ILLINOIS-headquartered Tenneco Inc. is one of three possible suitors for Gates Rubber, a subsidiary of the privately held Gates Corporation of Denver, a Tenneco spokeswoman said recently. A spokesman for Gates said a confidentiality agreement prevented him from disclosing the names of the bidders but The Denver Post reported that the other two suitors were the Dana Corporation and Tomkins P.L.C. of Britain. Gates, which has been owned for three generations by the Gates family, said in March that it wanted to find a publicly traded merger partner to help finance growth. Gates Rubber, which had 1994 revenue of $1.39 billion, is the world’s largest maker of power-transmission belts and hose and connectors for automotive and industrial applications.
Source: NY Times