Crain's Chicago Business articles from April 2009

Crain's Chicago Business archives from April 2009

CORRECTION.(Correction notice)
April 6, 2009... A March 23 story misidentified the Palmer House hotel's ownership. It is owned by Thor Equities LLC and managed by Hilton Hotels Corp.

Three more to try in the Gold Coast.(Directory)
April 6, 2009... Luxbar 18 E. Bellevue Place (312) 642-3400 An affordable menuand a few bargains to bootin the gold-plated Gold Coast? If you can't avoid financial headlines on the bar's multiple TV screens, surely there's solace in a Kobe beef...

ON THE MOVE.
April 6, 2009... ARCHITECTURE/ENGINEERING ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS DESIGN INC., Chicago: Joseph R. Geyer, 49, to vice-president of finance, from senior associate. Also, Neal P. Springer, 60, to vice-president of the mission-critical design group, from senior...

Insurance is city's Olympics hurdle; Daley, Ryan must sell IOC on unusual financial formula.(International Olympic Committee)
April 6, 2009... Byline: JOHN PLETZ Pat Ryan and Mayor Richard M. Daley will be performing a high-wire act this week for the International Olympic Committee: convincing its evaluation team that Chicago's unorthodox combination of limited city and state...

LKQ GETS A LIFT; Bad news for Detroit's auto-makers is a positive for Chicago firm that sells scrap parts to fix up old cars: Shares up 75% in four months.
April 6, 2009... Byline: H. LEE MURPHY At least one local automotive supplier stands to benefit from Detroit's woes. Chicago-based LKQ Corp. sells used auto parts, a good business to be in as penny-pinching Americans fix up their old cars instead of...

Building on local Girl Scouts' success.
April 6, 2009... Byline: Monee Fields-White Job: Chief executive officer, Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, since December. Vitals: 52 years old; bachelor's degree in arts with minor in education, North Central College, Naperville,...

Film producer turns lens on Giannoulias.(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Byline: Shia Kapos Bob Teitel is filming again in Chicago. The producer behind the "Barbershop'' movies, "Soul Food'' and "Nothing Like the Holidays,'' showcasing Humboldt Park, has found another family with a compelling story to...

Lottery's hard sell; Contract aims to lure retailers by replacing outdated technology.
April 6, 2009... Byline: PAUL MERRION State officials are seeking new technologies that take the hassle out of selling lottery tickets, innovations they hope will almost double sales in the next several years. The state is taking bids from equipment...

HMO push for state's Medicaid; Managed-care model could bring big savings; hospitals, docs to fight it.(Health maintenance organizations)
April 6, 2009... Byline: MIKE COLIAS Illinois' deepening budget hole is stoking calls for HMO-style oversight of the state's massive health plan for the poor. Republicans and business groups for years have touted hiring managed-care firms to streamline...

Spotlight: David Gilbert.
April 13, 2009... Byline: David Sterrett Building relationships on Restaurant Assn.'s menu Job: Chief operating officer, National Restaurant Assn., Chicago, since March 3. Vitals: 51 years old; bachelor's degree in hotel and restaurant...

As behemoths stumble, small fry find footing; It's called "creative destruction,' and it's playing out all around us.
April 13, 2009... Byline: John Rosenthal Creative destruction, as described by 1930s-era economist Joseph Schumpeter, is the process by which dominant companies are supplanted by those with better products or superior ways of doing business. Though we...

Media; Focus: Small Business.
April 13, 2009... THE GIANT Tribune Co. The heavily leveraged media conglomerate filed for bankruptcy less than a year after billionaire financier Sam Zell took it private. Over that period, sharp declines in ad revenue dealt a serious blow to the...

Info Junkie.(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Byline: Laura Bianchi Honored by Landmarks Illinois as a "2009 Legendary Landmark'' for his civic and cultural contributions, Lew Manilow, 81, is a trustee of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art and the Goodman...

