Top management of Payless Cashways Inc. offered...

Top management of Payless Cashways Inc. offered to acquire the building materials company for $875 million in an apparent effort to discourage unwanted attention from New York investor Asher B. Edelman. A group headed by Payless Chairman David Stanley offered to pay $26 a share for the company’s 33.6 million shares of common stock outstanding. The management offer preempts any attempt at making a bid by Edelman, who has been building a stake in Payless and has said he might be interested in bidding for the nation’s third-largest building materials retailer.