July 28, 1986

The VF Corporation, the nation's largest publicly held apparel company, yesterday acquired Blue Bell Holdings, the second-largest maker of jeans and casual wear, for about $378 million in cash and stock. The merger of the one-time competitors dissolves the market share lead held by Levi Strauss & Company for the jeans market, and also thrusts VF into a virtual tie with Levi, its archrival, as the country's largest apparel manufacturer overall, industry analysts said. The combination of Blue Bell, which makes Wrangler jeans, and VF, whose H. D. Lee division is the nation's third-most popular brand of jeans, gives VF at least 25 percent of the jeans market, analysts said. Levi, a closely held concern, has had market share as high as 30 percent in recent years, but analysts said that advantage has eroded and the merged companies may have surpassed Levi. Firm industry statistics were not available.

For Trini Sham, the 15-year-old accused of shooting a police officer in a Manhattan park last week, the path to jail led from the streets of Hong Kong to the alleys of New York's Chinatown, where shadowy gangs absorb many young Asian men. Interviews with the boy's estranged mother and law-enforcement officials outline a portrait of a youth who, left without parental control, chose a life that promised action and power but instead yielded violence. The story of Trini, who is now being held without bail on charges of attempted murder of a police officer, also reflects what scholars and authorities describe as a fundamental change in the power structure of Chinatown's community of more than 300,000 people. The authorities said that traditional youth gangs, which act as the muscle for community organizations known as tongs, are in decline while smaller, independent squads, such as the one to which Trini is said to belong, proliferate.

The nation's steel crisis has taken on a new sense of urgency since the LTV Corporation, the second-largest steelmaker, filed for bankruptcy reorganization earlier this month. LTV's move raises the specter of more bankruptcies, more plant closings and more layoffs in an industry that has suffered more than $7 billion in losses since 1982. It also raises questions about whether the nation's steelmakers will survive. Seeking some way out of their morass, the nation's steel companies have joined with their traditional nemesis, the steelworkers union, to rush to Washington to ask for more help. The industry is confident that the deepening crisis - in which plant closings have devastated communities and in which industry employment has plummeted to 200,000, from 450,000 in 1979 -will give it plenty of political ammunition in this Congressional election year.

Greg LeMond won the big one today: the Tour de France. The Tour is the world's most important bicycle race, and LeMond became the first American - the first non-European - to win it since it was first held in 1903. The 25-year-old LeMond, who lives in Sacramento, Calif. in the off season, cruised across the final finish line on the Champs-Elysees as the overall winner after racing 2,500 miles over a course that included stretches of the Alps and the Pyrenees. He finished the race, which began July 4, in the total elapsed time of 110 hours 35 minutes 19 seconds, 3 minutes 10 seconds faster than Bernard Hinault, a French teammate on the Vie Claire team.

With the Commerce Department reporting last week that second-quarter economic growth was at its lowest level in four years, the outlook for corporate profits has taken a sharp turn downward. While some sectors of the economy are showing improvements in profits, analysts have slashed their estimates for many of the country's largest companies. After-tax corporate profits will fall 8.7 percent in 1986, according to the latest prediction by Data Resources Inc., a consulting company in Lexington, Mass. ''Every month, as we've seen the economy not hold up to expectations, there's been a revision downward, and the sharpest revision is going on right now,'' said Werner E. Keller, the director of research at Bateman Eichler, Hill Richards Inc. in Los Angeles.