Protesting Workers Leave Pool Supplier High, Dry
More than 50 people demonstrated Monday in front of the Glendale headquarters of Glendale Federal Savings & Loan. But it wasn’t U.S. foreign policy or investments in South Africa that brought out the protesters. Their cause was Leslie’s Swimming Pool Supplies.
The demonstrators were Leslie’s employees who are angry about the firing of Phil Leslie, a co-owner of the Chatsworth-based company that has offices around the country, Leslie said. Some of the employees, deciding to sink or swim with Leslie, quit the firm in protest of his ouster last Wednesday, he said.
Leslie, 53, claimed in a telephone interview that 19 of the firm’s top 20 officers resigned, that “62 out of our 68 stores closed out of protest” last Thursday and that only seven or eight were open Monday. Indeed, a spot check Monday revealed that no one was around to answer the telephones at Leslie’s stores in Canoga Park, Pasadena, Glendora, Torrance and Anaheim.
Agreed to Lend Money
What’s the connection with Glendale Federal? Leslie’s firing was the latest chapter in a months-old disagreement between him and the company’s other co-owner, Ray Cesmat, over the pending sale of Leslie’s to the Hancock Group, a Los Angeles partnership, for $21 million in cash and notes. Glendale Federal has agreed to lend Hancock most of the money it needs.
Cesmat is pushing for the sale, but Leslie has doubts. And Glendale Federal is in the middle.
“They really had no quarrel with us,” Glendale Federal spokesman Roger Rittner, said of the demonstrators. He said they told the S&L;’s officials that “if the deal went through, they all intended to resign. Therefore it would be a company with no employees.”
Glendale Federal got a court order that forced the protesters to disband Monday. But they made their point. The S&L; has decided not to provide the money to Hancock “until Mr. Leslie and the others involved have settled their differences,” Rittner said.
Cesmat and members of the Hancock Group could not be reached for comment, and telephone messages left at Leslie’s Chatsworth headquarters were not returned.
In 1963, Leslie and Cesmat--each with $3,000--started Leslie’s Swimming Pool Supplies. Today, the private company operates in 18 states with nearly 500 employees, and its 1987 sales totaled $56 million. The partners’ salaries this year amounted to $500,000 apiece, Leslie said.
Partner Wanted to Sell
But problems began three years ago when Cesmat faced a divorce, Leslie said. Looking to sell his half of the company, Cesmat initially tried to sell it to Leslie, then shopped it around to other prospective buyers.
But they wanted the whole business. Leslie objected. “I don’t want to work for anybody,” he said. So Cesmat next persuaded a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to give him permission to sell the whole company, Leslie said. The court also appointed a former judge, Julius Title, to sit on Leslie’s board and to provide a third, swing vote on important matters. Title could not be reached for comment.
Early this year, they agreed to sell to Hancock. But by May, Hancock was still going over Leslie’s books and had not paid a dime. Leslie, saying he feared Hancock “is stalling,” said he finally told the investors: “You want to buy the business, put up the money.”
Last Wednesday night, Leslie said, one of his security guards called to tell him the guard had been fired--and so had Leslie--after a board meeting between Cesmat and Title. Moreover, the pair turned over management of the company to Hancock until the sale is completed, Leslie said.
