Asher is at it again. The irrepressible New York investor Asher Edelman has lighted on Chicago-based Centel Corp, with local telephone and cable television interests, and cellular telephone licences in eight US states, as his latest target, and his Plaza Securities vehicle has joined forces with cellular telephone firm Metro Media CTS Inc of New York to launch a proxy battle among shareholders to seek three seats on Centel’s 10-person board. Metro Media has already said that it wants to buy over 15% but less than 25% of the Centel equity, and has teamed with Edelman to form what they are calling a committee for maximising shareholder value of Centel. They presently together control about 3% of the equity of the company, which reported net profits of $157m on turnover of $1,480m for 1987.