Paul W. Pendorf has assumed management duties at Hitco Carbon Composites Inc. of Gardena, Calif., and acquired a substantial minority ownership.
Pendorf recently was named president and chief executive officer and elected a director.
SGL Carbon AG of Wiesbaden, Germany, sold a portion of its Hitco ownership but retained control of the business as a subsidiary. Terms were not disclosed.
``Hitco remains a strategic part of SGL Carbon's group of specialty technology companies,'' Jan Verdenhalven, an SGL managing director and Hitco chairman, said in a news release.
Hitco employs 250, owns a complex of buildings on 28 acres and makes structural composites and high-temperature materials. Products include rocket-motor nozzles, aircraft carbon/carbon brakes, aircraft structures and insulation.
Pendorf held a corporate position with Cytec Industries Inc. of West Paterson, N.J., through December and then formed AMT II Corp. of Marina del Rey, Calif., as an investment vehicle. Earlier, he founded and was president of publicly traded American Materials & Technologies Corp., which Cytec acquired in 1998.
Hitco traces its lineage to a company founded in 1922 and taken public on the New York Stock Exchange in 1961.
Ownership has included Armco Inc. of Pittsburgh from 1969-85; Owens Corning of Toledo, Ohio, 1985-87; BP Chemicals Ltd. of London, 1987-95; Veritas Capital Partners Inc. of New York, 1995-97; and SGL Carbon since December 1997.
Hitco annual sales peaked at about $250 million during the Cold War buildup of the early 1980s, according to industry sources. Current sales were not disclosed.
Separately, SGL owns 50 percent of Carbon Fiber Technology LLC of Evanston, Wyo., in a venture with Aldila Inc. of Poway, Calif. The Wyoming plant began making large-tow fiber in 1998. Recently, Aldila has explored ways of divesting its interest in the venture. SGL is among possible buyers of Aldila's stake.
SGL's other acquired carbon-fiber businesses are the former RK International Pte. Ltd. of Scotland and the oxidized polyacrylonitrile-based fiber business of Great Lakes Carbon Corp. of New York.