Fidelity National Buys 31% Stake in Micro General

SANTA ANA — William P. Foley II’s title insurance company, waging a hostile takeover battle for one company, has acquired a 31% stake in another Orange County company, this one a manufacturer of automated post office equipment.

Micro General Corp. in Santa Ana said in a prepared statement late Friday that Fidelity National Financial Inc. bought nearly a third of the company in a private transaction with two venture capital investors. The company did not release the price paid, and no one from either Micro or Fidelity was available for comment.

As a condition of the sale, two general partners of the Oxford Fund in Stamford, Conn., one of the sellers, resigned from Micro’s board. Foley, Fidelity’s chairman, and Carl A. Strunk, its chief financial officer, replaced them. The other venture capital firm selling shares to Fidelity was the Innoven Fund in Saddlebrook, N.J.

Fidelity currently is trying to acquire US Facilities Corp., a Costa Mesa medical stop-loss and property and casualty insurance carrier. US Facilities has sued in a Delaware Chancery Court to overturn a shareholder election last month of two directors nominated by Fidelity.