San Francisco Business Times articles from July 1998

San Francisco Business Times archives from July 1998

Wells battles brokerages. (Wells Fargo starts its asset management account services)
July 3, 1998... Series of moves turns the crank on private bank Wells Fargo is beefing up its private banking operations with new offices, staff and products aimed at competing directly with Charles Schwab and other brokerages. The San Francisco bank has...

H-P leading charge for Net privacy. (Hewlett-Packard supporting two industry initiatives to prevent unlawful use of Internet information)
July 3, 1998... With government regulators nipping at their heels, Bay Area technology companies are banding together to protect consumer privacy on the Internet. The companies, including computer giant Hewlett-Packard, are backing two major...

Aqua owners' new splash: a seafood chain. (Next Century Restaurants)
July 3, 1998... Pisces restaurant concept designed to swim toward midstream Owners of posh San Francisco restaurants Aqua and Charles Nob Hill are moving downscale to launch a national chain of seafood restaurants. Next Century Restaurants Inc. founder...

Swig rises on skyline. (real estate developer Kent Swig plans new residential development project in San Francisco, CA)
July 3, 1998... Next generation of family makes mark with $125M tower Kent Swig is bringing his family's legendary name back to the San Francisco landscape with a blockbuster $125 million residential project in the trendy South of Market area. New...

Doctor group will operate at Stanford. (Brown & Toland Medical Group adds doctors at Stanford University Medical Center to its network)
July 3, 1998... Brown & Toland adds 800 more docs to fast-growing network San Francisco's Brown & Toland Medical Group is nearly doubling its number of doctors by opening its doors to Stanford University. The 5-year-old independent physicians group is...

Pre-baby boomers helping senior-home biz grow East. (American Baptist Homes of the West acquires two East Coast nursing homes)
July 3, 1998... An Oakland-based retirement home operator has bought two East Coast companies and set up a consulting firm as it prepares to deal with the coming wave of independent, affluent elderly. Under the deal, American Baptist Homes of the West will...

Avram Goldman. (chief executive officer of Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage)(Interview)
July 3, 1998... Name: Avram Goldman. Title: President and Chief Operating Officer. Company: Coldwell Banker Residential Brokerage, Northern California, based in San Ramon. Education: Bachelor of arts degree in sociology from the University of California...

Judith Thompson. (founder of Thompson Brooks Inc.)(Interview)
July 3, 1998... Name: Judith Thompson. Company: San Francisco-based Thompson Brooks Inc., a $15 million construction company that specializes in building and remodeling high-end estates and working on the interior design of high-end commercial spaces....

Developers chase $5 billion prize: teams vie to transform S.F.'s Hunters Point Shipyard.
July 10, 1998... A foursome of development heavy-hitters has stepped up to the plate for the chance to transform the 500-acre former Naval shipyard at Hunters Point into a $5 billion community. The master-developer wanna-bes are all well known in the real...

Genentech flows: strategy shift sends new drugs gushing through the pipeline. (Genentech Inc.)
July 10, 1998... Three years ago, Genentech Inc.'s leaders took a long look at its future and got nervous. There were several drugs in clinical trials, but not much behind them in the decade-long drug development pipeline. And while they had a new agreement...

Ferry Building rehab project draws crowd. (San Francisco, CA's historic building)
July 10, 1998... Four developers are vying to undertake a massive renovation of San Francisco's historic Ferry Building - a project expected to cost between $60 million and $70 million. The bidders - William Wilson & Associates of Menlo Park; TrizecHahn Corp....

Oakland's new role: venture capitalist. (Oakland, CA, seeks small companies with $44 million federal grant)
July 10, 1998... The city of Oakland is getting into the venture capital business. Armed with a $44 million federal grant to attract and retain small businesses, Oakland is aiming to provide equity financing as well as low-interest loans to small companies...

Quick $56 million profit enough to make office seller flip. (Blackstone Group earns $56 million in sale of San Francisco's China Basin Landing for $145 million to Beacon Capital Partners Inc.)
July 10, 1998... A new Boston-based real estate investment trust has tied up San Francisco's China Basin Landing for about $145 million - $56 million more than the office complex sold for less than a year ago. Beacon Capital Partners Inc. has signed a letter of...

