FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
TUESDAY, MAY 27, 1997                              (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888

                                 
  MARTIN MARIETTA MATERIALS AGREES TO DIVESTITURE IN ORDER TO
                  ACQUIRE AMERICAN AGGREGATES
                                
   Justice Department Requires Producers of Road Construction
        Aggregate in Indianapolis To Modify Merger Deal
                                
                                
     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Martin Marietta Materials, Inc. will be
allowed to go forward with its planned $234.5 million acquisition
of American Aggregates Corporation, as long as it sells a quarry
in the Indianapolis area, the Justice Department announced today.

     Under a settlement agreement reached today with the Justice
Department's Antitrust Division, Martin Marietta Materials will
divest American Aggregates' Harding Street Quarry in
Indianapolis.

     Aggregate is used to manufacture asphalt concrete and ready
mix concrete, which are used to build roads and highways.  The
Indiana Department of Transportation, through its contracts for
highway construction projects, is the largest purchaser of
aggregate in Marion County.  Martin Marietta and American
Aggregates compete in the production of aggregate in the
Indianapolis area.  

     According to a complaint, filed along with the settlement in
U.S. District Court in Indianapolis, the deal as originally
proposed would have allowed Martin Marietta Materials to become
the dominant supplier of aggregate in Marion County, Indiana --
which includes Indianapolis -- and would have given it the power
to increase prices.  

     "If Martin Marietta Materials had been permitted to acquire
both of the aggregate quarries owned by American Aggregates in
the Indianapolis area, the citizens of Marion County would have
had to pay higher prices for the aggregate used to build their
roads," said Joel I. Klein, Acting Assistant Attorney General of
the Department's Antitrust Division, "This settlement preserves
competition and protects customers from higher aggregate prices."

      American Aggregates is a subsidiary of CSR America Inc., a
Georgia-based company.  CSR America is a subsidiary of CSR
Limited of Australia.  American Aggregates' sales in 1996 were
$120 million.

     Martin Marietta Materials is a North Carolina corporation
with headquarters in Raleigh, North Carolina.  Its sales in 1995
were $660 million.

     As required by the Tunney Act, the proposed consent decree
will be published in the Federal Register, along with the
Department's competitive impact statement.  Any person may submit
written comments concerning the proposed decree during a 60-day
comment period to J. Robert Kramer, Litigation II Section,
Antitrust Division, U.S. Department of Justice, 1401 H St., N.W.,
Suite 3000, Washington, D.C. 20530.

     At the conclusion of the 60-day comment period, the Court
may enter the consent decree upon its finding that it serves the
public interest. 
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