PhillyDeals: Hostile takeover: The hunter is now the hunted

Deals are back, but things aren't exactly as they were in 2007, before the crash.

Three years ago, electronics-parts-maker Pulse Electronics Corp., of Trevose, tried to buy smaller rival Bel Fuse Inc., of Jersey City.

In a reversal Monday, Bel said it's trying to buy Pulse for $250 million, or $6 a share in cash and stock.

Bel wants to keep the offer friendly, but it's committed to doing the deal, even if Pulse resists, Bel director Avi D. Eden told Pulse lead director John Burrows in a letter.

Bel served notice late last year that it would nominate insurgent candidates to Pulse's board in the firm's next elections and that it was interested in buying Pulse's network-components unit. Pulse has been noncommittal and didn't return calls.

A Bel-Pulse combination would enable the combined companies to cut jobs and other costs, beef up their product lines, boost engineering and design, and increase foreign sales, to the benefit of customers and employees, said Eden, a former executive at Vishay Intertechnology Inc., of Malvern.

Pulse is a larger company, with 19,000 employees and $432 million in sales last year, vs. 2,700 workers and $303 million in sales for Bel. Both companies are publicly traded.

How can Bel afford to buy Pulse, if Pulse is so much bigger?

Bel grew rapidly last year, rebounding from the 2009 slump and posting record sales, plus profit of $14 million.

By contrast, Pulse sales recovered only modestly from the recession, and the company lost money for its third straight year. On the stock market, Bel now is worth more than Pulse - even after Pulse's shares rose Monday after the Bel offer.

In January, Pulse named Ralph Faison its third chief executive officer in four years. In February, Pulse said it planned to raise prices because of increases in minimum wages in sections of China, where Pulse produces many of its parts.

It also announced plans to consolidate its Philadelphia-area corporate headquarters in San Diego, where Pulse has an operations office.

Some 200 tax- and business-consulting employees of

LECG Corp.

, which is based in Devon, have been invited to move downtown and join Chicago-based accounting firm

Grant Thornton L.L.P.'s

Philadelphia office, as LECG sheds businesses to pay its debts.

"We'll be increasing Center City's workforce," confirmed LECG managing director John B. Stine II.

An additional 100 workers in satellite offices will also make the switch.

The deal was negotiated over the last two weeks, by LECG's financial adviser, the investment bank William Blair & Co. L.L.C. Stine told me he held parallel talks over details of combining the two offices with Thornton's Philadelphia boss, managing partner Rick Gebert, who will lead the merged group.

LECG is selling the business units - it hasn't yet disclosed terms - as it tries to meet a $28 million debt-repayment deadline later this month.

The debt helped fund a $60 million buyout of James Smart, founder of an LECG predecessor, Smart & Co., and his partners, in 2007.

LECG also says it has agreed to sell its aviation and arbitration units to FTI Consulting Inc., of West Palm Beach, Fla.

A group of former Smart employees who worked with small-business clients will be given a choice of joining either Grant Thornton or WeiserMazars L.L.P., a New York accounting firm that owns the former Fishbein & Co. P.C., of Horsham.

Another group of at least 10 Smart veterans, led by partner John McLaughlin, has rejected the Grant Thornton deal. They will be joining rival BDO., Scott Balestrier, head of BDO's Philadelphia tax-accounting business, told me.

Meanwhile, Blair and LECG boss Steve Samek are looking for buyers for the firm's remaining businesses.

Some of LECG's remaining people are making their own plans: Brad Baturka, who headed LECG's forensic-accounting practice in Philadelphia, told me he's joined Elko & Associates Ltd., which has offices in Media and Plymouth Meeting, to set up a new forensic group.

It was an amicable parting, say Baturka and Stine.