San Francisco Business Times articles from June 1998

San Francisco Business Times archives from June 1998

Chiron shakes up its corporate structure. (outsourcing contract with IBM Global Services)
June 26, 1998... Biotech links up with IBM, Price Waterhouse to cut costs, spin off jobs Chiron Corp. has brought in computer giant IBM for a 10-year, $139 million overhaul of its computer systems. This is the first step in a major corporate shakeup to cut...

Grill catches fire. (California Cafe Restaurants to add four more restaurants in shopping malls)
June 26, 1998... California Cafe Restaurants moves Napa, Alcatraz east California Care Restaurants is building a dining empire by taking Napa Valley and Alcatraz to shopping malls in the Midwest. Corte Madera-based California Cafe's 22 restaurants posted...

Chevron Chemical hits China. (to build first plant in China)
June 26, 1998... Chevron Chemical Co. will build its first plant in China and is eying expansion elsewhere in Asia and Latin America in its most aggressive growth spurt in over a decade. The San Ramon-based unit of San Francisco off giant Chevron Corp. is...

Apartment developer strikes S.F., again. (Armax Inc.'s housing deals in San Francisco, California)
June 26, 1998... Armax's latest gambit: a $75M, 27-story highrise South of Market Acquisitive Armax International Inc. has tied up a 30,000-square-foot parcel near the. foot of the Bay Bridge for a $75 million, 27-story residential high-rise - its second...

Drug giant buys $20M 'library card' from local biotech. (Axys Pharmaceuticals Inc. to sell drug-screening skills to Warner-Lambert Co.)
June 26, 1998... One of the region's best deal-makers in biotech has inked a $20 million contract to sell its drug-screening skills to the $8.6 billion Warner-Lambert Co. South San Francisco-based Axys Pharmaceuticals Inc. (formerly Arris Pharmaceuticals)...

New owners let child-care firm go out and play. (Knowledge Universe; Children's Discovery Centers Inc.)
June 26, 1998... San Rafael's Children's Discovery Centers Inc. is learning fast what it's like to have rich parents. The $93 million San Rafael-based day-care center operator was taken private last month by Knowledge Universe, an umbrella company formed by...

Tech publisher points at Internet, hope to click with new magazine. (Imagine Media)
June 26, 1998... With the launch of its latest title, Business 2.0, Imagine Media is determined to crush its reputation as the fastest-growing Bay Area publisher you've never heard of. The monthly business magazine, which zeros in on the "New (read:...

Struggling CIC gambles on hand-held computer market. (Communications Intelligence Corp.)
June 26, 1998... Redwood Shores-based Communication Intelligence Corp. has signed bundling deals with Microsoft and Nortel in a last-ditch effort by financier Philip Sassower to drag the perennial loser into profitability. Sassower, a New York-based...

Mr. nice guy. (PeopleSoft CEO Dave Duffield)
June 26, 1998... PeopleSoft's Duffield grows tech giant with heart of a startup The cubicle is like any other at PeopleSoft's Pleasanton headquarters, lined with family photos, small gifts from coworkers and pictures of pet schnauzers. The modest workspace...

Visa plays a new card: venture funds. (Visa International)
June 19, 1998... After watching an experimental $10 million investment grow to more than $200 million in four years, Visa International is stepping up its venture capital operations. The Foster City-based credit card company plans to boost its investment in...

Game firm to pirates: this is war. (video game piracy prevention efforts of Electronic Arts)
June 19, 1998... Electronic Arts taps 'top cop' to go after counterfeiters Electronic Arts is sending its new top cop after international organized-crime syndicates the video-game maker estimates have cost it $300 million in lost sales. The company has...

Alameda's emergency call. (Alameda County, California)
June 19, 1998... Scrambles to keep 911 system from collapse Alameda County is looking for help in restarting the heart of its dying 911 emergency response system. Overburdened by calls and distracted by non-emergencies, the county is working to come up...

Norwest, Wells learn to speak each other's language. (merger of Norwest Bank Minneapolis and Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco, California)
June 19, 1998... Wells Fargo's merger with Norwest isn't set to be completed until later this year, but the expected cultural revolution has already begun. At the urging of Wells Fargo Chairman and CEO Paul Hazen, each of the bank's 33,000 employees this...

Entrepreneur stakes claim to do-it-yourself web sites. (Justin Kitch of Homestead Technologies based in Menlo Park, California)
June 19, 1998... Justin Kitch is taking the mystery out of web-page design in order to cash in on home computer users and businesses seeking to make their personal mark on the Internet. The 26-year-old Stanford grad-school dropout is the founder and CEO of...

City within a city: SFO reaches new heights. (expansion of the San Francisco International Airport in California)(Structures)
June 19, 1998... The Bay Area's economic largesse has pushed business increasingly skyward, causing record passenger tallies through all of the region's airports. San Francisco International Airport has borne the bulk of that growth, breaking 40 million...

Consortium focuses on jobs; tech center targets S.F.'s Bayview-Hunters Point. (San Francisco Center for Technology and Recreation)
June 12, 1998... A consortium of public and private entities is laying the groundwork to build a roughly $20 million job-training center in economically depressed Bayview-Hunters Point - one of the most ambitious projects of its kind in San Francisco's history....