High-rise risk; Equity Residential's big bet on Florida and N.Y. apartments turns sour.(Equity Residential)
April 13, 2009... Byline: ALBY GALLUN After bulking up on apartments in markets like Florida and New York, Equity Residential is finding that those are the wrong places to be when the housing bubble bursts and Wall Street crashes. A glut of condominiums...

On the move.(Hoffman Estates)(Mutual Trust Financial Group)
April 13, 2009... ARCHITECTURE/ENGINEERING Gensler, San Francisco: Gerald Gehm, 58, to managing director of the Chicago office, from principal in Houston. CONSTRUCTION LEOPARDO COS., Hoffman Estates: Todd Andrlik, 31, to vice-president of marketing...

Tax trap; INCOME TAX HIKE WILL SNARE DEMS UNLESS THEY EASE THE PAIN WITH SPENDING CUTS.
April 13, 2009... Byline: Greg Hinz Amid killer property taxes, Todd Stroger's sales tax and Rich Daley's penchant for fining everything that twitches, Illinois Democrats are walking through a bone-dry forest with a lit blowtorch in considering a whopping...

Steppenwolf Theatre, "A Celebration of the Season of the Imagination''.
April 13, 2009... Steppenwolf Theatre, "A Celebration of the Season of the Imagination'' When: 6:30 p.m. Saturday Where: At the theater, 1650 N. Halsted St. How much: $1,000 and up Who'll be there: Nearly 600 theater lovers and supporters of...

Apple picks North & Clybourn; Retailer inks deal months after walking away from Block 37.
April 13, 2009... Byline: THOMAS A. CORFMAN In an apparent snub of State Street, Apple Inc. has picked the Clybourn Corridor for its next Chicago store. The electronics maker last week agreed to open a signature store on a former gas station site...

Unplugging dereg? As "free-market' power loses support, Madigan calls for state to rethink.
April 13, 2009... Byline: STEVE DANIELS Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan wants the state to consider scrapping its 12-year-old foray into electricity deregulation, a move sure to rankle Illinois' biggest power producer, Exelon Corp. Mr. Madigan...

Technology; Focus: Small Business.(Navman Wireless Holdings )(Motorola Inc. )
April 13, 2009... THE GIANT Motorola Inc. Cell phone titan Motorola has been struggling for so long that Shane Greenstein, a professor at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management, says finding fault with it now "is like beating a dead...

NEW TIF IN OLYMPICS DEAL; City Hall agrees to back proposed district in Washington Park, Englewood; hope is that games will create "speculation and investment' in struggling South Side neighborhoods.
April 13, 2009... Byline: JOHN PLETZ Mayor Richard M. Daley is backing a South Side alderman's push for a tax-increment financing district near Washington Park, part of City Hall's effort to build support for Chicago's Olympics bid. Alderman Willie...

RETAIL THERAPY; It's tough medicine for merchants, but the recession is accelerating a power shift to consumers.
April 13, 2009... Marshall Field famously summed up his retailing strategy as "Give the lady what she wants.'' A 21st-century update for stores battling the deepest shopping slump in a generation might be "Give the lady exactly what she wants right now, at...

Big battles ahead for Navistar; Truckmaker appears well-positioned in race for major defense deals.
April 13, 2009... Byline: PAUL MERRION Navistar International Corp. last week won a battle to compete for a new military-truck contractbut the war to make defense a permanent part of its business is just heating up. The urgent need to protect American...

About-face on housing in the Loop; Proposed zoning changes tilt balance toward offices.
April 13, 2009... Byline: EDDIE BAEB The Daley administration's new plan for downtown aims to curb residential development in the Central and West Loop, a marked shift from the decades-long push for a "24-7'' downtown that doesn't go dormant when the...

Motives aside, Daley on right track with TIF.(Tax-increment financing )(Brief article)
April 13, 2009... Tax-increment financing districts, as originally envisioned, are a worthy tool for revitalizing blighted neighborhoods. Tax-increment financing districts, as practiced in Chicago, too often are goodies Mayor Richard M. Daley hands out to...

