San Francisco Business Times articles from February 2000

San Francisco Business Times archives from February 2000

Wells tries to snatch San Francisco purse.
February 4, 2000... Bank makes withdrawal from BofA ranks to wrestle away main account with city Wells Fargo wants to steal away the city of San Francisco's bank accounts from rival Bank of America, and it's raiding BofA's executive suite to do it. The...

Dot-coms strip Andersen -- again.(Andersen Consulting's Jim Greene joins perksatwork.com)
February 4, 2000... Startup snares largest consulting firm's top executive in the West Greene, 45, who had also headed Andersen's $2.2 billion dot-com business, will sign on as president and CEO of San Francisco-based perksatwork.com, a privately held company...

Potato chip king goes on Net diet.(Keith Kim)
February 4, 2000... Keith Kim turns $1M into $70M, creates tech incubator Potato chip tycoon Keith Kim is cooking up a new line of Internet startups. Kim, owner of Oakland's Granny Goose Foods, turned a $1 million, investment in online shopping service...

Bank buyout artists plan big deposit.
February 4, 2000... New Belvedere fund aims to nab more small banks and some dot-coms Belvedere Capital Partners Inc., which has spent the last two years snapping up community banks, plans to increase its acquisitions pace with a new $500 million fund that...

Startup has new Rx for docs' prescriptions.
February 4, 2000... Bad penmanship can no longer be an excuse for faulty medical prescriptions if iScribe has its way. The San Mateo company has raised $5 million in its first round of financing, led by Kielner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mayfield Fund and...

Stock Answers.
February 4, 2000... His stocks don't just do something, they sit there Most stock pickers pride themselves on being able to find stocks that will move up. Others like to sniff out Icarus-like issues that have soared too high and bet they are going to plunge....

Schwab fund pool tops $100B.
February 4, 2000... OneSource, Charles Schwab's mutual fund "supermarket," has surpassed $100 billion in assets, continuing a rapid growth trend which saw it nearly double its assets in 1999. "Certainly our customers are affirming this model by voting with...

Bidding hits $14,600 for one sock, slightly used.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Looking to get even more mileage out of its obnoxious sock puppet cum-pitchpet, online pet retailer Pets.com is auctioning off the actual sock used to film last week's Super Bowl commercial. Proceeds from the sale are going to charity. ...

Looking good in a suit.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... That's one way to find a good litigator: Advertise for someone to sue you. Or at least that would seem to be the strategy of the as-yet unknown law firm who is beating the bushes in legal newspaper Daily Journal for a "Good Looking...

We're not dead yet.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... NoLoad Fund X, a mutual fund newsletter says it is doing better than ever after 30 years tracking the no-load scene, but that was news to Forbes magazine -- which printed that the newsletter was going out of business in July. The San...

New economy, no manners.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Local designers are feasting at the dotcom table -- but a growing number are noting that the new economy has an absence of Emily Post-approved decorum. San Francisco designer Ayodele Seligman says the phrase "money is no object," often uttered...

Hummer Winblad adds $20M zip to gourmet venture.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... San Francisco financiers Hummer Winblad Venture Partners has tossed $20 million into the stewpot to help gourmet grocer Dean & Deluca aggressively expand its online and physical retail operations. The deal marks the first time the Internet...

Fernandes covers SFBT health beat.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Business Times reporter Lorna Fernandes is taking over the paper's healthcare coverage. Fernandes, a three-year veteran of the newspaper who has also recorded stints at the Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Business...

S.F. buyout firm seeking sale of Crown Vantage.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Abandoning hope of working with the company's management, San Francisco buyout firm Plantagenet Capital is stepping up its campaign to force a sale of Oakland-based Grown Vantage Corp. The firm owns about 8.3 percent of the stock of the...

Inside & Traders.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Inside Traders Jeffrey Henley CFO Oracle Corp. Gary Bloom ...

CORRECTIONS.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... "The Greatest Innovators," a special supplement in the Jan. 28-Feb. 3 issue, contained an incorrect photo. The photo accompanying a description of Stephen Bechtel Jr.'s accomplishments was of Stephen Bechtel Sr.