Lincoln logs a big apartment deal for $300M. (Lincoln Property Co. sells 17 multifamily properties to Equity Residential Properties Trust)
July 10, 1998... Lincoln Property Co. has completed a $302 million sale to Equity Residential Properties Trust of 17 multifamily properties in the West, including nine in Northern California valued at $164 million. The nine Bay Area properties total 1,364 units...

Apparel plant goes out of fashion. (Jeanne-Marc Inc. closes San Francisco, CA, plant)
July 10, 1998... San Francisco's Jeanne-Marc Inc. is abandoning its apparel manufacturing factory after 25 years as one of the city's most prominent names in the fashion industry. But co-founder Jeanne Allen maintains closure of the San Francisco factory and...

Taking care of business: Cal Pacific finds new life. (California Pacific Medical Center)(Health Care Quarterly)
July 10, 1998... Just outside the door to the California Pacific Medical Center lies a circuitous design in green flagstones - a labyrinth with one entrance and a twisted path to the center and out again. It's easy to overlook from the street. For patients,...

Doctors find managed care has its benefits: with pay falling, firms lure docs with time off, even home loans.(Health Care Quarterly)
July 10, 1998... New doctors used to be able to count on a rosy and predictable career path. Sure, school was long and residency was tough, but after a few years a private practice and a six-figure income almost surely beckoned. Like many other former...

Despite HMO fireworks, docs declare their independence. (health maintenance organizations)(Health Care Quarterly)
July 10, 1998... The managed-care revolution of the mid-1990s was good news for insurers and employers, who finally found a means for shackling healthcare costs. It was bad news for doctors, who abruptly lost their preeminent position in the health-care food...

Century goes to the movies; theater chain raises curtain on $200M expansion. (Century Theatres)
July 17, 1998... Century Theatres is aiming to nearly doable its screens within two years, an ambitious goal considering the San Rafael-based chain took 48 years to amass its current 550. Century has embarked on a $200 million national expansion that includes...

Sparklers pop cork. (expected increase in demand for sparkling wine on New Year's Eve 1999)
July 17, 1998... Wine Country's Year 2000 dilemma: Enough bubbly? As Silicon Valley grapples with the heralded millennium computer bug, the dominant industry in another part of the Bay Area is facing up to a major Y2K problem of its own: Will there be enough...

Car dealer revs up for IPO. (First America Automotive; initial public offering)
July 17, 1998... First America aims to hop in the driver's seat Tom Price's First America Automotive is planning to cap a statewide acquisition binge with an IPO early next year, making it the first Bay Area car dealership to go public. Price's dealerships...

Investors rush to make deposit in banking fund. (Balvedere Capital Partners's investment fund)
July 17, 1998... Belvedere Capital Partners has raised $160 million for its investment fund focusing on California community banks, more than twice as much as expected, and has already begun spending the proceeds. The San Francisco-based fund, led by Anthony...

Executive profile. (Glenborough Realty Trust Chmn. and CEO Robert Batinovich)
July 17, 1998... Name: Robert 'Bat" Batinovich. Title: Chairman and CEO. Company: Glenborough Realty Trust, the San Mateo-based real estate investment trust. Education: St. Anthony's High School in Long Beach. Residence: Hillsborough. BUSINESS...

Hot market has clients wining and dining their PR firms. (public relations)(Special Report: Hot Marketing)
July 17, 1998... Times are flush for public-relations firms, so flush that many can pay attention to boosting their own images as well as their clients'. With a booming economy and record venture capital flows fueling a surge in demand for their services, PR...

Married, to each other and a tech startup. (Karen and Michael Clothier of NetQuest)(Small Business Growth Strategies)(Company Profile)
July 17, 1998... One country, two cities and one startup later, it's a wonder that Karen and Michael Clothier are still speaking to each other, let alone married. But Karen and Michael aren't your average married couple or your average business types....

Entrepreneur profile. (Mark Juarez, owner of Tender Loving Things Inc.)
July 17, 1998... Name: Mark Juarez. Company: Tender Loving Things Inc., a manufacturer of personal care products based in San Leandro. Most well-known for its "Happy Massager," the company has revenue of $10 million to $15 million. Employees: 60 full-time,...

Tri Valley's bad harvest: a $50M loss. (Tri Valley Growers)
July 24, 1998... Tri Valley Growers is facing dissension from some of its 500 members after announcing a surprise loss of more than $50 million. Audited results for the year ended June 30 will not come out for several weeks, but disgruntled growers forced CEO...

