Friday, December 14, 2001
A Youngstown developer's attorney hasn't decided whether to fight for the real estate.
By CYNTHIA VINARSKY
VINDICATOR BUSINESS WRITER
WARREN -- A foreign investor group is continuing to study the prospect of running some type of steelmaking operation on the site of the idle CSC Ltd. mill, but one company executive said he doesn't expect a decision anytime soon.
Don Caiazza, vice president of commercial sales and a former president of CSC, said he still has no information on the identity of the buyers who last month agreed to pay $1.2 million for the 400-acre site on Mahoning Avenue N.W.
Caiazza said the buyers have visited the property "on occasion" and are studying a business plan which he and other managers put together to show how the mill could be revived, in part, and operated profitably.
Big questions: There are two major questions, however, which the investors have not yet answered: Who are they? What do they plan to do with the real estate, once the site of the Mahoning Valley's fourth largest industrial employer?
"They don't seem to be in a hurry to answer either of those questions," Caiazza said. "They've given me no indication at all."
He said the buyers' next step will likely be to take over possession of the property from CSC, which is still the debtor in possession under the company's Chapter 11 bankruptcy case. That transfer of ownership would have to be approved by Judge William Bodoh, who has been hearing the case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Youngstown.
The buyers represent the same group which paid $6 million in October for the mill's continuous caster and melt shop, two of its newest and largest pieces of steelmaking equipment. The two items were sold just before a court-ordered auction at which most of the other equipment, vehicles and furnishings were sold piece by piece.
Contact with investors: Caiazza has been CSC's main contact with the investors, and he signed the purchase agreement for CSC after lenders approved the offer. He believes the investors are Ukranian but said he could not refute published reports of an Israeli connection.
Meanwhile, Youngstown developer Bill Marsteller said his attorney is still trying to determine whether he should try to fight the foreign investors' purchase of the CSC property.
Marsteller maintains that he offered $1,025,000 for the property after a lengthy telephone negotiation during the auction and that he was later informed the lenders had accepted his bid. He was asked to submit a $100,000 deposit and he did so, but the money has since been refunded.
Louis Goldberg, a spokesman for Baltimore-based auctioneer Michael Fox International, has said Marsteller is mistaken. Goldberg said the judge had required that any offer on the real estate must be approved by the lenders and by the court, and Marsteller's offer did not get those approvals.
Marsteller said his attorney, Thomas Schubert of Warren, is evaluating the case to determine whether he should object to the foreign investors' purchase on the grounds that his bid was made and accepted first. "I want to file, but only if the law is on our side," he said.
Schubert could not be reached for comment.
vinarsky@vindy.com