Cendant's real estate web site is on the move.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Real estate giant Cendant Corp. has planted its flag on the web, rolling out a home-listing service and inking a deal to create a real estate channel on the Alta Vista Internet portal. Move.com, based in San Francisco, went live last week,...

Telstra expands U.S. telecom offerings, relocates office to S. San Francisco.
February 4, 2000... LORNA FERNANDES Telstra Inc., the U.S. arm of the Australian telecommunications giant Telstra Corp., has outgrown its San Francisco headquarters and is moving to South San Francisco. The parent company is a tier-one provider of...

S.F. AT&T to open cable access.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... San Francisco is preparing to require AT&T to open its cable network to competitors -- a move that would also apply to several companies spending millions to build their own high-speed Internet infrastructure. The city's Department of...

Peets, Starbucks opening new East Bay stores.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Both Peets Coffee & Tea and giant rival Starbucks Coffee Co. are opening new East Bay outlets. Starbucks is building a cafe inside a new Albertsons grocery store set to open in Pittsburg in June. This is the first East Bay co-location for...

Jim D'Agostino.
February 4, 2000... Name: Jim D'Agostino. Title: President Company: Bovis Construction Corp., West region. Education: Dual major in communications and political science at Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. D'Agostino took time off to travel and still...

BroadVision buys into e-commerce.
February 4, 2000... Software maker BroadVision Inc., based in Redwood City, announced plans to buy Internet e-commerce software maker Interleaf Inc. for $877 million in stock. The announcement came on the heels of impressive fourth-quarter earnings: Net income for...

Cookies called into question.
February 4, 2000... Harriet Judnick, a Marin County woman, filed suit against New York online advertising firm Double Click for allegedly violating customers' privacy. Her suit claims the firm is linking personal information with a database of customer buying...

NBCi to buy AllBusiness.com.
February 4, 2000... San Francisco-based NBC Internet Inc. is buying AllBusiness.com, also in San Francisco, for $225 million in stock. NBCi, which also owns the ComFind business directory service and Snap Business Network, is 47 percent-owned by NBC....

Greater Bay buys another bank.
February 4, 2000... Greater Bay Bancorp will buy rival Bank of Santa Clara in a stock deal valued at about $90 million. The deal is expected to close in the second quarter. Palo Alto-based Greater Bay, a bank holding company, has just completed a merger with Mt....

Copper Mountain expands.
February 4, 2000... Copper Mountain Networks Inc., a Palo Alto-based networking equipment maker, agreed to buy OnPrem Networks Corp., of Fremont, for $75 million in stock. OnPrem develops equipment used to provide high-speed online services to smaller office...

Extensity's impressive debut.
February 4, 2000... Emeryville-based Extensity Inc. saw its stock price quadruple in its first day of trading. The software maker's price rose to close at 74 1/4 at the end of the day, to give it a first-day market value of $1.62 billion.

Mckesson ups revenue by $1B.
February 4, 2000... San Francisco's struggling McKesson-HBOC Inc. expanded an alliance with retailer Arrow Corp. that will bring it $1 billion in revenues over three years. The deal makes McKessonHBOC the primary supplier of pharmaceuticals to Arrow's 122...

Interwave's IPO goes swimmingly.
February 4, 2000... Interwave Communications International Ltd., based in Redwood City; saw its share price go up 183.6 percent on its public debut. The compact wireless communications systems maker floated 8.5 million shares at the offering price of $13....

Money-losing CellNet sells.
February 4, 2000... CellNet Data Systems Inc., of San Carlos, is being bought for $55 million in cash by Schlumberger Ltd. CellNet sells wireless networks that collect information about energy usage. Along with the company, Schlumberger will be acquiring about...

Online trader closes round two.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... EBondTrade.com brought its total capital to $31.5 million by completing a second round of funding. Investors include Chase Capital Partners, Access Technology Partners and the Anschutz Group. San Francisco-based EBondTrade began trading...

Rubber supplier to settle suit.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... McDowell & Co., a San Carlos-based supplier of rubber-based products, agreed to settle a lawsuit by Santa Clara's Applied Materials Inc., which accuses McDowell of stealing blueprints of its parts. The settlement calls for McDowell to pay an...

