San Francisco Business Times articles from August 1995

San Francisco Business Times archives from August 1995

Bechtel Corp. zeroes in on giant Eurotunnel contract. (Bechtel Corp. and Virgin Retail Group Ltd.'s bid to build rail link)
August 4, 1995... A consortium led by Bechtel Corp, and Virgin Group Ltd. is competing against a powerful European group for the right to build and operate a high-speed rail link from London to the Eurotunnel. If Bechtel and Virgin beat out a competing...

Kaiser may curtail plans to Emeryville hospital. (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.; Emeryville, California)
August 4, 1995... Kaiser Permanente is reconsidering the size, scope and timing of its controversial $300 million plan to build a medical center in Emeryville. Kaiser's retrenching in Emeryville is part of a broader reevaluation of the organization's Bay Area...

Moscone expansion afoot. (Moscone Center, San Francisco, California)
August 4, 1995... Parties come to terms on two potential sites and hotel tax increase San Francisco disco city officials and tourism industry representatives have embraced a new economic study on expansion of Moscone Center and are moving forward with the...

Flagging peso carves $200M out of H-P's hide. (Mexican peso; Hewlett-Packard Co.)
August 4, 1995... Mexican market not expected to return to normal until 1998 Hewlett-Packard Co.'s soaring sales in Mexico have run smack into the Latin American nation's currency crisis and are projected to skid by close to $200 million in fiscal 1995. For...

Wine trade organizations put aside case of sour grapes. (California wine producers)
August 4, 1995... California wine producers have always been a fractious and disputatious group. Unlike the well-run cartels of agricultural industries which mount extensive advertising campaigns and present a united lobbying front on regulatory issues, wine...

Chiron vaccines get booster in European tests. (Chiron Corp.)
August 4, 1995... Clinical tests in Europe have moved Chiron closer to bringing vaccines for whooping cough and the flu to market. The Emeryville-based biotech's whooping cough vaccine sailed through its Phase III tests in Italy and Sweden on 25,000 children...

REIT sweet for developer's 4$ billion for expansion plans. (real estate investment trust; real estate developer David Martin)
August 4, 1995... David Martin, one of the Bay Area's premier developers, has announced he will merge his retail holdings with Burnham Pacific Properties Inc., a San Diego-based real estate investment trust. Martin said the merger is the first step toward his...

S.F. power play could run PG&E out of town. (San Francisco, California; Pacific Gas and Electric Co.)
August 4, 1995... In an unusual and escalating battle against one of its major corporations, the city of San Francisco is putting a squeeze on Pacific Gas & Electric Co., challenging the utility in court while it studies the possibility of running its own...

An end to mutual confusion. (mutual funds)
August 4, 1995... BofA says prospectuses could be one page if funds killed the mumbo jumbo BankAmerica Corp. is among eight mutual fund providers participating in a pilot program of the Securities and Exchange Commission to develop simplified disclosure...

Per-capita urnings: Marin leads Bay Area in cremation. (Marin County, California; San Francisco Bay Area)
August 4, 1995... It should come as no surprise that Marin County - a pace-setter in Bay Area ways of life - has also become a leader in ways of death. Thousands of years after it was the preferred choice of departure for Romans and Greeks, cremation is thriving...

What a long, strange - and profitable - trip it's been. (Grateful Dead Productions)
August 4, 1995... Members of the Grateful Dead don't look like your typical board of directors, but the group known as the hardest working band in rock and roll also runs one of the most successful business empires in the music industry. Grateful Dead...

Schwab buy fortifies its retirement-plan business. (Charles Schwab Corp.)
August 4, 1995... The Charles Schwab Corp. has acquired a leading maker of software used by retirement plan recordkeepers, in a move that positions the discount broker to grab a greater share of the burgeoning business of 401(k) plans. TrustMark Inc. in...

San Francisco hospitals gush buckets of red ink. (California)
August 4, 1995... San Francisco hospitals suffered a net loss of $17.4 million last year, according to just-released data from state health officials, but they actually lost more than $91 million on ongoing operations. Only when non-operating revenue, such as...

Full-bodied sales make 1994 vintage year for wineries.
August 4, 1995... A good year for both production and sales has largely put an end to the whining of the wine makers, after several years of problems ranging from financing to phylloxera to philistinism. With most of the largest producers reporting record sales,...

Culinary academy buys N.Y. school amid chef shortage. (California Culinary Academy acquires New York Restaurant School)
August 4, 1995... The California Culinary Academy has agreed to buy the New York Restaurant School in its most aggressive expansion since the company became one of a handful of publicly traded schools two years ago. The San Francisco-based chef training school...

Cal Pacific slashes 250 more jobs. (California Pacific Medical Center)
August 11, 1995... California Pacific Medical Center, which lost more than $34.6 million last year, will cut 250 full-time jobs by the end of August. Officials at the financially stressed San Francisco hospital said its latest round of layoffs and other cuts is...

