	talking point burlington industries bur the largest u s textile maker focused on its own business as its competitors found merger partners but now burlington industries inc may have restructured itself into an attractive takeover candidate analysts said the takeover spotlight fell today on burlington which rose to on speculation that investor asher edelman and dominion textiles inc of canada bought an almost five pct stake a published report said edelman and dominion jointly uired a stake in burlington and were weighing a takeover offer edelman would not comment and a spokesman for montreal based dominion called the report just rumors burlington said it did not know if the report was true wall street professionals said they were not convinced of the story or that edelman and dominion would be the victors if burlington actually came into play arbitragers said past comments from dominion however added credence to the speculation dominion has said that it was looking for a takeover in the u s last year dominion unsuccessfully bid for avondale mills and has maintained a mln dlr line of credit to be used for a u s uisition a dominion spokesman said canada s largest textile producer has been negotiating with many u s textile companies but would not say whether burlington was among them there have been uisitions in this area it s not unusual that someone could be looking at burlington after the housecleaning they ve done said eileen gormley of thomson mckinnon burlington sold its domestic operations which made sheets and other linens to j p stevens and co inc for mln dlrs last year it also has reorganized management and focused its operations on businesses that would be less affected by foreign competition gormley said they ve pulled back so as not to be a commodity marketer said gormley she said in moving more heavily into industrial fabrics burlington bought c h masland which supplies carpets and other fabric to the auto industry in the past they just spent and never realized the return on the outlays they did make she said you look at their record over the year and i think they re poised to be more profitable than they had been in the past gormley said she estimated earnings of dlrs per share up from dlrs per share some analysts today recommended clients not buy burlington at its current levels edward johnson of johnson redbook said he recommends selling he said he believes the stock is worth only about dlrs on a takeover basis and about dlrs on an earnings basis some arbitragers however said takeover values have been placed on the company of to dlrs per share after asher s edelman recent history a lot of people don t find him very credible anymore said one arbitrager another however said edelman succeeds in forcing managements to take steps to enhance shareholder values even if he doesn t win the target company edelman was unsuccessful last year in offers for lucky stores inc and fruehauf corp he did succeed in buying ponderosa inc the stocks of other textile makers rose along with burlington j p stevens stn climbed to and fieldcrest cannon inc fld the result of a merger of fieldcrest and cannon rose to west point pepperell inc wpm rose to reuter 
