Brooke Partners to Acquire Share of American Brands

American Brands said Thursday that Brooke Partners LP intends to acquire more than $15 million worth of American Brands’ voting stock and may acquire more than 50% of its voting securities.

The cigarette and liquor giant said Brooke Partners stated its intentions in a federal antitrust filing. The announcement was made Thursday evening after the stock market closed. American Brands dropped 37.5 cents to $48.375. It has about 110 million shares outstanding.

American Brands also disclosed that financier Bennett LeBow, who controls Brooke Partners, had approached American Brands in July about the possible acquisition of its tobacco operations by Liggett Group, a large cigarette maker also controlled by LeBow.

American Brands said LeBow stated in a letter to its chairman that Brooke would be interested in acquiring the company’s tobacco business as an alternative to an acquisition of all of American Brands.

American Brands, citing record earnings in the first half of 1988, said it has no interest in meeting LeBow to discuss an acquisition.

“The American Brands board of directors continues to believe that the best long-term interest of American Brands and its shareholders is that the company continue to operate as an independent company,” said William Alley, chairman and chief executive, in a statement.

Last year, LeBow obtained a controlling interest in a new firm that merged Western Union Telegraph Co. with ITT Corp.’s international telegraph business.

His Liggett Group made headlines in June when a New Jersey federal jury found that Liggett wrongly implied in its advertising that cigarettes were safe and awarded $400,000 in damages to the widower of a smoker who died of lung cancer. It was the first defeat for the tobacco industry in three decades of court battles over liability for smokers’ deaths. Liggett is appealing the verdict.

Old Greenwich, Conn.-based American Brands makes such cigarette brands as Pall Mall, Lucky Strike and Carlton. It also owns the Jim Beam Brands Co., which makes Kentucky straight bourbon whiskeys. It is also in the financial services business.

In June, American Brands said it would sell its E-II Holdings Inc. for about $1.2 billion but would buy back five of E-II’s home and office products companies for $645 million.

American Brands said it was making the moves to concentrate on three new core business for itself--home products, office products and hardware.

E-II, a company that includes several non-food operations as well as a few small food units, was formerly owned by Beatrice Cos. It was sold to an affiliate of the privately held Riklis Family Corp.

The sale to Riklis included Culligan International, Samsonite and Lowrey’s Meat Specialties.