Philadelphia Business Journal articles from April 1994

Philadelphia Business Journal archives from April 1994

Elliott's Amazing Juices maker seeking to share its apple cart. (Elliott Hirsh)
April 29, 1994... JENKINTOWN -- Elliott is looking to get out of Elliott's Amazing Juices. Or at least from the financial squeeze. Owner Elliott Hirsh is trying to juice up interest among investors and beverage distributors by putting 48 percent of his...

Hahnemann is linking heart care. (Hahnemann University Hospital)
April 29, 1994... Hahnemann University Hospital is reaching into the suburbs to further its quest to be the region's premier provider of heart care. The 636-bed Center City hospital -- which already performs more coronary bypass surgeries than any other...

New CEO mends fences at InterDigital. (Interdigital Communications Corp. CEO Donald Schilling)
April 29, 1994... KING OF PRUSSIA -- American Telephone & Telegraph Co. paid InterDigital Communications Corp. $2.4 million in upfront royalties to use patented technology that the telephone equipment manufacturer has sued other giants for infringing upon....

Rendell denies banker's allegations. (Mayor Edward Rendell; United Bank of Philadelphia)
April 29, 1994... The founder of the only black-owned bank in Philadelphia said she believes the institution is being snubbed by Mayor Edward Rendell, who has declined invitations to all three ribbon-cutting ceremonies United Bank of Philadelphia has held in its...

A sweet deal for Tastykakes and Wawa. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania convenience stores)
April 29, 1994... Don't look for Devil Dogs or Twinkies at the neighborhood Wawa anytime soon. It'll be Krimpets and Kandy Kakes from now on. Tastykake has taken over the packaged-cake shelves in more than 450 Wawa convenience stores in metropolitan...

Port marriage is rocky if N.J. is wooing Wilmington. (Pennsylvania and New Jersey port officials; Philadelphia and Camden docks)
April 29, 1994... After a rocky, decade-long courtship, Pennsylvania and New Jersey port officials are about to consummate the marriage of the Philadelphia and Camden docks. Now, however, it seems that New Jersey has been running around with the guy down the...

Castle Energy adopts poison pill to avoid takeover.
April 29, 1994... RADNOR -- If Castle Energy was judged strictly on oil, this company would be running like a well-greased machine. But oil isn't everything. In recent months, it has found itself caught in a web involving a global lending syndicate and...

Airport wants to spread its wings following upgrades, expansion. (Chester County Airport)
April 29, 1994... At a time when smaller suburban airports are closing their doors and weeds are overrunning their runways, Chester County Airport has high hopes of landing a bigger piece of the corporate aviation pie. With aircraft getting larger and more...

Computer on-line service coming to the region. (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
April 29, 1994... A new computer on-line service designed to help small businesses has begun in Pittsburgh and is making its way to Philadelphia. The service, TEC-Online, is being launched by TEC/Pennsylvania Small Business United, a group of 4,200 businesses...

Vanguard's home port: mutual fund firm lands $200 million headquarters here. (Vanguard Group of Investment Cos. Inc.) (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... TREDYFFRIN -- The stock market of late has made John Woerth wish that Alexander Graham Bell had kept his invention to himself. As communications director at the Vanguard Group of Investment Cos. Inc., Woerth has been on telephone overload...

County modems toward an electronic town center. (Chester County) (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... It wasn't long ago that a church or general store was the main meeting place for trading stories, seeing neighbors and getting supplies. As Chester County approaches the 21st century, it plans an electronic town center accessible by computer...

Strohacker motored into business after feeling frustrated by a hobby. (Curt Strohacker) (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... MALVERN -- Like many, Curt Strohacker was a car-crazy kid. During high school, he renovated old automobiles and resold them at a neighborhood service station. Proceeds made selling refurbished Volkswagens paid his college tuition. Strohacker...

Berwyn firm buying up dialysis treatment centers. (Renal Treatment Centers Inc.) (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... BERWYN -- With all of the doubt engulfing health care because of the uncertainty over what reform plan will be approved and when, publicly traded companies in the industry have suffered through a stormy relationship with Wall Street over the...