Netcentives teams with AOL.
February 4, 2000... America Online purchased a minority stake in San Francisco-based Netcentives, which will help run its new American Airlines frequent flier miles program, AOL AAdvantage. Netcentives operates the ClicRewards network, which doles out airline...

Safeway earnings bolster shares.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Safeway shares rose more than 10 percent following a 20 percent jump in net income for the fourth quarter. The grocer also announced it borrowed $650.9 million in short-term debt to repurchase 17.9 million shares of stock during the quarter....

H-P to spin off DeepCanyon.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Palo Alto-based Hewlett-Packard Co. plans to spin off DeepCanyon, the marketing web site it created as a subsidiary. DeepCanyon, headquartered in Seattle, officially launched in September 1999. H-P will offer equity stakes in the site to...

BofA Securities takes on Palo Alto.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Bank of America Securities opened an office in Palo Alto. The investment bank, which has underwritten several IPOs and secondary offerings, is a subsidary of Bank of America.

Walnut Creek Hospital closing doors.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Walnut Creek Hospital, an acute-care psychiatric hospital for children, will close at the end of this month on the heels of an acquisition by John Muir Medical Center. The 150-employee hospital was sold for an undisclosed price by Nashville,...

Critical Path looks for instant success with RemarQ.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Email service provider Critical Path said it would acquire RemarQ Communities Inc., a privately held provider of Internet messaging services based in San Jose. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Founded in 1996, RemarQ sells...

Kudos to top 25 women tech-heads.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... The "Top 25 Women on the Web" Were honored Monday night at a ceremony sponsored by San Francisco Women on the Web. This year's list is stellar, as always, and includes many Bay Area tech executives. Honorees include Carly Fiorina, CEO of...

Business-to-business markets booming anew.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Several new studies blow the roof off all previously bullish estimates on the size of the business-to-business market. The latest, and largest, comes from research firm Gartner Group, which said last week that worldwide revenue from B2B...

Productopia nets $16 million in VC cash.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Productopia, the online consumer product information service, raised another $16 million in a second round of funding, bringing its total venture capital take to $22 million. Bessemeer Venture Partners and RRE Ventures were new investors in...

LoopNet adds online marketing service.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Online commercial real estate listing service LoopNet has rolled out a new e-mail marketing product for brokers. MarketNow is an electronic property brochure that brokers can generate for their properties and email to other brokers. ...

Extensity makes successful IPO debut.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Extensity, makers of web-based employee productivity software, ripped into the IPO market last week. Shares in the Emeryville-based company soared 260 percent to $71.25 last Thursday after pricing at $20 per share. The company raised $80...

VC fund throws rope to investors who jump ship.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Even as money continues to gush into new buyout and venture capital funds, San Francisco-based Pantheon Ventures is raising a half-billion-dollar fund to help distressed investors get out. The fund is the first large dedicated pool to...

A fund of one's own.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... San Francisco's Venture Strategy Group has come a long way since managing partner Joanna Gallanter launched its consumer brands consulting business in 1996, adding a venture fund of its own and emerging as a premier consumer Internet expert....

Macy's: Don't settle for a bed, buy a 'lifestyle arrangement'.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Macy's West wants a furniture store prototype to be the chain's standard for the future. The swanky Orange County South Coast Plaza shopping center, which also has a full-line Macy's store and a Macy's Men store, is the first test for...

Chipotle comes to S.F.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... A chef with local beginnings is bringing his fast food concept to San Francisco. Steve Ells, former chef at Stars Restaurant, founded Chipotle Mexican Grill in Denver seven years ago. Since then, he has opened up 50 locations in...

Hello, good buddy, we have a loan form just for you.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... How personal can applying for a mortgage online be? Well, the folks at Xpede Inc. believe if you eliminate a line here, a repetitive question there, applicants may be just a little happier. And that maybe the customer hook for which online...

Is Monty Hall home? Let's make a deal.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... There doesn't appear to be a bank-buying speed limit for organizations with money and strategy behind them. With word that Wells Fargo & Co. is talking about a $480 million deal to buy First Commerce Bancshares of Lincoln, Neb., and its...

Dot-com ads score with cat herders and loopy traders.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Though a handful of local advertising agencies had clients in this year's Super Bowl ad extravaganza, the hometown team making the strongest showing was the shop of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners. The agency provided a few of the rare...

