Steel Partners Vs. EnPro, Point Blank, GenCorp, Rowan and Sapporo

Steel Parnters II LP seems to be on a bit of a tear of late.

The activist fund, managed by Warren Lichtenstein, on Friday settled a pending proxy contest with EnPro Industries Inc. Lichtenstein agreed to call off his pending proxy contest after Enpro agreed to expand its board size to nine members from eight and add Don DeFosset, the former chief executive of Walter Industries Inc., and one of Lichtenstein’s nominees (A number of activist investors, including Pirate Capital, sought to have Walter broken up in 2005. Steel held a large Walter stake at the time).

Separately, Point Blank Solutions Inc. announced April 8 that its board would look into strategic options such as a sale of the company after Steel Partners launched an agitation campaign at the body armor production company. Though, Steel Partners hasn’t wrapped up its efforts there. Point Blank later postponed its annual meeting by four months leading Lichtenstein to say this in an April 10th letter to the company’s CEO Larry Ellis: “The board, under your leadership, has gone astray during the past 48 hours by its unilateral postponement of the 2008 annual meeting.”

In addition to efforts at Point Blank and EnPro, Warren has garnered settlements at both GenCorp Inc. and Rowan Companies, in the past few months. Now watch out for his expected rash of campaigns in Japan. His campaign for change at Sapporo Holdings Ltd., for example, is ongoing. -- Ron Orol