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The Acquisition of Two Companies

The Provident Companies, the No. 2 seller of individual disability insurance policies, agreed yesterday to buy the No. 1 insurer in the field in a deal that would give it more than 1/3 of the market.
The $1.2 billion deal would eliminate about 600 jobs, give a big Swiss money-losing policies sold by the insurer that is being acquired, the Paul Revere company.
Last year Provident’s insurance units had $2.6 billion in premium revenues and Paul Revere had $1.5 billion. About 57 percent of the combined $4.1 billion in premiums came from disability policies that were sold to individuals. Provident’s next largest competitor, the UNUM Corporation, has about 10 percent of the market.
Paul Revere has been controlled since 1985 by Textron Inc. Textron acquired the insurer when it bought Avco Financial Services, which makes high interest rate loans to people whose employment and credit histories make them too risky for bank loans.
James F. Hardymon, Textron’s chairman and chief executive, said the sale "reinforces Textron’s strategy to focus on its core manufacturing and finance businesses." He said, that up to half the income might be used to pay down the company’s more than $10 billion of debt or to buy back stock. Paul Revere’s remaining public shareholders will get $26 in cash for each share, Provident stock worth $26, or $20 in cash and Provident stock worth $6.
To finance the deal, Provident is getting a $300 million infusion of cash from the Zurich insurance Group of Switzerland, which is buying a 15.2% stake in Provident under an agreement allowing it to increase the stake to 40%.
Provident, which is based in Chattanooga, Tenn., announced a $423 million write-off on individual disability policies in December 1993. Paul Revere, which is based in Worchester, Mass., has not taken a similar write-off, said John M. Hanon, an analyst at Derby Securities.
Provident, Paul Revere and other companies have previously said that they had to pay claims on diseases not even known when the policies were written and that many disability claims resulted in larger than expected benefits payment.
The deal drew mixed responses from insurance ratings agencies, which had ranked both companies in the upper grades, indicating a strong likelihood that they would be able over the long haul to pay claims.
How much was earned from both companies’ sale of the disabilities policies（）

A. $ 2.6 billion.
B. $ 1.5 billion.
C. $ 4.1 billion.
D. $ 2.3 billion.

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The word centerpiece in the 3rd paragraph means

A. the most important part.
B. the middle part
C. the central part of the city
D. the most attractive decoration

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The brothers argued about the shoes. A. Right B. Wrong C. Not mention

Adidas and Puma have been two of the biggest names in sports shoe manufacturing for over half a century.
Since 1928 they have supplied shoes for Olympic athletes, World Cup-winning football heroes, Muhammad Ali, hip hop stars and rock musicians famous all over the world. But the story of these two companies begins in one house in the town of Herzogenaurach, Germany.Adolph and Rudolph Dassler were the sons of a shoemaker. They loved sport but complained that they could never find comfortable shoes to play in. Rudolph always said, ’You cannot play sports wearing shoes that you’d walk around town with.’ So they started making their own. In 1920 Adolph made the first pair of athletics shoes with spikes(钉)，produced on the Dasslers’ kitchen table.
On lst July 1924 they formed a shoe company, Dassler Brothers Ltd and they worked together for many years. The company became successful and it provided the shoes for Germany’s athletes at the 1928 and 1932 Olympic Games.
But in 1948 the brothers argued. No one knows exactly what happened, but family members have suggested that the argument was about money or women. The result was that Adolph left the company. His nickname was Adi, and using this and the first three letters of the family name, Dassler, he founded Adidas.
Rudolph relocated across the River Aurach and founded his own company too. At first he wanted to call it Ruda, but eventually he called it Puma, after the wild cat. The famous Puma logo of the jumping cat has hardly changed since.After the big split of 1948 Adolph and Rudolph never spoke to each other again and their companies have now been in competition for over sixty years. Both companies were for many years the market leaders, though Adidas has always been more successful than Puma. A hip hop group, Run DMC, has even written a song called "My Adidas" and in 2005 Adidas bought Reebok, another big sports shoe company.
The terrible family argument should really be forgotten, but ever since it happened, over sixty years ago, the town has been split into two. Even now, some Adidas employees and Puma employees don’t talk to each other.