Carpenter Contests Taking of Bridgeport, Conn., Property.

READING, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug. 13, 1999--

Carpenter Technology Corporation announced today that it is taking further legal actions related to its former plant site in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Last week the City of Bridgeport Port Authority filed a Certificate of Taking, acquiring fee simple ownership of Carpenter's waterfront property. The Port Authority has proposed paying Carpenter $2.5 million for the property and is seeking reimbursement of any site remediation costs from Carpenter.

Based on arm's length negotiations with prospective purchasers, Carpenter believes the fair market value of the property to be significantly greater than its $14 million book value. Further, the site has undergone extensive remediation.

"The legal proceedings are intended to help Carpenter obtain a fair value for the property," said John R. Welty, vice president, general counsel and secretary at Carpenter.

The company has requested a permanent injunction barring condemnation or, in the alternative, a declaratory judgment absolving Carpenter from any remediation costs caused by the Port Authority's development efforts.

"We believe the Port Authority's proposed compensation and actions concerning remediation reimbursement are unreasonable and will not be upheld," Welty said. "Not only has the site been remediated with state oversight, but Carpenter also had a purchaser ready to develop the site with minimal environmental impact," Welty said. "The Port Authority has plans of its own that are substantially different. Carpenter should not be asked to pay for the Port Authority's site development. We did not seek this condemnation."

Carpenter closed its 48-acre Bridgeport steel-making plant in 1988 due to weak business conditions. Since then the company has solicited offers from more than 100 potential purchasers, reaching agreement to sell the property four times.

The Port Authority stymied the latest development proposal, which would have given the city 12 acres for relocating businesses and resulted in the construction of a privately financed, $100 million retail development.

Carpenter has conducted extensive environmental remediation of the former plant site, following the discovery of an underground oil deposit and other environmental problems that pre-dated Carpenter's ownership of the property.

In March 1997, the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) stated that the site posed no substantial threat to human health or the environment, and that, so long as no activity disturbed existing environmental conditions at the site, no further remediation was required.

As part of an agreement with Connecticut DEP, Carpenter had agreed to monitor groundwater on the property until the year 2012. The company has spent about $7.5 million in site preparation and environmental clean-up costs in the past decade.

Carpenter produces and distributes stainless steels, titanium and other specialty alloys and various engineered products. In fiscal 1999 (ended June 30, 1999), the Reading, Pa., based company had sales of about $1.0 billion. Information about Carpenter can be found on the Internet at www.cartech.com.