Price hikes on menu at McD's; Bigger boosts would ease pressure on franchisee profit but risk irking customers.(McDonald's restaurants )
April 13, 2009... Byline: DAVID STERRETT The table is set for bigger price hikes at McDonald's restaurants this year. A consulting firm that advises McDonald's franchisees is recommending steeper increases this year than it has in the past, according...

Retail.
April 13, 2009... THE GIANT Sears Holdings Corp. The retail business has been under siege for months, but the problems at Sears predate the downturn. In 2002, the Hoffman Estates-based retail giant reported significant problems collecting payments...

THE STREAM.
April 13, 2009... TAKING NAMES Grande Dunes resort: Reporter Shia Kapos spent her spring break in Myrtle Beach, S.C., home to more than 100 golf courses. She found time to swing by the Grande Dunes' two 18-hole courses, among the newest in the country and...

BANKRUPTCY DOC; Flight surgeon-turned-banker leads U.S. in restructurings; "it's a bloodbath'.
April 20, 2009... Byline: STEVEN R. STRAHLER The busiest bankruptcy dealmaker in the country isn't a Wall Street banker. He's a former Marine Corps flight surgeon working out of an office plaza in Skokie. Capitalizing on the financial collapse's...

Ricketts offers to share Cubs; He's seeking more than $100 mil. from investors to help fund buyout.
April 20, 2009... Byline: ANN SAPHIR Tom Ricketts is offering private investors a stake in the Chicago Cubs as he works to finance a $900-million acquisition of the team by his family. Crain's has learned that Mr. Rickettsscion of the TD Ameritrade...

Long flight ahead for UAL, pilots; Union seeks to undo Ch. 11-era pay cuts as contract dealing begins.
April 20, 2009... Byline: JOHN PLETZ United Airlines pilots have fired the first salvo in what's expected to be a drawn-out contract battle, demanding the airline restore their pay to industry-leading levels. In a letter kicking off negotiations with...

McD's stakes burger claim; Chain sets summer launch for first new hamburger since 2001.
April 20, 2009... Byline: DAVID STERRETT McDonald's Corp. is preparing to launch its first new hamburger in eight years, a one-third-pound patty set to debut late this summer. The fast-food giant will begin rolling out the long-awaited Angus burger...

Bank mogul seeks a lifeline; Capital crunch forces FBOP's Kelly to loosen grip, scout for $500 mil.
April 20, 2009... Byline: STEVE DANIELS Over nearly three decades, Michael Kelly built FBOP Corp. into Chicago's third-largest bank holding company without any outside shareholders, but the financial crisis is forcing his hand. Crain's has learned that...

Local pols pile on the pork; Earmarks top $1 billion despite Obama's vow to curb the practice.
April 20, 2009... Byline: PAUL MERRION Lawmakers from the Chicago area are seeking more than $1 billion worth of pet projects this year, another sign that Congress expects more bark than bite from President Barack Obama's pledge to curtail earmarks. ...

`Partnering and branding' part of Astellas' Rx.
April 20, 2009... Byline: Mike Colias Spotlight: Seigo Kashii Job: President and CEO of Deerfield-based drugmaker Astellas U.S. LLC (a subsidiary of Tokyo-based Astellas Pharma Inc.), since April 1. Vitals: 55 years old; bachelor of pharmacy degree,...

Hospitals eye alliance; S. Side providers explore network for handling uninsured.
April 20, 2009... Byline: MIKE COLIAS Leaders of some of Chicago's largest hospitals and clinics are exploring plans to form a network to improve medical access for poor residents on the South Side. The idea is to stitch together affiliation deals that...

NOWHERE TO HIDE; Few local stocks dodged selling stampede in the first quarter; Navistar, Middleby are bright spots.
April 20, 2009... Byline: H. LEE MURPHY At least 10 Chicago-area companies lost two-thirds of their market value or more in the first three months of the year in a sell-off that was remarkable for the breadth of its carnage. Companies ranging from...

