Top OmniSource execs walk out [UPDATE]

Jun 16, 2008 | 02:00 PM | Michael Marley

The honeymoon between Steel Dynamics Inc. (SDI) and OmniSource Corp. is over after less than nine months.

Daniel Rifkin, chief executive officer of OmniSource, and his brothers, Richard and Martin, both executive vice presidents of the Fort Wayne, Ind.-based scrap processor, will leave the company before July 1 because of "post-acquisition differences" with SDI's management over the operational and strategic direction of the company's scrap business, SDI said Monday in a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

News that the Rifkins were leaving the company, founded some 60 years ago by their late father, Leonard Rifkin, came within days of the disclosure by John Marynowski, OmniSource's longtime executive president of its Ferrous Group, that he had quit for much the same reasons.

Marynowski made his departure known late Friday in an e-mail to the company's employees. "My reason for resigning is due to a strong philosophical difference with our new management. We disagree on strategy, management techniques, customer relations and the long-range vision of the scrap division," he said. "Under the circumstances, it is best that I move on and let a new team take over the helm."....