Using his noodle. (Long Life Noodle Co plans to open another unit)
July 24, 1998... Rising restaurateur sees big appetite for Asian food concept George Chen has plenty of pots on the stove in the Bay Area restaurant scene - but the fullest has noodles in it, and he wants to see it boiling all over the country. Chen's...

Pacific Exchange headquarters sold. (Amstar Group Ltd acquires Pacific Exchange's executive offices through Flynn Land Co)
July 24, 1998... Denver real estate investor, bullish on S.F., pays $28M A Denver real estate investor is purchasing 115 Sansome St., home to the Pacific Exchange's executive offices, for about $28 million, sources close to the transaction said. After...

Banker to build instead of buy in East bay push. (Greater Bay Bancorp)
July 24, 1998... Greater Bay Bancorp. is pushing to join the proliferation of community banks sprouting in the East Bay. But Greater Bay, the Palo Alto community banking company that recently acquired San Francisco's Golden Gate Bank, doesn't plan to snap up a...

Room service. (Internet access in hotels)
July 24, 1998... Hotels bet business guests won't want to travel without a Net Hotel owners and developers are quickly making high-speed Internet access a basic feature for guests, and a profit center for themselves. Hotels are finding that offering T1-line...

Bay Area startups race to deliver stamps via the Net. (electronic postage industry)
July 24, 1998... Two Bay Area companies are vying to put their stamp on the emerging electronic postage industry. Neopost, whose U.S. headquarters are in Hayward, and Palo Alto-based E-Stamp want to be a part of the Pony Express' move to the Internet, where...

Reality doesn't interfere with investors' Net obsession. (Internet service providers)
July 24, 1998... The spectacular rise of Internet stocks this year may have investors yelling Yahoo, but not without fear that they might get pulled back down to Earth by some yet-unseen NetGravity. BroadVision Inc., @Home Corp., Excite Inc., Networks...

RSA Data wants to help its customers keep a secret. (RSA Data Security Inc)
July 24, 1998... RSA Data Security makes a product so powerful that it is considered as serious a threat to national security as the stealth bomber. Yet for consumers hooked on electronic commerce or businesses dependent on sending confidential information via...

Airport tries to land Bay Area retailers. (San Francisco International Airport)
July 31, 1998... San Francisco International Airport is shopping for big-name retailers and restaurateurs with San Francisco roots. The airport's $2.4 billion international terminal - now half built - will add almost 150,000 square feet of retail space. Bob...

Ad shop scores with Microsoft. (advertising contract with Anderson and Lembke San Francisco)
July 31, 1998... Anderson & Lembke to add 80 staffers Microsoft Corp. has shifted around its advertising assignments, handing more than half of its $200 million budget to the San Francisco office of Anderson & Lembke. As a result, the agency is going on a...

Private cash livens chase for real estate. (real estate investment trusts in San Francisco, California)
July 31, 1998... Sagging stocks force real estate investment trusts to downshift After two years of foot-to-the-pedal buying, real estate investment trusts are starting to take a back seat to private money in the drive to acquire new property. The shift...

Unplugged from magazine, Wired hooks into Internet fray. (San Francisco, California-based Wired Digital)
July 31, 1998... Wired Digital is out to prove it can survive as a pure Internet company now that its flagship - money-making magazine Wired - has been sold. Last month's $80 million sale of Wired to New York publishing giant Advance Publications left San...

Changing the world. (young businesspeople in the San Francisco Bay Area)
July 31, 1998... GenXers' route to success doesn't include climbing the corporate ladder Justin Kitch epitomizes the entrepreneurial fever that has taken hold of GenXers in the Bay Area. The 26-year-old dropped out of a master's program at Stanford to start...

Restructuring a firm for the Internet age. (San Francisco, California-based Finet Holdings Corp.)
July 31, 1998... At a time when everyone is taking advantage of Internet commerce, buying every possible item from furniture to groceries online, Dan Rawitch is offering to throw in the kitchen sink, too - along with the rest of the house. Rawitch is president...

PBWC Conference returns to San Francisco in 1998! (Professional and Businesswomen of California)
July 31, 1998... Over 6,000 women attended the ninth annual Professional and Businesswomen of California's Conference on May 27, 1998. Attendance figures have grown steadily and impressively since the first PBWC conference was held in 1989 at Brooks Hall in the...