Other dubious spots that deserve mention.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... The cat herders spot from Electronic Data Systems gets some points for its elaborate production quality, and authentic-looking cowboy actors, but overall the ad bent over backwards for a metaphor that likely left most viewers scratching their...

Less is more for advertising oddball.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... For its sheer oddness, and the threadbare production that lent this ad a surreal aspect that Fellini might have marveled at, my vote goes to the chintzy cholesterol pitchman Phillip Sokolof. Sokolof, a former steel manufacturing executive who...

Dot-kamikazes crash and burn.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Most of those eager dot-coms who ponied up millions for prime Super Bowl spots would probably have created more buzz if they had just stacked the money in Times Square and torched it. If the point was brand awareness MicroStrategy, Netpliance,...

Sneeze, get a buck. Go to the bathroom, net a buck.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... That seemed to be the cryptic message conveyed by Epidemic.com, an email service that asks you to spam friends with product ads for pay. If your pal, soon to be former-pal, makes the register cha-ching, you get a piece of the action. Does this...

The second coming of Hal.
February 4, 2000... National real estate icon returns to his Oakland roots -- and is reborn At tan age where most of his contemporaries have long since headed off to the golf course, Hal Ellis is heading into the cyber age. Ellis, who spent three decades...

CalPERS pumps up real estate investment in Bay Area.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... When the big names in Bay Area commercial real estate fare mentioned, the talk is usually of Shorenstein, Zell, Hines, and a pack of institutional investors such as Prudential, Equitable and Boston Properties. Despite assets of nearly $170...

SoMa landlords to tenants: No entry without a warrant.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... In its quest for South of Market's holy grail -- space -- Just In Time Solutions had a decision to make: Surrender an equity stake to a landlord or... well... keep looking. But all four of its prospective landlords were asking for...

Waiting on the promise of the 'New Oakland'.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Merritt Sher couldn't be more enthusiastic about Jack London Square. Touring the motley collection of old industrial buildings, open lots and redevelopment projects along Oakland's waterfront on a blustery day, Sher just reties his wool scarf...

Locals weigh pros, cons of S.F. anti-growth initiative.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Is San Francisco big enough for its booming dot-com industry? The question is shaping up to be the make-or-break issue facing the city's real estate market this year. San Francisco' 4-year-old building boom -- fueled by fast-growing Internet...

Largest Real Estate Investment Trusts in the Bay Area.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 4, 2000... Largest Real Estate Investment Trusts in the Bay Area Company name Address Phone Total market Rank Web site ...

Hunters Point players get antsy as cleanup pauses.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... The city of San Francisco and four developers are almost ready to start the $5 billion redevelopment of Bayview Hunters Point Naval Shipyard. Now if only the U.S. Navy would finish cleaning up after itself. The transformation of the...

Top San Francisco Commercial Tenant Representatives.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Top San Francisco Commercial Tenant Representatives Viva Chan Company name Address Total Square Phone footage...

New women's center boasts big ideas, little tables.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Local business organizations should know better than to gather 400 people in front of a speaker. and call it a "roundtable." But women business owners can find a slightly more intimate sitting at the Renaissance Entrepreneurship Center's...

Serving up success.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Business sizzles at newly expanded Mission restaurant Anne Spencer and Craig Stall wiped the rain from their faces as they huddled outside the home of their elusive landlord. As the owner of the Mission District building that housed the...

Chuck Templeton.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Title: CEO, founder. Company: OpenTable.com Inc., A San Francisco-based online real-time restaurant reservation network. Funding: The company raised $750,000 in its first round of financing, $2 million with the second round and $10...

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... ACCOUNTING/CONSULTING Sweeney Kovar LLP added Adrienne Enoksen and Diane Smyth as accountants. Enoksen has more than five years of experience in the field and will concentrate in the areas of accounting and taxation. She is a California...

Too many holes in bid to tax Net commerce.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... To tax or not to tax--that is the never-ending question haunting the Internet these days. In an election year filled with campaign promises, Internet taxation is striking a chord with candidates wooing the dot.com constituent Steve...

