December 9, 1988 News 985-2131 Classified 986-6222 RTH AND WEST VANCOUVER DEAL TO BE CLOSED IN THE NEW YEAR OWNERSHIP OF Versatile Pacific Shipyards Inc. aa- nounced Thursday that it has signed an agreement to sell the company’s North Vancouver and Vistoria yards to Shieldings Inc. of Toronto. Terry Lyons, senior vice-presi- dent of B.C. Pacific Capital Corp., the shipyard’s owner, said the sale and transfer of Versatile would be completed early next year. “It’s good news for the future of the yard,"’ he said. ‘It provides (Versatile) with a stable owner that has long-terin interests in the com- pany.’’ Versatile’s purchase price was not released, but the shipyard had an estimated value of between 316 million and $19 million. Shieldings is a private, Cana- dian-owned company with invest- ments in various manufacturing businesses across the country. Shieldings vice-president Terry Godsall said Thursday his com- pany would reduce Versatile’s dependence on new shipbuilding construction and apply the ship- yard’s existing skills to a more diverse range of products with greater value-added potential. The company, he said, was more interested in Versatile’s manufac- turing industrial components than in trying to compete in a heavily- subsidized international ship- building market. “We want to get a lot more money per square foot (from the two yards),’’ Godsall said. He added that Shieldings was not relying on Versatile’s $350 mil- lion Polar Class 8 icebreaker con- tract as the sole savior of the yard, and would not be devastated if the contract were to be put on hold. BCPCC, formerly Versatile Corp., has owned Versatile Pacific for the past 17 years. Versatile Corp. became BCPCC and adopted its new role as a fi- nancial and investment holding company in April, following a restructuring of the company’s massive debt. Lyons said it was too early to North Shore councils ‘state budget plans: 3} News Reporter determine how the sale of the shipyard will affect the final allocation of Polar 8 construction between Versatile’s two yards. Union representatives have estimated in previous News stories that the North Vancouver yard, which led the lobbying effort to land the Polar 8 contract, will get as litle as 10 per cent of the actual construction work on the vessel, and that, consistent with the fed- eral government's policy to mod- ernize and rationalize the country’s shipyards, the North Vancouver yard would be closed as a ship- building facility. But Godsall said Shieldings had no plans to phase out shipbuilding at Versatile’s North Vancouver yard, and ‘‘has always had a sense of discomfort with escalation of work in Victoria, where employ- ment is high and balanced.”’ Final construction strategy for the Polar 8 would be decided, Lyons said, in the next six months. Versatile, which is currently constructing a $16.4 million hydrographic survey vessel and two Type 500 search and rescue vessels worth $35.1 miilion for the federal government, recently delivered the first of two design proposals for the Polar 8 and is scheduled to begin vessel construc- tion in early 1989. Disagreement, meanwhile, be- tween Versatile and its unions over interpretation of seniority clauses and other details of their memo- randum of contract settlement has prevented both sides from signing a final contract agreement. Versatile’s unions voted 60 per cent 10 accept a new two-year con- tract agreement in October follow- ing almost 18 months of bargain- ing. Distribution 986-1337 80 page 25¢ Versat Shipy ANDREA ABRAMSON demonstrates the lighting of the Hanukkah menesah, used ‘to celebrate the eight-day Jewish holiday which began on Dec. 3 this year. The celebration marks an event which occurred 2,000 years ago, when a group of Jews regained the sacred temple in Jerusalem from their oppressors the Syrians. While repairing the temple, the Jews found a flask of oil, enough to burn for only one day. But through a miracle the oil burned for cight days. .