plan to buy another company"), but Marcus and Di Salle will keep their jobs.

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