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I N ONE OF THOSE quiet, unpublicized corpo-- rate moves; Standard Oil Co. of Indiana is making overtures to shareholders of a small and exotic Berkeley firm whose main products are sophisticated bugs. . - The Berkeley firm is Cetus Corp., founded in the early 1970s by a covey of physicians and ' scientists, including Nobel prize winners. ' ' Standard of Indiana is-putting up $5 million as an investment in a new issue ' of Cetvis convertible debentures and is offering the company's limited number of shareholders $12 a share for their common stock, up to a limit of 12 . per cent of the outstanding common. MHE BIG BENEFICIARIES of the Standard of j llndiana move on Cetus are the Berkeley ' d l ,' '' f ' ame is it eve op- : s MAI:% CLAI:ii to (~ETUS vment of a process for speeding the growth of .~ antibiotic producing bugs ~ R'hat this means basically to a lay.man is. more drugs per bug," Farley said yesterday. "`f e accelerate the breeding process of mi- crobes in a laboratory filled with incubators and technical instruments." On a long-term basis, Standard of Indiana obviouslyy views Cetus as an anchor to windward on the day the world's oil runs out. . For Cetus is heavily into research on bacteria and fungi that can replace the chemicals in petroleum. now used to produce insecticides, plastics, dyes, wash-and-wear clothes and hundreds of other commonplace products. , . ,_. . _ d / company s converUble preferred shareholers ~~ BIOLOGICAL REVOLUTION is coming." ; who are being offered ~i0 a share for stock they A .. ; paid ~;100 a share for less than five yeafs ago. Farley says. In the next 30 years or so -. biology will replace chemistry in importance in C g With the debentures and convertible and an e , y g preferred stock offer likely to be accepted by the , and produce chemicals of interest to us. w Cetus holders, Standard Oil of California will end , "Our company is a member of a..ery small up with a 22 per cent interest, club. There are no more than a dozen companies namel • to row ' d 1 t them do their thin y y the first right of refusal on up to $9 million in er y , ; any new financing Cetus does over the next "We supply them with a kind of plush five years. ; hotel, feed them nutrients; keep them warm deal also calls for the big oil company to have B kele laboratories Farle •_ .s,I sa s: • technology growth companies, the Standard A . for the eare and feeding of baeteria in the , . . g h this country." . . And sinee Cetns is one of the ciassic hi What does Standard want with a relatively like us worldwide." small company that grows bugs ? And as for sales-and profits, Farley is as `"They want to get the benefit of our closed-mouthed as his. researchers: "One of the re4earch in industrial microbiology," says Dr. benefits of being a vnryy closely-held company, Peter Farley, Cetus' executive vice president, a, vr•ith fewer than 100 shareholders, is that we - venture capital expert w ho w as don't ha-e to talk about that In public " -4rs= `; sician and h - p 3 s founders~~ ' ~` an f th y ~r~ y e comp one o ~ ~ * * *