St. Louis Business Journal articles from August 1998

St. Louis Business Journal archives from August 1998

The Pope's visit: Marriott booked; regal rates up 19%. (St. Louis Marriott Pavilion Hotel)(Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis, Missouri in Jan. 1999)
August 3, 1998... For many hotels and retailers, Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis in January will be a blessing. The papal visit has touched off a flurry of hotel reservations during a traditionally slow period for hotels. Most are charging their highest...

Hamilton Jewelers goes for the gold. (commemorative religious jewelry for Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis, Missouri)
August 3, 1998... Like many St. Louis retailers, Hamilton Jewelers hopes to see a silver - or in Hamilton's case, gold - lining in the pope's visit here. In June, Hamilton Jewelers, at 750 Locust downtown, ordered a line of religious, 14-karat gold jewelry that...

Stereotaxis gets $18 million shot.
August 3, 1998... A St. Louis company that has developed a magnetic-guided catheter is getting an $18 million infusion. Despite the city's reputation as a tough place to raise venture capital, Stereotaxis Inc. is getting much of the cash from local investors....

Jefferson Smurfit recycling center volume up 43 percent. (Smurfit Recycling Co.)(Energy & the Environment)
August 3, 1998... In the tradition of super-sized, fast-food value meals, supercenter grocery stores and hardware warehouses comes the recycling megacenter. This latest innovation in recycling technology and efficiency is brought to you by Smurfit Recycling Co.,...

TWA forms frequent-flier alliance with Icelandair. (Trans World Airlines)
August 3, 1998... Having just added destinations in the Caribbean, Trans World Airlines has taken a first step toward adding cities to the north by linking its frequent flier program with Icelandair. Under the July 29 agreement, members of TWA's frequent flier...

Ameren Corp. gets award for pioneering technology.(Energy & the Environment)
August 3, 1998... AmerenUE's Sioux plant in St. Charles County recently became one of the first electric generating plants in the United States to improve technology used for reducing nitrous oxides (NOx) by produced by some of its boilers. Since the early...

Newsom rings up $3 million in ClipFone sales. (Astralink Technology Inc.'s general manager Lowell Newsom)(Small Business)
August 3, 1998... Business activity: It was dubbed "the world's coolest cordless," by Macworld magazine, but that hasn't helped Astralink Technology Inc. get ClipFone on the shelves of some local stores. Astralink markets the 3.5-ounce telephone it developed to...

Express Scripts Inc. (Proxy Reports Excerpt)(Company Profile)
August 3, 1998... Barrett A. Toan President and chief executive officer Express Scripts Inc. is a specialty managed care company and one of the largest full-service pharmacy benefit management companies in the United States. The company's clients include health...

Sight & Sound's picture brightens. (Sight & Sound Distributors)
August 10, 1998... The past two years at Sight & Sound Distributors could have been a plot in file videos the company distributes. After 16 years of steady growth, Sight & Sound bought another company in 1996. The acquisition proved disastrous. Sight & Sound...

Pulaski goes public. (Pulaski Financial Corp.)
August 10, 1998... Pulaski Financial Corp. could raise nearly $80 million as the Creve Coeur-based thrift converts from a mutual holding company to a publicly traded firm. Insiders will retain strong control at Pulaski, with management and employees holding...

Babcock, Kent, Wood charter a new course. (Barry Babcock, Jerald Kent and Howard Wood, founders of Charter Communications)
August 10, 1998... Howard Wood still keeps his 1993 Charter Communications business plan in his desk at the company's office in Des Peres. "We thought we might have a few hundred thousand subscribers by 1998," he said. Five years ago, Wood, Jerald Kent and...

Trammell Crow plans $50 million building.
August 10, 1998... Thiemann seeks tenants, Chesterfield approval Trammell Crow Co. is investing $50 million to construct an office building in Chesterfield - but it doesn't have a tenant yet. At 280,000 square feet, the Arbor Lake development - at the southeast...

Jones Pharma to fill medicine chest with another product.
August 10, 1998... Armed with $115 million in cash, Jones Pharma is poised to acquire another endocrinology drug or acute-care product by year's end, said Dennis Jones, chairman and chief executive officer. "Our focus is on acquiring additional pharmaceutical...