After a year, $1.25 million fund hasn't made any loans. (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... COATESVILLE -- A year ago, area banking and economic development officials put together a ceremony to announce a lending program for struggling local companies. One year later, the total number of loans: zero. Nine local banks chipped in a...

Counties regionalize strategy to maximize impact on exports. (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... For months, John Szal had been pondering how his company, Spherical Concepts Inc., might expand its export market when he received a mailing from the Chester County International Initiative advertising one of its seminars. Attending it was a...

Downingtown starts refilling vacant industrial space. (Regional Report: Chester County)
April 29, 1994... DOWNINGTOWN -- Eight months after developers Eli Kahn and Jack Loew took control of the abandoned Pepperidge Farm bakery building in Downingtown, new tenants have filled more than 70 percent of the 360,000-square-foot property. Now, the...

Wyndham misses loan payment again. (Wyndham Franklin Plaza, Philadelphia)
April 22, 1994... Once again, Philadelphia's biggest hotel -- despite a heavily hyped refinancing deal six months ago -- is on the verge of costing city taxpayers thousands of dollars. The Wyndham Franklin Plaza, part of the Dallas-based real estate giant...

Two concepts to lure shoppers into area malls. (Oxford Valley Mall and Court of King Prussia mall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
April 22, 1994... Two shopping centers, two different goals and two different marketing programs. But both Oxford Valley Mall and the Court at King of Prussia have employed a the same new marketing concept to bring in the customers they want. It's called...

Smiles have faded at Old York Road Bancorp.
April 22, 1994... WILLOW GROVE -- Just when Old York Road Bancorp Inc. thought it finally had a profitable year, regulators have struck -- again. The $223.6 million banking company was recently forced by state and federal regulators to set aside another $1.7...

Their goals are the things we can use. (product design firm Paradigm)
April 22, 1994... Joel Katz maps out Philadelphia neighborhoods and borders his 2D workstation with the right shoe of every pair his son wears out. Peter Bressler is a leading industrial designer who admits he can't program his VCR. He works in 3D in the airy...

Port official may face conflict of interest in future. (Dir. of Ports of Philadelphia Clifford M. Sayre Jr.)
April 22, 1994... A Kennett Square shipping consultant who was appointed to the port agency that is taking control of the Philadelphia and Camden docks said his relationship with a developer of fast cargo ships may present a conflict of interest. Clifford M....

Rosenbluth's control room monitors the world. (travel agency Rosenbluth International Inc.)
April 22, 1994... From the control room of Rosenbluth International, technicians keep tabs on weather patterns and world news, anything that might upset flighty travelers. It was quiet on Tuesday. No hurricanes, quakes or ice to derail air traffic or...

More fun on Whitman Bridge: reconstruction will take years. (Walt Whitman Bridge, Philapdephia, Pennsylvania)
April 22, 1994... By the time the first major reconstruction of the Walt Whitman Bridge is done, nerve-rattling potholes on the span should be a thing of the past. Games of chicken between cars merging into a single lane should no longer be a routine hazard...

New U.S. regs should give life to more SBIC funds. (small business investment companies)
April 22, 1994... The Philadelphia area's small business investment company venture capital funds never matched the number or size of those in New York or Boston. And following a national trend where the number of SBICs declined, the region dropped from five...

US Radio seeking $35 million through initial offering. (US Radio Inc.)
April 22, 1994... US Radio Inc. plans to raise at least $35.6 million through an initial public offering of 3 million shares at about $13 per share, according to papers filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission late last month. The Philadelphia-based...

CoreStates' CEO allays fears of Meridian employees. (CoreStates Bank N.A.'s planned acquisition of Meridian Bancorp Inc.) (Annual Meetings)
April 22, 1994... Before him sat hundreds of CoreStates employees -- from corporate executives to branch tellers, all shareholders in the $26 billion bank holding company. But CoreStates Chairman Terrence A. Larsen directed part of his annual meeting address...

