CALIFORNIA - News from Oct. 2, 1985

Bernard B. Katz, the controversial on-again, off-again director of Helionetics Inc., was reelected to the firm’s board of directors.

Katz, principal shareholder in the Irvine-based high-technology firm, resigned from the board of directors last May, saying that he wanted to avoid conflicts of interest while the board was negotiating for Helionetics to buy out his minority interest in two Helionetics subsidiaries, HLX Laser and Marinco HLX. He holds a 45% interest in HLX Laser and is a member of a partnership that owns 35% of Marinco HLX.

“Since the board subsequently decided to continue operating those entities as majority-owned subsidiaries, discussions (to buy Katz’s minority interests) were then terminated and the conflict-of-interest issue is no longer present,” Helionetics Chairman Wilson K. Talley said.

Katz, who owns about 19% of Helionetics’ stock, previously resigned from the Helionetics board in April, 1984, in an effort to distance the company from business controversies in his past that apparently distressed Wall Street investment firms. Then in May he resigned again, just hours after being reelected at the company’s annual meeting.