Bid to Buy Wynn’s Scuttled by Security Pacific Corp.

Wynn’s International said Friday that Security Pacific Corp.’s venture-capital unit has withdrawn an acquisition proposal that had been announced by Wynn’s on Sept. 18.

No reasons were given for Security Pacific backing away from the buyout bid, which had been valued at up to $115 million. The offer--engineered by James Carroll, president and chief executive of a Nashville-based subsidiary of the Fullerton-based automotive products suppliers--appears to be dead unless a new financier can be found.

But in a brief announcement Friday, Wynn’s hinted that it may be negotiating with at least one other potential suitor. The company’s announcement said a special committee of its board and its investment bankers, Goldman, Sachs & Co., “are continuing to review and evaluate the alternatives available . . . and are supplying information to other parties who are working actively to develop firm acquisition proposals.”

John F. Lillicrop, Wynn’s president, declined comment, and Chairman W. E. Bellwood could not be reached.

Last month, Lillicrop confirmed that he is leading a management team that had been planning its own acquisition offer for Wynn’s.

At the same time, an official of Security Pacific Venture Capital Advisory Corp. said the $27.25-per-share bid his company made was initiated by Carroll, president and chief executive of Precision Rubber Products, the Nashville subsidiary of Wynn’s.

Lillicrop said then that he had invited Carroll to become part of his group of eight to 12 senior managers. But Carroll, who sold Precision to Wynn’s for $31 million cash and 70,000 shares of Wynn’s stock in 1985, instead proposed his own buyout to the Security Pacific unit. That would have given Carroll a much bigger chunk of the company than he would have as one of a dozen members of the management group.

The Security Pacific buyout has apparently been considered by the special committee since then.

Carroll could not be reached for comment Friday.