Two firms file for HMO status. (Allegheny Health Education Research Foundation; Integrated Health Networks; health maintenance organization)
April 15, 1994... The region's largest and third-largest hospital groups plan to get a toehold in Pennyslvania's HMO business. Allegheny Health Education Research Foundation of Pittsburgh and an affilate of Main Line Health System in Radnor have both applied...

Corps of Engineers plays vital role on the river. (Delaware River)
April 15, 1994... If riverboat gambling is approved for Philadelphia by the state Legislature - and there is already more than $100 million riding on that proposition - don't expect the floating casinos to dock on the Delaware overnight. Bally...

Power struggle is threatening Camden's economic rebound. (Camden, New Jersey)
April 15, 1994... CAMDEM - In this fcity of ambitious hopesffor revival, a power struggle among the agencies guiding its economic rebirth threatens to turn what has lately been viewed as a development jewel into a joke. At the core is an attempt by a mayor...

Special loan rate available for downtown retailers. (storefront improvement loans)
April 15, 1994... The Center City District made it easier for retailers to improve their storefronts on Tuesday night by introducing a special loan rate available through PNC Bank NA and offered exclusively to downtown stores. PNC will provide retailers...

Health care products and services. (Directory)
April 15, 1994... EMPLOYEE BENEFITS CONSULTANTS HAY HUGGINS COMPANY INCC. 229 South 18th Street Philadelphia, PA 19103 (215) 893-0270 Donald W. Samples Actuarial and benefits consulting services for profit, nonprofits, and public employers including:...

DRPA may sharply reduce size of its planned headquarters. (Delaware River Port Authority)
April 15, 1994... CAMDEN - In a move to contain costs that have soared an estimated 60 percent over budget, the Delaware River Port Authority is considering a drastic reduction in the size of its planned headquarters on the waterfront here. What was...

Penn health system reaches first 'loose affiliation.' (University of Pennsylvania Health System)
April 15, 1994... Looking to build closer ties with area community hospitals, the University of Pennsylvania Health System has reached the first of what it envisions to be a series of "loose affiliation" agreements with Germantown Hospital and Medical Center....

There is help for companies trying to export. (Southeastern Pennsylvania Export Consortium's International Trade Development Program)
April 15, 1994... A few years ago, when the executives at Chapel Hill Manufacturing Co. saw that the market for its printing press supplies was saturated and no longer growing, it decided to find other markets. After entering South America, Australia, New...

Through rain, sleet or snow: where's the mail? (postal service)
April 15, 1994... It's in the mail. Really. It's just that some letters are getting places more slowly these days. "Maybe it's a quirk," said Scott Schaffer, executive director of Philabundance, the nonprofit hunger relief organization. "But...

With staff cuts, Peco's head expects earnings to rise. (PECO Energy Co. Chairman Joseph F. Paquette Jr.)
April 15, 1994... VALLEY FORGE - Peco Enery Co. Chairman Joseph F. Paquette Jr. expects earning to go up a bit this year as the utility continues to reorganized and cut staff. The staff cuts - from a new early retirement and other moves - is expected to...

Shulkin uses cost containment to save his hospital $4.9 million. (David Shulkin of University of Pennsylvania Medical Center) (Health Care Heroes Awards)
April 15, 1994... In the quest to lower health-care spending, many reformers advocate teaching patients and employers to become smarter purchasers of health-care services. Dr. David J. Shulkin, the 34-year-old chief medical officer at the University of...

Helping babies, and mothers, get a good start. (Albert Einstein Medical Center's community health program) (Health Care Heroes Awards)
April 15, 1994... Three years ago, Albert Einstein Medical Center initiated a program targeted at one of the city's most troubling health problems: high infant mortality rates. "When we started, we had no patients, no outreach programs. It was just me and...

Keystone's TotalCare tries to trim rise in premiums. (Keystone Health Plan East) (Health Care Heroes Awards)
April 15, 1994... Across the country and in Philadelphia, health maintenance organizations have been tinkering with their product offerings to satisfy employers fed up with premium increases. Keystone Health Plan East, the HMO owned jointly by Pennsylvania...