Tag salesman; MIDWAY, PARKING METER PROBLEMS DON'T SLOW THE FLOW OF PRIVATIZATION PITCHES.
April 20, 2009... Byline: Greg Hinz With the city's deal to sell Midway Airport on indefinite hold and its newly privatized parking meter system drawing more fire than a shooting range at an NRA convention, this might not be the best time to talk about...

No half-steps: Repeal entire sales tax hike.(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... Cook County should repeal last year's sales tax hike immediately. County Board President Todd Stroger tried to appease voters last week with an offer to roll back a quarter of the one-cent-per-dollar increase he pushed through in 2008. ...

Corrections.
April 20, 2009... * An April 6 Business of Life story about train service to New Buffalo, Mich., should have said that eight of 10 four-story townhouses at Light Harbor Preserve have been sold, with two still available for $1.2 million. * An April 13 Focus...

SAFETY NET FRAYS; Only government entity required to help down-and-out, townships watch revenue fall, needs rise.
April 20, 2009... Byline: MONEE FIELDS-WHITE Plunging property values and a rising sea of needy residents are creating a financial crisis for Illinois townships, the government bodies that serve a critical role in the state's social safety net. The...

On the Move.
April 20, 2009... FINANCIAL SERVICES ARIEL INVESTMENTS LLC, Chicago: David M. Maley, 48, to senior vice-president and portfolio manager of Ariel Micro-Cap Value, from president and chief investment officer at Maple Hill Capital Management LLC. FIFTH...

American Cancer Society's Third Discovery Ball.
April 20, 2009... When: 5:30 p.m. Saturday Where: Civic Opera House, 20 N. Wacker Drive How much: $1,500 and up Who'll be there: Around 1,000 supporters For more info: (312) 279-7362

Info Junkie.(Tom Gimbel)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... Byline: Christina Le Beau Tom Gimbel, 36, founder and CEO of Chicago-based LaSalle Network, a staffing and recruiting firm, says business is up despite a down economy. His recession-busters: Favorite gift book: Dr. John Sarno's...

UNDER NEW LEADERSHIP.
April 20, 2009... Eleven private companies hired new top executives this year, half as many as last year. 6. RYERSON INC. Stephen Makarewicz, CEO 26. CRATE & BARREL Barbara A. Turf, CEO 32. TTX CO. Thomas F. Wells, president, CEO 35. NETWORK...

Realistic reform; CONTRIBUTION LIMITS AREN'T ENOUGH: STATE NEEDS TRANSPARENCY AND ENFORCEMENT.
April 27, 2009... Byline: Greg Hinz With Rod Blagojevich headed to trial, other scandals brewing and the 2010 primary rapidly approaching, it's a near lock that the Legislature is going to pass something labeled "ethics'' before it escapes Springfield for...

Obama puts more heat on food firm; Union fight intensifies at U.S. Foodservice.(U.S. Foodservice Inc)
April 27, 2009... Byline: PAUL MERRION Locked in a nasty battle with the Teamsters union, Chicago's largest privately owned company is coming under intense pressure from a pro-labor Obama administration. Rosemont-based U.S. Foodservice Inc. faces a...

The yeast of Sara Lee's problems; Rise of private-label bread hurts CEO Barnes' brand-based strategy.
April 27, 2009... Byline: DAVID STERRETT Shoppers trading down to private-label bread brands threaten to undermine CEO Brenda Barnes' turnaround plans at Sara Lee Corp. Sales of Sara Lee-branded bread and sandwich meat declined in the last three months...

Previews of Art Chicago, Next and the 12th annual International Antiques Fair.
April 27, 2009... When: First Focus, noon-3 p.m., $150; Antiques Fair preview, 5:30-8 p.m., $150-$500; Art Chicago preview, 6-9 p.m., $40all Thursday Where: 7th, 8th and 12th floors of the Merchandise Mart How much: $25 and up Who'll be there:...