'Black HMO' strikes key deal with Blue Cross. (African-American Church Health & Economic Services; Blue Cross of California)
August 11, 1995... An untested "black HMO" backed by African-American business and political leaders, including San Francisco mayoral candidate Willie Brown, has won its first contract from Blue Cross of California. San Francisco-based African-American Church...

Alaska, at last, for Chevron? (Chevron Corp. seen to benefit from the opening of a federal wildlife refuge in Alaska)
August 11, 1995... Company may be playing indirect role in 'grass-roots' effort to restore oil exploration Chevron Corp. is poised to become one of the biggest beneficiaries of an intense grass-roots drive to open up a federal wildlife refuge in Alaska that...

Fashion Center foreclosed on by Mellon Bank.
August 11, 1995... The Fashion Center, Atlanta architect John Portman's $90 million white elephant, has been foreclosed on and placed into receivership. Mellon Bank, Portman's lender, is seeking a new buyer for the 740,000-square-foot San Francisco building at...

Contractors find concrete profits from privatizations.(International Trade Quarterly)
August 11, 1995... In the 1930s, construction of the Boulder Dam made history as the largest civil engineering project in the world. It also made its eight Depression-era builders rich, including W.A. Bechtel and Co. Today the massive dam (later named the Hoover...

Short on change; Bank of S.F. posts profit, but cash still remains low. (Bank of San Francisco)
August 11, 1995... The Bank of San Francisco is $4.3 million richer, but its cash is still short of the amount regulators had told the bank to raise by June 30. Putra Masagung, 95 percent owner of Bank of San Francisco, invested the addition cash, bringing his...

Bay Area companies catch continental drift to the south. (San Francisco Bay Area)(International Trade Quarterly)
August 11, 1995... These days, Bay Area companies are perusing Peru, warming up to Chile and going nuts over Brazil. In the past few months there has been a steady push by Bay Area businesses to increase their presence in South America. Bank of America is...

Rediscovering America: here come the Europeans.(International Trade Quarterly)
August 11, 1995... Last February London-based New Covent Garden Soup Co. opened an office in San Francisco to test the market for its refrigerated fresh soups in America. "We're looking at new markets to pioneer, and the potential U.S. market is huge," said...

How the forces behind bad accounting all add up.(Column)
August 11, 1995... Are the instances of audit failure increasing or are they just more pervasive so as to dilute the public's confidence in the value of accountants' opinions? Probably both - and CPAs have no one to blame but themselves. It all started more than...

Port of S.F.'s life boat may be coming in. (Port of San Francisco)
August 18, 1995... The Port of San Francisco is negotiating to land a large container carrier in a deal that would put the beleaguered port back in the shipping business. Port officials would not disclose the carrier's name, but industry sources said it was Wan...

Ad agencies drifting away from shore. (San Francisco, California advertising agencies)
August 18, 1995... Goodby, Riney and others rethink 'ad ghetto' Joining a growing trend among ad agencies to abandon San Francisco's north waterfront "advertising ghetto," Goodby Silverstein & Partners may soon be on the move - and Hal Riney & Partners might not...

Dreyer's get financial jolt from GE Corp. (Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream Inc.; General Electric Co.)
August 18, 1995... General Electric Corp. moved a lick closer to a major ownership position in Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, a move that will give Dreyer's more financial flexibility for its national expansion. Dreyer's exercised an option to have GE convert $100.8...

Chevron jockeys for control of federal oil field. (Chevron Corp.)
August 18, 1995... Chevron Corp. has emerged as the strongest bidder in the controversial sale of a huge Southern California oil field presently under control of the U.S. government. The House and Senate have both approved legislation allowing the sale of the...

Options go from executive suite to work force sweet. (stock options)(Insurance & Employee Benefits)
August 18, 1995... Despite challenges from accountants and institutional shareholders, stock options are alive, well and growing in the Bay Area. Once found only in the rarefied air of the executive suite, stock options have now taken root at lower corporate...

Black chamber slams Bank of the West over minority loans. (San Francisco Black Chamber of Commerce)
August 18, 1995... Group's third recent attack on Bay Area banks' lending policies Bank of the West, hailed as a "model lender" by the Oakland City Council in part for its service to minority-owned businesses, is under attack from the San Francisco Black Chamber...

Toy maker ready to play. (YES! Entertainment Corp.)
August 18, 1995... Yes Entertainment gets $20M for big Christmas push Pleasanton-based toy maker Yes Entertainment Corp. has gotten exactly what it wanted for Christmas: the $20 million line of credit it needs to make its first significant showing in this year's...

Plunge in stock puts wind firm in financial gale. (KENETECH Corp.)
August 18, 1995... Kenetech Corp. is battling a hurricane of selling on Wall Street as poor earnings and subsequent downgradings by both bond raters and equity analysts have sent its stock reeling to an all-time low. Shareholders in the San Francisco wind-power...

Minute interest and second thoughts plague 24-hour care. (health-care organizations; California)(Insurance & Employee Benefits)
August 18, 1995... The so-called "health-care organizations" created by the state's 1993 workers' compensation reform package to pave the way to 24-hour medical care have become a roadblock instead, say critics of the highly regulated entities. Although a recent...

