LOST EMPIRE : Holmes a Court Sells Most of Corporate Holdings

MELBOURNE, Australia â€”  Australian Robert Holmes a Court sold most of his corporate empire on Friday as the stock market crash claimed as its biggest victim the feared corporate raider who once flirted with takeovers of USX Corp and Texaco.

After months of speculation that his cash was dwindling due to massive stock market losses, the flamboyant Australian cashed in 39.9% of Bell Group, a large minerals concern, keeping a stake of only 3%. He raised about $240 million in the sale, which he had been attempting to avoid in a restructuring of his holdings.

“It’s the end of an era,� said veteran Holmes a Court watcher Tony Moody of the Melbourne brokerage firm A. C. Goode & Co.

The extent of his losses became known in mid-February when the Bell conglomerate said its market setbacks totaled $750 million. Bell itself came under attack from corporate raiders soon afterward.

Purchasing the Bell Group stake were fellow Perth magnate Alan Bond, a billionaire brewer, and the West Australian State Government Insurance Commission.

A one-sentence statement from the group said: “The Bell Group has been advised that interests associated with the chairman have disposed of their 39.9% interest in this company.�

“It seems to signal his departure from the whole investment scene,� said A. C. Goode’s Moody. “It will be boring without him.�

Holmes a Court was not available for comment but he was reported on television as saying he was tired of a decade in the public spotlight and wanted to retire to his thoroughbred horse breeding farm in Western Australia.

Charismatic Figure

His 3% of Bell is worth about $20 million. His Bell holdings, plus his real estate and other assets, once made him a billionaire. Bell stock dropped to $1.50 a share after the crash from a high of $10 a share earlier in the year.

Holmes a Court will remain chairman and chief executive of Bell, but most analysts said that would be only an interim measure until the company’s future is decided.

Holmes a Court, 50, has been a charismatic figure on the Australian investment scene, with four attempts to take control of the country’s largest company, Broken Hill Proprietary Co., ultimately overextending his financial reach as he used borrowed money for leverage.

He burst upon the American scene just over a year ago, buying big stakes of U.S. oil giant Texaco and the No. 1 American steel company, USX Corp.

He was the first to target the then-ailing steel giant in late 1986 and was later followed by Carl C. Icahn, T. Boone Pickens Jr. and others. Holmes a Court later bowed out with a profit of $40 million. USX remains independent and is now profitable.

He also bought strategic holdings of the British bank Standard Chartered and the Sears Holdings retail and property group in Britain, as well as a number of smaller companies.

Before the Oct. 19 global stock market crash--which hit Australia even harder than Wall Street--he had been named Australia’s richest man. An Australian magazine estimated his worth at $1.05 billion.

When the crash came, the prices of his highly leveraged stock holdings plummeted, and he was forced to sell billions of dollars in assets at a loss to lighten the debt load on Bell Group and its 43% owned associate, Bell Resources.

Elaborate Plans

Just one month after the crash, he dealt his 12% stake of Texaco to Icahn, at $29 a share, or $348 million, giving Icahn a crucial role at the No. 3 U.S. oil company. Several months later the stock rose to $50.

In January, he capitulated and sold his remaining 20% share of Broken Hill back to the giant oil and mining resources group for $1.5 billion.

Holmes a Court then came up with an elaborate plan to merge Bell Resources and Bell Group and reconstruct his corporate base--but, in a classic case of the biter bit, he became the subject of a hostile takeover bid. New Zealand entrepreneur Sir Ron Brierley and publishing magnate Kerry Packer launched a bid for Bell Resources.

Despite the sale of his major stake in Bell Group, some analysts do not believe this is the last of Holmes a Court.

Sydney analyst Ian Story of BZW Meares floated one of the more obscure recovery theories.

“We have heard Bond might buy out Holmes a Court, but Holmes a Court might eventually get the better of Bond and make it a reverse takeover, and Bond Corp. would eventually come under the control of Robert Holmes a Court,� Story said.

But Melbourne analyst Rowan Fell of McCaughan Dyson summed up the prevailing view: “I guess there’s a point at which you prefer to look after the family, the horses and the paintings.