AFG Says It Will Make $16 Million on Lear Siegler Bid

Irvine-based AFG Industries, a manufacturer of glass and glass products, said Friday that it will make a profit of $16 million on its thwarted attempt to acquire Lear Siegler, which is now being taken over by Wickes Cos., its Santa Monica neighbor.

“We will net somewhere in excess of $16 million for our 50% share of the partnership,” R. D. Hubbard, AFG’s chairman and chief executive, told a meeting of securities analysts in Los Angeles.

AFG joined with Wagner & Brown, a Midland, Tex., oil concern, to form AFG Partners, which offered to buy Lear Siegler’s outstanding stock for $85 a share. As previously reported, the partnership disposed of its nearly 10% stake in Lear Siegler at $93 a share--the per-share price Wickes agreed to pay for the aerospace and manufacturing conglomerate.

The investments of the partnership--which has since been dissolved, Hubbard disclosed--will add about $1 to per-share earnings this year, he said.

In agreeing to cash in its joint holding, however, AFG Industries obtained a right of first refusal should Wickes decide to sell Lear Siegler’s Savelite automotive-glass subsidiary.

Hubbard also said AFG broke ground last week in Victorville, Calif., on what will be its first factory west of the Mississippi. The $50-million plant is expected to begin operation in December, 1987, employing 300 to 500 workers, he said. AFG expects to spend another $50 million to build a new plant at an undisclosed site in the Midwest by 1988, Hubbard told the analysts. It also will invest about $30 million in renovating two existing factories, he added.

“We’re totally sold out and are buying glass from our competition to service our customers,” he said.