HAS HAROLD SIMMONS DONE IT AGAIN?

In September, D Magazine published an article about Harold Simmons, a successful wheeler dealer with a reputation for being cunning, often ruthless and, some would say, downright sneaky with his takeovers and cagey investments. Last month, Simmons further enhanced his reputation.

When D associate editor Chris Tucker wrote the story, Simmons had purchased 8 percent of the stock of the Ben E. Keith Company of Dallas and Fort Worth, the North Texas distributor for Anheuser-Busch products. Simmons bought the shares from an ex-Keith employee and retained an option to buy another 3 percent. But he purchased the stock through one of his holdings, a public company called NLI Corp., and that triggered the problem. Because of an agreement Ben E. Keith and all other distributors have with Anheuser-Busch, no stock may be owned by a public company. As Tucker put it, Simmons had Ben E. Keith over the beer barrel.

At the time, Tucker predieted that the takeover king would soon pull a very Sim-monsesque move and offer to sell the stocks back to Ben E. Keith for a profit. How right he was. According to Simmons, he and Robert Hallam, president of Ben E. Keith, have been negotiating a deal in which the distributorship would buy back Simmons’ stock, purchased at $100 per share, for $350 per share.

Hallam says he and Simmons have “an agreement in principle” for Ben E. Keith to the stock, but he had no further comment other than “whatever he [Simmons] wants to say, he can. That’s entirely up to him.” Their attorneys are working on an agreement now.

Simmons is, no doubt, smiling a lot in his love-him, hate-him, J.R. Ewing manner. He’s also probably counting his money. If the deal pans out -and, knowing Simmons, it will -he says he stands to make approximately $4 million. Of the coup, Simmons says: “Well, that’s less than it’s worth, but I’m a generous type of guy.”