Melrose puts a price on 50,000 evacuated Californians: $100m

The Orange County District Attorney closed its criminal probe into May's Garden Grove chemical scare without charges, and Melrose responded within a day by unveiling a claims programme worth up to $100 million, as Reuters reported. That is a ceiling, not a bill: the fund covers hotel stays, lost wages and loss of use for the 50,000-plus residents evacuated when a methyl methacrylate tank overheated at GKN Aerospace's plant, but it explicitly excludes emergency-services costs, where Orange County is separately chasing more than $4 million. Melrose shares jumped roughly 8% to around 501p on the news, having already taken a hit in July when the company flagged a further £25-30 million cost and paused its £175 million buyback. The tank is permanently decommissioned and GKN is targeting 28 September to resume full production, with deliveries to Boeing and Airbus resuming in the fourth quarter. A defined compensation number removes the uncertainty that was weighing on the stock; how much of that $100 million actually gets paid out depends on claim administration rules still to be published.