Election, budget distract push for Pa. health reform. (Pennsylvania)
April 15, 1994... HARRISBURG - In Washington, it's the Whitewater affair that's diverted attention from national health-care reform. Here in the state capital, debate over the same issue has been overshadowed by a soap-operatic Senate, a volatile governor's...

She heard the call to practice medicine in her neighborhood. (Lorraine F. Gutowicz) (Health Care Heroes Awards)
April 15, 1994... Growing up in the Port Richmond section of Philadelphia, Dr. Lorraine F. Gutowicz never imagined she would one day return to treat patients at the hospital situated just a few blocks from her childhood home. But today, she is director of...

Eisner built group practice where there were few. (Joel W. Eisner of Phoenixville Medical Associates Ltd.) (Health Care Heroes Awards)
April 15, 1994... PHOENIXVILLE- Unlike most parts of the country, the Northeast been slow to embrace the concept of large group medical practices. The Philadelphia area has few multispecialty practice groups that can boast more than a dozen doctors. One...

Wyeth-Ayerst drug takes aim at severe depression, Prozac. (American Home Products Corp. Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories Division's Effexor)
April 15, 1994... ST. DAVIDS - The anti-depressant drug market is booming. With Eli Lilly and Co.'s Prozac and other new depression drugs reaching celebrity status and stratospheric sales, Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories recently introduced its own drug to...

TV Guide may pull out of Pa. (TV Guide Magazine to move headquarters from Pennsylvania)
April 8, 1994... RADNOR -- TV Guide may leave Pennsylvania for a reason as black and white as the television sets that first sparked the idea of the magazine 41 years ago: taxes. The company said it is "seriously considering" moving 800 employees based in...

Wheelabrator: two plants, two philosophies. (Wheelabrator Environmental Systems Inc.)
April 8, 1994... First, the natural gas in the furnace will be heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the trash, about three to four tons of it, will be dropped in. Without even a match, the fire -- and, consequently, the Falls Township Recycling and Energy...

Mall developer to purchase Carrefour properties. (shopping center developer Western Development Corp.)
April 8, 1994... Western Development Corp. plans to buy the former Carrefour property just across from the Franklin Mills mall, according to a source inside the Washington-based company. And the off-price shopping center developer may also buy the French...

Navy yard's future use remains a dilemma for Phila. (Philadelphia Naval Shipyard)
April 8, 1994... It looks like any other Philadelphia neighborhood: There's a red-brick church with shiny white steeple. A McDonald's. Children stepping off a school bus to their neat townhouses. So ordinary. Then you drive down a wide street that was once a...

In the region, more hospitals, doctors are forming PHOs. (physician-hospital organizations in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
April 8, 1994... Putting aside their adversarial past, hospitals and doctors across the country are increasingly joining forces to bargain more effectively with managed-care insurers and to plan for future market changes together. One vehicle bringing the...

East Gate cuts vacancy by signing up small tenants. (East Gate Center office park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
April 8, 1994... At a time when there were few large tenants scouting out new office space, how did South Jersey's third-largest office park manage to cut its vacancy rate by more than half in the last seven months? Lots of smaller tenants. The vacancy...

About 80 firms interested in renting shipyard space. (Philadelphia Naval Shipyard)
April 8, 1994... Looking for cheap industrial space? A machine shop? A film or television production studio? A warehouse with a railroad siding? Or one with a railroad spur that runs right through it? Don't overlook the Center City-size island at the foot of...

Big convention = recognition. (Consumer Electronics Show in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)
April 1, 1994... Finally, in the matchup everyone in Philadelphia's fledgling convention business has been hoping for, Game Boy will meet William Penn. Philadelphia got the Consumer Electronics Show, one of the biggest shows in the nation, for 1995. The...

