TRW to Buy Chilton Corp., Merge It Into Orange Unit

TRW Inc. said Monday that it has agreed to acquire Chilton Corp., a major credit-reporting company based in Dallas, for $360 million in cash and will merge the firm into its TRW Information Services in Orange.

The acquisition, if cleared of antitrust problems by the U.S. Justice Department, will give TRW Information Services a big presence in the Midwest through Texas and Montana, an area that TRW does not serve.

TRW expects to close the deal within three months, according to Richard D.C. Whilden, executive vice president of TRW Information Systems Group in Long Beach, one of the three major groups under the umbrella of Cleveland-based TRW Inc. The Orange division reports to the Long Beach group.

The acquisition is expected to provide “some small increase” in the number of employees at TRW Information Services headquarters, Whilden said. The unit has about 1,800 employees nationwide, about 1,000 of whom are located in Orange.

Chilton, with $125 million in revenues last year, is one of the five major credit-reporting firms in the nation, Whilden said. TRW is believed to be the largest, he said, with “roughly” $175 million in revenues last year. Numerous regional firms also compete.

Whilden said TRW will maintain a major office in Dallas, but he was not sure how many of Chilton’s 2,000 employees would remain.

Because the acquisition could limit competition, TRW and Chilton’s parent, the privately held Borg-Warner Corp. in Chicago, must get antitrust clearance from the Justice Department.

Whilden said he does not anticipate any antitrust problems because the two companies do not compete directly and because no company knows how much of a market share it really has.