WHX Gets a Nominee on Teledyne’s 7-Person Board

WHX Corp., which is pushing for the sale of Teledyne Inc., scored a minor victory Wednesday when it got one of its nominees elected to Teledyne’s seven-member board.

Teledyne, a Los Angeles-based conglomerate that put itself up for sale last month after rejecting a $1.2-billion buyout offer from WHX, said WHX succeeded in getting one of its two nominees elected to the board at Teledyne’s annual stockholders meeting in Santa Monica.

Exact voting totals won’t be available for about two weeks, nor was it immediately known which Teledyne director will lose a seat, the company said.

WHX, the parent of steelmaker Wheeling-Pittsburgh Corp., had nominated its chairman, Ronald LaBow, and another WHX director for Teledyne’s board.

Teledyne officials said it is up to LaBow to decide which of the two will take the seat. LaBow, who attended the meeting to endorse his slate, declined to comment after the session ended.

But Teledyne Chairman William Rutledge and President Donald Rice, who had not met LaBow in person before Wednesday, invited LaBow to attend their afternoon board meeting as an observer, they said.

However, Rutledge and Rice asserted that LaBow or another WHX representative would have a conflict of interest should Teledyne’s board consider a specific buyout offer and would have to be excused from the board’s discussions. That will limit any influence the WHX member would have, they said.