MICROCREDIT GROWS; Demand up at non-profit lenders as banks cut off more small businesses.
April 27, 2009... Byline: ANN SAPHIR Small businesses abandoned by banks are increasingly turning to microfinance, a type of lending more commonly associated with developing nations than with large U.S. cities. Lending by Accion Chicago doubled in the...

DIGGING OUT; Excesses of recent years cast a long shadow over real estate industry.
April 27, 2009... Byline: ALBY GALLUN AND EDDIE BAEB Developers Anthony Rossi and Thomas Moran pulled off a major coup in December, when they landed a construction loan for a 221-unit River North apartment tower amid the worst financial crisis since the...

Cut-rate? Less so; Discount auto insurers follow mainstream rivals in jacking up Ill. rates.
April 27, 2009... Byline: STEVE DANIELS Low-price insurers like Geico are joining bigger competitors State Farm and Allstate in raising auto rates in Illinois, making savings harder to find for recession-battered consumers. Washington, D.C.-based Geico,...

ON THE MOVE.
April 27, 2009... CONSUMER SERVICES BLUE PLATE, Chicago: Beth Bracco, 49, to vice-president of business development, from director of business development. FINANCIAL SERVICES CHICAGO INVESTMENT GROUP, Chicago: Thomas J. Parkins, 65, to president,...

Get healthy-or else; To rein in health care costs, more employers try a slap on the wrist.
April 27, 2009... Byline: MIKE COLIAS In his bid to tame health care costs by getting his workers to live healthier, insurance executive David Kolb favors sticks over carrots. Last year, he began requiring any of his 40 employees who want health...

What about change we can believe in?
April 27, 2009... President Obama won the election on a promise of change, but news out of Washington lately has a familiar ring to anybody familiar with Chicago political customs. First there was the news reported by Paul Merrion in Crain's last week that...

WILL INVESTORS PULL SWITCH? Neutral Tandem's stock has soared this year; so has its short position.(Neutral Tandem Inc)
April 27, 2009... Byline: H. LEE MURPHY Any list of Chicago's fastest-growing companies has Neutral Tandem Inc. near the top. The Chicago-based telecom industry provider posted a 41% jump in 2008 revenue to $120.9 million, while earnings nearly...

Playboy worth more than meets the eye; Hef's mansion, art may be more valuable than his company.(Playboy Enterprises Inc)
April 27, 2009... Byline: ANN SAPHIR Playboy Enterprises Inc., famous for bare-skinned centerfolds, may need to throw open its own kimono. Shrinking magazine and programming sales have trimmed revenue at the Chicago-based porn purveyor, and last week it...

The Stream.
April 27, 2009... Taking names Risky times: Who says no one has discretionary income these days? Shia Kapos checks out who's buying in at the Chicago Poker Classic tournament this week. Taking Names is now a blog: ChicagoBusiness.com/kapos * * * *...

Shelters get along like cats and dogs; Anti-Cruelty, Paws bring tension to "no-kill' negotiations.(Paws Chicago)
April 27, 2009... Byline: SHIA KAPOS When an excitable puppy comes home to live with a contented dog, turf battles often ensue. The same is happening between Chicago's two premier animal shelters, the Anti- Cruelty Society and Paws Chicago, which have been...

Encouraging cities to expand recycling at Tetra; Spotlight: Jeffrey Fielkow.
April 27, 2009... Byline: Monee Fields-White Job: Vice-president, recycling and packaging company Tetra Pak Inc., Vernon Hills, since Feb. 24. Vitals: 40 years old; bachelor's degree in political science and international relations, University of...

What's happening on Chicagobusiness.com.
April 27, 2009... Crain's Blogs: Greg Hinz Stimulus or `stunt'? A group of Chicago aldermen is pushing an economic stimulus plan to help business by cutting taxes and other hassles. In the proposed ordinances, restaurateur and Alderman Tom Tunney...