FIRM CONTINUES BID FOR THE SANDS

By Diana Henriques

Inquirer Staff Writer

Williams Electronics Inc., a Chicago-based electronics firm, is still a contender in the complicated struggle for control of the parent company of Sands Hotel & Casino, Atlantic City.

Williams has been angling for controlling interest in PPI Inc., which, in turn, holds a 57 percent share of Greate Bay Corp., the casino's operating corporation.

Pratt Hotel Corp., half-owner of PPI Inc., announced last week that it had blocked Williams' takeover bid by forming a joint venture with Drew National Corp. to buy out the other PPI shareholders, Richard and Burton Koffman.

But yesterday, the Koffman brothers called the Pratt announcement ''premature" and said they were still actively considering an earlier Williams offer for their shares in PPI Inc.

A spokesman for the Koffmans, two New York financiers, said the two brothers have received only "a brief communication" from Pratt Hotel and do not yet have enough information to determine whether Pratt has matched the Williams offer.

In the joint Pratt Hotel-Drew National agreement, Drew would pay as much as $5 million in cash plus guarantees for a total of $23.6 million for its share in PPI Inc. Pratt Hotel agreed to purchase the Koffman brothers' interest.

PPI Inc. took control of Greate Bay Corp. in May 1981. The corporation's casino, known then as the Brighton Hotel and Casino, had been operating in the red since it opened in October 1979.

PPI management rechristened the casino the Sands and led it firmly into the black this year, with revenues of $122.3 million and profit of $11.5 million in the first nine months of the year.