Integra's Compass points way for pharmaceutical companies.
April 1, 1994... RADNOR -- In 1992, Sterling Winthrop Inc. spent more than $1.3 million on mental health services and substance abuse programs for its employees, retirees and their family numbers. Without taking any action, the pharmaceutical company was...

CoreStates seeks Meridian, analyst says. (CoreStates Bank N.A.; Meridian Bancorp Inc.)
April 1, 1994... CoreStates Chairman Terrence A. Larsen, under some criticism that the bank has been buying more than it can efficiently absorb, told an analyst this week his appetite won't be completely satiated without acquiring competitor Meridian Bancorp....

1,100-passenger Regal Empress to test waters. (cruise line)
April 1, 1994... A year-old cruise line will make at least four voyages from the Port of Philadelphia this summer, boosting the annual passenger traffic at local marine terminals by roughly one-third. The 1,100-passenger Regal Empress will sail to the...

A pharmacist who listens to his employees. (Richard Ost)
April 1, 1994... Richard Ost planned to work his way up the corporate ladder and eventually become president when he started working at Thrift Drug in 1981. But the young pharmacy student soon became disillusioned with the multimillion-dollar...

Rosenbluth, CoreStates team up with one-of-a-kind travel card. (Rosenbluth International Inc.; CoreStates Financial Corp.)
April 1, 1994... From a futuristic discussion about getting airline tickets from automatic teller machines, a Philadelphia partnership has evolved blending travel and banking expertise to serve the corporate travel market. Rosenbluth International and...

Group delays employee lockout over health plan. (Small Business Association of Delaware Valley)
April 1, 1994... Congress' delay in acting on health-care reform has spurred a local small-business group to push back its protest plans until July. Originally, the Small Business Association of Delaware Valley had planned to stage a one-day owners' lock-out...

Bankers face new uncertainty over environmental liability. (Finance)
April 1, 1994... Foreclosure is the traditional tool for banks collecting on bad loans. But Alan Armstrong, manager of CoreStates Financial Corp's environmental risk group, issued a warning to the bank's lenders in February: Don't get involved in the...

Venture fund would invest in minority-owned firms. (Minority Venture Partners Ltd.) (Finance)
April 1, 1994... More than a year in the making, a new venture fund is being launched locally to try to supply needed capital to minority entrepreneurs. Minority Venture Partners Ltd. was established to invest in minority-owned businesses to try to produce a...

Penn Mutual attracts new president, considers IPO. (Penn Mutual Life Insurance Co.; initial public offering) (Finance)
April 1, 1994... With a strengthened management team, the $7 billion life insurer considers converting from a mutual ownership to stock ownership structure HORSHAM -- Imagine the thoughts that run through a man's mind when he's been offered a job by the head...

Willow Grove S&L boosts market share with RTC buy. (Willow Grove Federal Savings; Resolution Trust Corp.) (Finance)
April 1, 1994... MAPLE GLEN -- It is an 85-year-old community bank that has just experienced the growth spurt of a teen-ager. Willow Grove Federal Savings doubled its branch network and added more than $40 million to its assets last week by buying three...

Minority mortgage plan shows 19 years of progress. (Delaware Valley Mortgage PLan) (Finance)
April 1, 1994... When Patricia Richardson was riding the subway so that she could have a warm place to sleep, she never imagined that she would someday own her own house. Thanks to the Delaware Valley Mortgage Plan, the once homeless mother of five now owns a...

Need a mortgage? Here's one starting at $250,000. (residential mortgages offered by Boston Co. Jumbo Mortgage Group) (Finance)
April 1, 1994... PLYMOUTH MEETING -- Who says money is tight? That extravagance is out? That modest is the living standard of today? Not in the Philadelphia region, says the Boston Co. Jumbo Mortgage Group. The company exclusively offers residential mortgages...

Venture capital firm mines Philadelphia for investments. (Edison Venture Fund) (Finance)
April 1, 1994... LAWRENCEVILLE, N.J. -- Edison Venture Fund has raised more than $47 million for its third venture fund, and has received commitments for an additional $18 million. The firm expects to finish raising money in July. Edison, one of the most...