Vons Chairman Disavows Ad

When a full-page newspaper ad in support of “junk bond” guru Michael Milken ran March 31, it didn’t sit too well with one Los Angeles man that the chairman of the Vons supermarket company was a signatory.

“I’ve been incensed by the numbers and the dollars and the moral lapse,” said Michael A. Cornwell, an insurance executive who lives in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles, referring to Milken’s sky-high compensation and recent federal indictment. Cornwell thought it unseemly to find the top executive of a consumer-oriented company on the list of Milken supporters.

After Cornwell called Vons to complain, a Vons spokeswoman responded in a letter that Chairman Roger E. Stangeland, in fact, was “distressed by the unauthorized use of his and the company’s name.”

Although Stangeland had six months earlier agreed “to show support relative to his professional experience with Mr. Milken,” she noted, neither he nor anyone else at Vons “had approved the ad, as evidenced by the misspelling of his name.” In the ad, Stangeland appeared without the “e.” When it ran, Stangeland was vacationing in Mexico.

Scores of Signers

Drexel Burnham Lambert, Milken’s firm, is a Vons investment banker. The El Monte-based grocery company has gone heavily into debt in recent years because of a leveraged buyout and its purchase of Safeway’s Southern California food stores.

The ad, signed by scores of prominent lawyers and executives, was organized by Selig A. Zises, the chairman of Integrated Resources, a New York investment firm. Zises first started gathering their support for Milken last fall.

Zises dismissed Stangeland’s stance as a change of heart. “I think what happened is that after the indictment he changed his mind,” Zises said. “For some reason, (the ad) caused him some embarrassment.”