Aggarwal has Allied on the mend. (Allied Healthcare Products Inc. CEO Uma Aggarwal)
August 10, 1998... Allied Healthcare Products Inc. is set to add as many as 100 employees, according to a source close to the company, capping a strong rebound from a lean 1997. That would be a major addition to Allied's current local payroll of 340, and a sharp...

Grant Cooper on the prowl for $10 million in revenue; executive search firm to open New York office in the fall. (Grant Cooper & Associates)(Small Business)
August 10, 1998... Executive search firm to open New York office in the fall Business Activity: The woman behind Grant Cooper & Associates is Cynthia Kohlbry. Kohlbry bought the executive search firm in April 1997 after she left Boatmen's Bank when it was...

Fusz, Moore use virtual showrooms to drive sales. (Lou Fusz Automotive Network; Moore Autoplex)(Automotive)
August 10, 1998... Although car sales over the Internet still account for only a fraction of the roughly 15 million new car and 33 million used-car sales annually, several automobile dealerships in St. Louis are jumping into cyberspace. Lou Fusz Automotive...

Stiritz leads new venture. (businessman William Stiritz's establishment of a buyout firm called Westgate Group)
August 17, 1998... William Stiritz bought and sold businesses for Ralston Purina Co. during his 16 years as chief executive. Now, the chairman of Ralston is leading a team of executives setting up their own buyout firm, one that also will take equity stakes in...

Flemming to head Frontenac Bank. (Kathleen Flemming)
August 17, 1998... Attorney John Hannegan has assembled a group of 30 investors who have raised more than $6 million to start the first new bank in the St. Louis area in more than two years. Hannegan, who recently retired from Thompson Coburn's St. Charles...

40 corridor lures $20 million development to O'Fallon. (development of an office complex in O'Fallon, MO)
August 17, 1998... Twin buildings to compete with Winghaven Developer Bud Pohlman is building on the momentum along the Highway 40 corridor with the development of a 200,000-square-foot speculative office complex in O'Fallon, Mo. The $20 million project, under...

County barely makes ripple with old Lemay Bank site.
August 17, 1998... Cost to renovate building climbs to $1.8 million A plan by Lemay Bank and Trust Co. to stimulate an economic resurgence in a flood-damaged area of south St. Louis County has faced rough waters in the year since it first surfaced. Last...

St. Albans looks to house more retail, office tenants. (St. Albans Properties LLC)
August 17, 1998... After 10 years of quietly building a residential community nestled in the rolling hills of the Missouri River Valley, St. Albans Properties LLC is embarking on commercial development. The Train Station, an $800,000 retail and office building...

Macler, Caleca invest $160,000 in drug treatment. (anesthesiologist Henry Macler and Barbara Caleca's establishment of the National Detox Center of St. Louis Inc.)
August 17, 1998... A company based at SSM DePaul Medical Center has begun offering a controversial procedure designed to help people addicted to heroin and other narcotics quickly kick their habits. Anesthesiologist Dr. Henry Macler and Barbara Caleca founded...

Fourth-generation pipeline: Hiemenz brothers retool Donovan Industrial. (Donovan Industrial Supply Corp.)
August 17, 1998... Business Activity:The fourth generation of a 103-year-old family business has taken the firm from $2 million to $20 million in revenue in the last 12 years. Brothers Charles, Don and Chris Hiemenz are owners of Donovan Industrial Supply Corp.,...

Intensiva Healthcare Corp. (Proxy Report Excerpts)(Company Profile)
August 17, 1998... David W. Cross President and chief executive officer Intensiva HealthCare Corp. is an operator of acute long-term care hospitals, providing specialized and cost-effective care to critically ill or injured patients who require lengthy hospital...

Setting priorities. (Thomas Brouster sells Midland First Financial Corp. to Commercial Federal Corp.)
August 24, 1998... Brouster sells Midland for $83 million Career bank fix-it man Thomas Brouster has more on his mind these days than restoring troubled banks to profitability. Tops on Brouster's list is his 8-month-old daughter, Meredith, his third child, who...

'Baby on board' at Colt Safety. (safety equipment manufacturer's social program)
August 24, 1998... Christine Bierman was on the phone with a major client when a giant burp came over the phone line - from Bierman's end. She apologized, then explained. The burp didn't come from Bierman, the poised and polished president and chief executive of...