Advertising as a motivational tool.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Much ado is being made these days about the topic of motivation. Numerous books are being published about the motivational techniques used by everyone from Attila the Hun to General George S. Patton Jr. (Generally speaking, they're pretty...

Agenda tackles 'by-products of prosperity'.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... The Bay Area economy is growing at warp speed, and many who live and work here are reaping the benefits. But if this growth is to continue in a way that elevates our unique quality of life, it is time to deal with the by-products of prosperity....

Women under the 'glass ceiling' -- the pay gap is very real.(Brief Article)(Statistical Data Included)
February 4, 2000... Laura Steadman's recent commentary piece, titled "Women share in a breakfast of champions" (Jan. 21-27 issue), disputes the existence of a "glass ceiling" and a gendered wage gap in corporate America. Although Steadman cites several occupations...

Rise & Fall.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... A barometer of the region's movers, shakers and fakers Steve Young Star QB, lawyer, Internet entreprenuer... is there anything this guy can't do? Overachiever Young adds another line to his resume with typically smooth Super Bowl TV...

[3] Dot-coms strip Andersen -- again.(Brief Article)
February 4, 2000... Web steals three top executives in the past year The dot-com talent flight has taken its toll on many Bay Area professional firms, but nowhere has the emigration been more noticeable than at Andersen Consulting, where three top executives...

High-tech eyes.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... AccessAbility Inc. transcends physical and professional barriers Scott Duncan is legally blind. That hasn't stopped him from clearly seeing a business opportunity. Duncan, 33, has overcome a defective retina to succeed in a competitive...

Steven Donaldson.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Title: Co-founder, president and marketing director. Company: Bay Graphics Design Inc. is a Berkeley-based design and communications firm. 1990 revenue: $1.5 million to $2 million. Founded: 1978. Employees: 14. Source of...

QuickBooks 2000 offers snazzy extras.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... My favorite accounting program for little businesses just got a little better. Under the hood, Quick-Books Pro 2000 retains the features that has made it the No. 1 accounting choice of small-business owners: It's reliable, simple and makes...

Largest San Francisco Employers.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Largest San Francisco Employers Rank Name Full-time last Address/Phone employees in Rank year Web site ...

PEOPLE ON THE MOVE.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Burger King exec trades french fries for fruit juice at Jamba Paul Clayton is giving up burgers and fries for juice and soup. The former Burger King executive started this week as the new CEO of San Francisco-based Jamba Juice. ...

CEO Doug Shorenstein on the state of real estate.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Shorenstein Co. -- one of the country's largest privately held real estate companies -- owns about 25 million square feet of office space around the country, and is the biggest owner of Class. A space in downtown San Francisco. Its local...

'Bean-counting cops' ambush tech mergers.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... If you're like most of us, your interest in accounting regulations probably ranges between "yawn" and "zzzzzz." Make an exception in this case. Technology executives and venture capitalists already have; they are hopping mad over plans by...

Middle-school students put to a test.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Hundreds of San Francisco middle-school students deserve an "A" for patience -- though it nearly ran out. A recent computer glitch at the San Francisco Unified School District hung up their report cards for about three weeks. Under...

LETTERS.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Of 'Peanuts,' burning rivers and Iron City beer I couldn't resist the urge to comment on your differences with Michael Miller of the Pittsburgh Business Times ("You can go now, Charlie Brown," Jan. 21-27 issue vs. "Peanuts' shelling: The...

Mammal vs. dinosaur? Salesforce snaps at Siebel.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Only in today's heady dot-com days can an executive from an upstart Internet firm refer to Siebel Systems as a dinosaur whose time in the tech spotlight has already past. That's what John Dillon, CEO of Salesforce.com, said of his rival...

Got software engineers? If not, just rent some.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Finding qualified programmers to tackle corporate software projects has always been a problem for Bay Area companies. Now, a San Jose company is setting up an Internet business-to-business exchange that promises to match corporate IT...

New COO post at Commerce One.(Brief Article)
February 11, 2000... Commerce One has appointed Robert Kimmitt a newly created chief operating officer post. Kimmitt, 52, joins the Walnut Creek-based business e-commerce software company with a somewhat unusual resume for a tech company. He is a partner in an...