Companies want to recall defective product liability laws.(Insurance & Employee Benefits)
August 18, 1995... The recent hubbub over Intel Corp.'s flawed Pentium microprocessor and Hewlett-Packards Co.'s recall of its OfficeJet, a combination printer, fax machine and copier, has done more than raise dust. It has stirred up questions concerning product...

Autodesk Inc. (Proxy Report Excerpts)(Company Profile)
August 18, 1995... NASDAQ: ACAD 111 McInnis Parkway San Rafael, CA 94903 (415) 507-5000 UPDATE Autodesk makes computer-aided design software programs, focusing on PC software and multimedia technology. The company employs approximately 1,800 people. The...

SCOR: boon to small business looks like a bust. (Small Company Offering Registration)
August 25, 1995... Stock offerings held to one; state moves to ease standards A program set up in 1992 to help small businesses raise capital by offering shares to customers and vendors has flopped in California because of what many consider overly stringent...

New game. (Steve Race, chief executive officer of Spectrum Holobyte Inc.)
August 25, 1995... Until three weeks ago, Steve Race was spearheading the launch of Sony Computer Entertainment's ballyhooed PlayStation computer game hardware. Now, as chief executive of Alameda-based Spectrum Holobyte, he's getting ready to fight it. Race, 45,...

Power for sale: PG&E pulling plug on hydro plants. (Pacific Gas and Electric Co. to sell hydroelectric powerplants)
August 25, 1995... Pacific Gas & Electric Co. is selling off pieces of its hydroelectric-plant empire in Northern California to local water agencies as federal licenses for the aging plants come up for renewal. The utility owns 71 hydroelectric plants and...

S.F. money manager goes wild with Russian deals. (Pangaea)
August 25, 1995... A San Francisco money manager has launched an investment company to acquire and create businesses in the Vladivostok region of Russia, an area that has become known as the Wild, Wild East. Pangaea, launched by money manager Bradley Fishman,...

Raging bull market has bear traders coming up short.(Banking & Finance Quarterly)(Industry Overview)
August 25, 1995... To see how short sellers are doing these days, just take a look at L.L. Knickerbocker Co., a maker of collectible dolls hawked by celebrities such as singer Marie Osmond on cable home shopping channels. The stock, a favorite of short sellers,...

TV equipment firm hopes to see special effect from IPO. (initial public offering of stocks from Accom Inc.)
August 25, 1995... Accom Inc., an Emmy Award-winning maker of whiz-bang video production equipment, is hoping to raise a $25 million war chest to finance its bid to supply the rapidly expanding television industry. The Menlo Park-based company plans to sell 2.8...

Stock rebound is breath of fresh air for biotech. (Inhale Therapeutics Systems)
August 25, 1995... Inhale Therapeutic Systems stockholders are breathing a little easier as shares of the company have risen sharply in recent days, but analysts attribute the move to revived interest in biotechnology stocks rather than any developments at the...

Wave of violent robberies puts armored cars under the gun.(Banking & Finance Quarterly)
August 25, 1995... As the Brink's guard went down the stairs of Lucky grocery store at the Lakeshore Shopping Center in San Francisco, he was jumped by two men. They pistol-whipped and shot him, then took his gun and the bag of money he was carrying. The robbers...

Interactive TV company says it must sue to survive. (Interactive Network Inc. files lawsuit against Tele-Communications Inc.)
August 25, 1995... Interactive Network Inc. is pinning its hopes for survival on a lawsuit against a former supporter. Tele-Communications Inc., the Denver-based cable-TV company, attempted to "seize assets, software, patents and proprietary technology from...

Executives learn how to pick lock on restricted stock.(Banking & Finance Quarterly)
August 25, 1995... It is nothing new for brokerages to covet the business of individuals with active trading accounts of more than $1 million. But the hot IPO market of the last few years has created a new area of business among high-net-worth individuals whose...

Project manager bulldozes through adversity. (Robert Luster, founder of Luster Construction Management)
August 25, 1995... A 1981 graduate of West Point, Robert Luster was a range and training officer at the military academy when it embarked on a $20 million range upgrade. Luster was assigned to select contractors and oversee the work. Before he knew it, he had...

Palo Alto bank's acquisition leads executives to make withdrawal. (University Bank Trust Co.)(Banking & Finance Quarterly)
August 25, 1995... It is no longer wholly independent, but University Bank and Trust is doing its best to retain that image. Retaining executives, however, is another matter. The bank, which is being bought by giant Comerica Inc., Detroit, said nine officers...

Strong IPOs, M&As a double delight for investment banks. (initial public offerings; mergers and acquisitions)(Banking & Finance Quarterly)(Industry Overview)
August 25, 1995... Though the initial public offering market slowed last year from its 1993 record performance, the boom in merger and acquisitions business was the story of 1994. Now, with the IPO market ignited once again and M&A departments humming, the...