Bud Light pushes the penguin off hockey ice. (Anheuser-Busch Companies Inc. to make Budweiser Light the official beer of the National Hockey League)
August 24, 1998... While all eyes are trained on baseball, St. Louis-based Anheuser-Busch Cos. Inc. already is thinking hockey. The nation's No. 1 brewer is making Budweiser Light the official beer of the NHL - retiring Bud Ice and the Bud Ice Penguin. In...

$35 million West Port office plan. (Archon Group to build office tower in Maryland Heights, Missouri)
August 24, 1998... Archon Group, the partnership that owns West Port Plaza, is seeking permission from Maryland Heights to build a 12-story, $35 million office tower - the first new office building there in nearly 15 years. West Port Plaza, developed during the...

May asks consultant to find one agency for all TV ads. (May Department Stores Co. hires Select Resources International)
August 24, 1998... The May Department Stores Co. has hired a consulting firm to shop for an advertising agency to create all its TV ads for an account worth an estimated $60 million. May is working with Select Resources International of Los Angeles, which...

Marvin Wool, 4 other execs invest $627,000 in Allegiant. (Allegiant Bancorp Chmn. and CEO)
August 24, 1998... Marvin Wool, chairman and chief executive at Allegiant Bancorp Inc., and four other bank executives and directors invested more than $627,000 in the bank's stock in late July and early August. Meanwhile, attorney Charles Polk, a partner at...

Family is cornerstone of $5.7 million business. (Taylor Roofing)
August 24, 1998... Business activity: Family is the foundation of Belleville-based Taylor Roofing. The 93-year-old company, which provides roofing services to mostly commercial clients, has 14 family members working in jobs ranging from chief executive officer to...

Zeigler Coal Holding Co. (Proxy Report Excerpts)(Company Profile)
August 24, 1998... Money and management at companies with publicity traded stock. Information is from proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Proxies are used to keep shareholders informed about stock ownership and compensation for...

$85 million apartment complex. (construction plans of the Medve Group)
August 31, 1998... After spending two years assembling 13.5 acres of land in University City, The Medve Group is preparing to build an $85 million, 650-unit luxury apartment complex on Delmar Boulevard east of Interstate 170. With sites for new apartments in...

Rosenthal back for seconds. (Ken Rosenthal heads group operating seven Saint Louis Bread Co. franchises)
August 31, 1998... Heads group running seven Bread Co. franchises Ken Rosenthal could have walked away with his portion of $25.5 million when he and his partners sold the Saint Louis Bread Co. to Au Bon Pain in 1993. Instead, Rosenthal, 55, one of the Saint...

Furniture Brands shifting ad dollars from print to TV. (Furniture Brands International)
August 31, 1998... In a strategy shift, Furniture Brands International Inc. is moving more of its $26 million in advertising into television and less into newspapers and magazines. The change should allow the company to take advantage of strong brand names for...

Plaza Frontenac's double feature. (opening of the Plaza Frontenac Cinema)
August 31, 1998... Cinema boosts mall's restaurant business Cinema and food are turning out to be a customer-generating combo at Plaza Frontenac. Since the May 8 opening of the five-screen fine arts Plaza Frontenac Cinema, nearly all the mall's six restaurants...

United diagnoses $14 million in drug costs. (United Healthcare of the Midwest)
August 31, 1998... Area doctors who write more prescriptions than their counterparts nationwide are costing United HealthCare of the Midwest $14.4 million a year. United HealthCare Corp., the Minneapolis-based parent of the local managed health care company,...

MFR Tire Services rolls out new facility.
August 31, 1998... Expects to pump up sales to $6.5 million this year Business Activity: MFR Tire Services Inc., which has grown faster than any other franchise of Bandag retread tires in the country, wants to double its sales in the next two years. "We moved...

Fun house. (office designs used by advertising agencies in St. Louis, Missouri)
August 31, 1998... Ad agencies Core, Louis London, Waylon craft creative work spaces With the millennium fast approaching, new themes in office design have already begun, with advertising agencies among the first to embrace them. Offices are expected to follow...

Talx Corp. (proxy report excerpts)
August 31, 1998... William W. Canfield Chairman, president and chief executive officer TALX Corp creates self-service solutions for information retrieval via the World Wide Web, interactive voice response, computer telephony integration and other technologies....