Warren Bechtel, a Western Union spokesman, said two investment bankers had been picked to calculate the rate, but he would not name them.

Still, Warren Bechtel, a spokesman for New Valley, was optimistic that a sale to First Financial would be completed.

Warren Bechtel started in the construction business by hiring out a pair of mules to the gangs laying the first railroad tracks in the Oklahoma Territory.

He became vice-president of Bechtel in 1925 and became president in 1933, when Warren Bechtel died suddenly while traveling abroad.

Founded in 1898 by Warren Bechtel, the company has always been controlled by the Bechtel family.

Warren Bechtel, a Western Union spokesman, said that the improved results from the restructuring had not yet materialized.

Warren Bechtel started as an employee of the burgeoning United States railroad industry in 1898 after his Oklahoma cattle ranch failed.

The interest on the new notes would be paid with additional notes for the first two years, said Warren Bechtel, a spokesman for the company.

But Warren Bechtel, a spokesman, said yesterday that New Valley had determined that "proceeds to be realized wouldn't be sufficient to resolve the debt problem."

And a retired Western Union spokesman, Warren Bechtel, recalled recently that it "was certainly an imaginative, innovative idea," and that singing-telegram business boomed.