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Black & Decker, SHV pull out of South Africa

By DOUG COSPER, United Press International

A major Dutch corporation, saying it was forced to 'concede to terror' by anti-apartheid groups in the Netherlands, said Monday it will withdraw from South Africa. The U.S. toolmaker Black & Decker Corp. also announced it is pulling out of the racially divided nation.

Steenkolen Handels Vereniging -- Dutch for Coal Trading Co. -- known as SHV -- and Black & Decker joined several other major Western companies that have announced withdrawals from South Africa.

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But SHV's decision, announced in The Hague, Netherlands, is believed the first prompted by terrorism.

In Johannesburg, Black & Decker said it also plans to withdraw operation from South Africa. The subsidiary conducts marketing, sales and services and employs 44 people.

SHV's decision to withdraw came three days after the Dutch government rejected a request to insure its stores in the Netherlands against further arson attacks by anti-apartheid groups.

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The company, Holland's sixth-largest, had its commercial fire insurance coverage cut in half after arsonists burned a third Makro wholesale goods store in the Netherlands on Jan. 10.

SHV's holdings worldwide include five Makro stores and a 'very limited coal trading' operation employing 2,000 people in South Africa, the company said.

The South African operation yields about 1 percent of the firm's income, which was $6.6 billion in 1985, a spokeswoman said.

The Jan. 10 fire brought the damages inflicted by a group calling itself the 'Revolutionary Anti-Racist Action' to $75 million since September 1985.

'Effective immediately, SHV, distressed and forced by terrorist arson, will take steps toward a complete withdrawal of its investments in South Africa,' SHV director Paul Fentener van Vlissingen said. 'SHV very much regrets that it is necessary to concede to terror.'

He said the move came 'after many successful attacks and threats and after being a helpless spectator for a year and a half.'

Black & Decker joined a growing number of U.S. corporations that have ended operations in South Africa. Roger Lee, general manager of Black & Decker's South African operation, said the toolmaker probably will negotiate a takeover by local management.

Lee said Black & Decker Chairman Nolan D. Archibald announced the company's decision to withdraw in statement from the company's corporate headquarters in Powson, Md. 'Given the size of the operation, it is not in our best interests for us to continue to own and manage it,' Archibald's statement said.

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Other companies that have announced pullouts from the racially divided country include General Motors Corp., Coca-Cola Co., Eastman Kodak Corp., IBM Corp., Canada's Bata shoe company and Britain's Barclays Bank. Only Kodak withdrew fully; the others sold to local interests.

The Dutch government had no immediate comment on SHV's action. But in announcing that it would not insure SHV against future attacks, Prime Minister Ruud Lubbers said Friday, 'I hope the SHV will not pull out of South Africa because it would be easily misunderstood.'

Holland's Justice and Interior ministers pledged to increase security at the Netherlands' four remaining Makro stores during a meeting with the firm last week, but the company hinged its decision primarily on its insurance trouble.

SHV's British insurer canceled the company's fire coverage because of the repeated attacks. A Dutch company associated with the English insurer offered 50 percent coverage, but without government help this was not enough, Fentener van Vlissingen said.

The Dutch Parliament opposed the government assuming a private company's insurance risk, but at the same time urged SHV not to react to terrorism.

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