Web shops mesh: wave of mergers sweeps through digital community. (San Francisco, California)
June 12, 1998... Shane Ginsberg looks more like a SOMA nightclub hipster than a budding Internet entrepreneur. Yet last month, he sold Plastic, his 2-year-old interactive agency, to fast-growing New York digital media firm Razorfish. Plastic isn't the only...

Norwest deal will help Wells fix its wagon.
June 12, 1998... Wells Fargo customers are likely to see the bank, stepping up its beleaguered customer-service effort and pitching products far more aggressively following its announcement that. it; will merge with Norwest. That Wells is merging surprised...

Pair of real estate powers drives into San Francisco; Divco West bags 150 Spear. (Divco West Properties)
June 12, 1998... After several failed attempts, DivcoWest Properties is taking its first bite out of the San Francisco office market.The San Jose-based company - that city's largest downtown landlord - is paying more than $70 million for the 150 Spear St....

Hines snags land for tower. (Hines Interests L.P.)(Pair of Real Estate Powers Drives Into San Francisco)
June 12, 1998... Hines Interests LP, flush with cash from new investors, has tied up a site in downtown San Francisco it hopes to develop into a major office tower The Houston-based real estate company is negotiating a long-term ground lease for the...

Golf's U.S. Open is already on the green: top companies paying up to schmooze at premier event.
June 12, 1998... Red-carpet treatment will be par for the course for clients of some of the Bay Area's biggest corporations at this month's U.S. Open. Companies such as McKesson Corp., 3Com Corp., PeopleSoft Inc., Cisco Systems and Union Bank of California...

Dine country: Napa Valley tourist dollars feed restaurant boom.(Business Meetings & Hospitality)
June 12, 1998... Napa Valley tourist dollars feed restaurant boom An increase in tourist spending is fueling a restaurant boom in Napa Valley, transforming the area into a vibrant culinary capital as well as a place known for producing fine wines. Even...

Competing when you are one in a dozen. (website development company Atomic Vision)
June 12, 1998... Now that products and ideas can be shared, sold, saved or forgotten with the click of a mouse, Matthew Butterick is out to help companies make a lasting impression on the Internet. Butterick is founder, president and chief development officer...

Sutter Health pares centers; hospital system pulls back on long-term care. (Sutter Health System)
June 5, 1998... Sutter Health has closed its skilled nursing center at Berkeley's Alta Bates Medical Center and is in negotiations to sell off four more centers near Sacramento to help bolster its slowly improving balance sheet. That means that, since...

Golf club tees off; Orlimar's TriMetal wood driving sales to $50M from $1M - in one year.
June 5, 1998... Golf club manufacturer Orlimar is swinging for a possible initial public offering following the runaway success of its latest product. The Hayward-based company introduced the TriMetal wood only five months ago, but it has already become the...

Skin products give docs a healthy glow; clearing adult complexions turns into big business. (Proactiv Solution for adult acne)(Product Announcement)
June 5, 1998... Katie Rodan and Kathy Fields were medical residents at Stanford when they made a huge discovery: Bad skin isn't just for teenagers. Then they made another one: No one was selling to the adult market. That discovery has turned into a more...

Selling high: firm eyes red-hot apartment market. (FowlerShore and Flanagan to sell FowlerShore apartment buildings)
June 5, 1998... FowlerShore & Flanagan is considering selling its $1.3 billion portfolio in an attempt to cash in on the cresting apartment sector. Sausalito-based FowlerShore is the nation's 30th-largest apartment owner with a portfolio of 28,000 units...

Small business putting off dealing with Y2K problem. (year 2000 problem)
June 5, 1998... More than 5 million small businesses are exposed to computer glitches associated with the turn of the century, and most of them are likely to wait until the last moment to deal with them, according to a new small business survey. At least 75...

Straight shooter: Byrnes' energy and humor keep Corsair on a path to growth. (Mary Ann Byrnes; Corsair Communications Inc.)(Company Profile)
June 5, 1998... Nineteen ninety-seven was a banner year for Mary Ann Byrnes. The 41-year-old chief executive officer of Corsair Communications was faced with juggling what would be milestones in her professional and personal lives within months of each...

In high-tech era, PacBell makes its money on paper. (Pacific Bell directories)
June 5, 1998... They're fat, they're yellow and they gush profit for Pacific Bell. Even in the Internet era, the clunky old Yellow Pages generate $2 billion in revenue for PacBell's parent SBC Communications. In PacBell's California/Nevada region, the...

To be transferred out of voice-mail hell, press three. (Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc.)(Company Profile)
June 5, 1998... Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc. has taken a devil of a liking to voice-mail hell. By capitalizing on the sometimes hair-pulling gulf between computer and telephone networks, the San Francisco-based corporation has become one of...

Agency has insured its succession secrets. (Jenkins/Athens Insurance)(Company Profile)
June 5, 1998... The Jenkins' family business is a textbook success story. Its secrets of success are simple, but often forgotten. In the early 1930s, James Jenkins graduated from college and had a plan to start his own lumber-hauling trucking company and saw...