High-flying stock eludes notice - but not raiders.

• Author: Whittington, Dennis

How can a stock nearly double its price in 12 months and still fly under almost everyone's radar? It's not easy, but Charlotte-based Yale International Inc. (NASDAQ-YALE) has managed that. Few analysts follow the stock, and the only real interest has been from New York and Washington investors, some of whom the company probably wishes had overlooked it, too.

Its strange combination of businesses - sugar-beet processing and hoists, jacks and other industrial equipment - put off analysts and investors after it went public in early 1994. The company, then called Spreckels Industries, tried to clear up the confusion last year by moving headquarters from Pleasanton, Calif., to Charlotte, away from its troubled sugar business and closer to its industrial-products operations, including Duff-Norton Co. When that didn't work, it sold its sugar operations and started doing business as Yale International, taking on the name of one of its main brands. (Its legal name won't change until shareholders vote on it this fall.)

But the main thing the changes have done is pique the interest of Washington-based takeover artists Steven and Mitchell Rales, remembered in North Carolina for their 1988 raid on Interco Inc., parent of Lenoir-based Broyhill Furniture Industries. American Enterprises LLC, their securities-trading unit, had amassed 20% of Yale's stock by last fall. In December, it offered $11 a share for Yale, plus proceeds from the expected sale of the sugar business, which Yale had put on the block a month before. In January, the board rejected the offer. It also announced it had found a buyer for its sugar operations. Texas-based Imperial Holly Corp. paid $28 million and assumed some debt in the deal, which closed in April.

Another investment group, Metropolitan Capital Advisors Inc. of New York, bought 10% of Yale last year, and it's gearing up for a proxy fight. This spring, it notified the Securities and Exchange Commission that it would ask shareholders at Yale's annual meeting this fall to pursue the sale or merger of the company "as a means of maximizing shareholder value."

Several other investment firms and arbitragers have taken interest, especially since Yale shed the sugar business. After hovering below $10 for months, the stock has risen steadily since fall, hitting $17 before drifting down to $15.50 in early July.

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