AFG to Shift Headquarters From Irvine to Ft. Worth

AFG Industries, the highly profitable glass manufacturing firm that has called Orange County its home for the last four years, is moving its corporate headquarters to Ft. Worth.

The move, expected to take place at the end of the month, will have little effect on Orange County. AFG employs only 14 people in the county, all of them top corporate officials.

AFG attorney Mark Hanson said the company is moving its corporate offices from Irvine to Ft. Worth because the Texas city has a major airport and is more central to the company’s operations.

AFG has 6,000 employees and 12 major factories and distribution centers in nine states. In January, it acquired a Ford Motor Co. glass-making operation in Canada. Besides its small headquarters in Irvine, AFG’s only other California facility is a glass-making plant in Victorville.

R. D. Hubbard, AFG’s founder and chairman, moved the headquarters to Irvine from Kingsport, Tenn., in 1984. The move to Texas coincides with Hubbard’s $940-million bid to take AFG private by acquiring it through his newly formed firm, Clarity Industries.

Clarity notified the Securities and Exchange Commission late Wednesday that it had obtained a commitment from a Belgian company, Glaverbel SA, for $150 million in cash to help finance the bid. In addition, a stock analyst who follows AFG said Thursday that he has received assurances from several major banks that they are providing loans to Clarity to help finance the acquisition.

Hubbard apparently cleared another takeover hurdle Wednesday by resolving a consolidated lawsuit filed on behalf of AFG shareholders who oppose the buyout. The settlement, Hanson said, calls for Clarity to tender for all of AFG’s 28.5 million shares outstanding and to exchange those shares not acquired through the tender into $33 cash rather than into preferred shares. Clarity also has extended the expiration date of its tender offer until “at least April 1,” Hanson said.

Since AFG was formed in 1978, posting an annual profit of $1.8 million, its earnings have grown at an annual average rate of 23%. For 1987, AFG reported sales of $488.4 million and a profit of $81.7 million. AFG common shares, traded on the New York Stock Exchange, closed Thursday at $32.375 a share.