DeSoto Suitor to Mount Proxy Fight: New...

DeSoto Suitor to Mount Proxy Fight: New York investor William Spier has notified DeSoto Inc.’s directors that he is ending negotiations to buy the company and instead is mounting a proxy fight to unseat most of them, documents disclosed. In a letter to the detergent maker’s board, disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Spier said that after months of negotiations he was convinced that “a final contract cannot be negotiated in good faith.”