San Francisco Business Times articles from June 1999

San Francisco Business Times archives from June 1999

S.F, cruise terminal set to sail: developers to vie for waterfront opportunity - $300M project.(Port of San Francisco)
June 4, 1999... The Port of San Francisco is putting up for grabs the biggest prize since its 7.5 miles of waterfront were reopened for development two years ago: the chance to build an international cruise ship terminal. The terminal would form the...

Hal Riney makes it pay to advertise; intensely private 'Godfather of S.F. advertising' speaks out.
June 4, 1999... The voice is the first thing you recognize. It is deep, gravelly. It has a warm, rich patina that comes from age, hard living and heavy smoking. Hal Riney, 66, has lent his vocal chords to hundreds of TV commercials, both his own and those...

Despite $90M deal with Publicis, adman minds his own business.(Hal Riney Makes It Pay to Advertise)
June 4, 1999... Hal Riney admits to being entirely uninterested in the financial side of his agency, but he sure negotiated one heck of a deal when he sold out to Publicis SA in May 1998. The French advertising group - the 10th largest in the world - paid...

Levi reaches into its closet for comeback strategy.(Levi Strauss & Co.)
June 4, 1999... Levi Strauss & Co. is dusting off its L2 brand to make a serious entry into the lower-priced jeans market. Introduced in 1995 as a budget-priced jeans line for men, L2 has until now received little marketing support and has been lost behind...

Shansby fights defections as it launches fund.(Shansby Group)
June 4, 1999... Shansby Group has raised a new $160 million buyout fund to grab consumer-goods companies. It's also hoping to grab some new recruits to counter turnover at the San Francisco-based investment firm. Shansby already has sunk $15 million from...

Hotel operator lands Port of S.F.'s waterfront site.(Stanford Hospitality Inc.; Port of San Francisco)
June 4, 1999... Stanford Hospitality Inc. has emerged as the sole contender to build a $70 million luxury hotel on the city's waterfront The San Francisco-based company is expected to enter into exclusive negotiations with the Port of San Francisco for the...

Cable network in AT&T vise; S.F. looks for crowbar.(San Francisco, California)
June 4, 1999... A debate is brewing in the chambers of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors over whether AT&T Corp. should open its cable network to cable operators who want to lease the network for competing services. The Public Utilities and...

Boston REIT finally dives into still heated S.F. marjet.(real estate investment trust Beacon Capital Partners Inc.; San Francisco, California)
June 4, 1999... Beacon Capital Partners Inc. is picking off its first piece of San Francisco real estate, nearly one year after it almost bought the China Basin Landing office complex. The Boston-based real estate investment trust, which is not publicly...

J. William Morris III.(KPMG Peat Marwick LLP managing partner)
June 4, 1999... Name: Bill Morris. Title: Managing partner. Company: KPMG Peat Marwick LLP, in San Francisco, the accounting and consulting firm. Education: Bachelor of science degree in accounting from Iona College, in New Rochelle, N.Y. ...

Sustainable success: ice cream maker serves up all-natural rain forest flavors.(Howler Products)
June 4, 1999... Unlike his Stanford University classmates, who followed the money to Sand Hill Road, Douglas Stewart followed his heart into the rain forest. As an undergraduate, wart, now 31, spent three months in Brazil studying 20 environmentally...

Michael Tchong.(Iconocast Inc. president and CEO)
June 4, 1999... Title: Editor of the newsletter; president and CEO of the company. Company: Iconocast Inc., in San Francisco, a weekly e-mail newsletter for Internet marketers published by a staff of five. It is supported by advertising at rates up to...

Presidio meltdown sparks controversy; George Lucas scrambles to squeeze more cash and public appeal out of Letterman plan.(Presidio Trust; development of Letterman Complex)
June 11, 1999... George Lucas scrambles to squeeze more cash and public appeal out of Letterman plan As the Business Times went to press and the decision on the Letterman Complex neared its third week of delay, chaos and political intrigue swirled around...

Barclay's to pack up staff for East Bay.(Barclay's Global Investors)
June 11, 1999... San Francisco faces losing another financial services firm to the East Bay. Barclay's Global Investors, the 700-person Bay Area operations of the London bank, will move several of its support groups out of the U.S. headquarters and into a...

Lego robots marching on Marin County; Mindstorms division seeks closer ties to Bay Area tech visionaries.
June 11, 1999... Seeking creative inspiration from Bay Area high-tech visionaries, Danish toy giant Lego is relocating its new Mindstorms robotics division to Marin County from Connecticut. Launched last holiday season with much fanfare, Mindstorms combines...

Fraud probe fails to slow Providian juggernaut.(Providian Financial Corp.)
June 11, 1999... Providian Financial Corp., awash in month-old allegations that it misled credit card customers about fees and add-on products, is adding new accounts at a higher rate than before a consumer fraud investigation began. Renowned for its...

Online medical firm nets new offices, new executives.(MedicalLogic Inc.)
June 11, 1999... Oregon's MedicaLogic has signed a 10-year lease in downtown San Francisco and nabbed a clutch of former Netscape executives as part of a $35 million push to rule the online medical data market. The $60 million-revenue company has leased...

David Nosal.(Executive Profile)(regional manager of Korn/Ferry International)
June 11, 1999... Name: David Nosal. Title: Regional manager. Company: Korn/Ferry International. Nosal oversees the executive search firm's San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Seattle offices and explores new markets west of the Rockies and into Canada....

Diners give chain eateries a bad case of indigestion.(Business Meetings & Hotels)(San Francisco, CA's chain restaurants)
June 11, 1999... San Francisco eats chain restaurants. In a cliquish city that values its homegrown chefs and epicurean concepts, outside invaders tread warily. "San Francisco is the least chain-friendly city in America," said Roger Stilson, vice president...

Psst. Want a good table? Try restaurant investing.(Business Meetings & Hotels)
June 11, 1999... Under any circumstances, restaurant investing is not for the faint of heart. But in the ultra-competitive Bay Area, it is for the resolutely strong of stomach, and that is why top-notch local restaurateurs are grateful for a large pool of...

Fairmont spending $72M to restore hotel's luster.(Business Meetings & Hotels)(Fairmont Hotel)
June 11, 1999... Memorial Day weekend is usually a slow one for the Fairmont Hotel, but this last one was quieter than most, assuming you don't count all the banging. Sunday, a crew of 18 plumbers began working around the clock installing new domestic...

Bringing it all together: snack makers can't get enough of Supercali's sweet distribution.(Small Business Growth Strategies)(Supercali Snacks Inc.)(Company Profile)
June 11, 1999... Greg and Gina Walker are redefining the middleman. Their Supercali Snacks Inc. is no nameless, faceless intermediary, but an innovative snack-food distributor with an identity, and a vision, all its own. "We're putting a whole new twist on...

Gaurav Dhillon.(Entrepreneur Profile)(Informatica Corp. CEO)
June 11, 1999... Title: CEO. Company: Informatica Corp. in Palo Alto, with revenue of 829 million in 1998 ($10.3 million in Q1 of 1999) and 230 employees. The software company develops "data warehouse" products, which enable large businesses to organize...

CNet scrambles for new home: aced out of Presidio, multimedia giant looks in and out of S.F.
June 18, 1999... Aced out of Presidio, multimedia giant looks in and out of S.F. The Presidio Trust's decision to award the Letterman Complex development to "Star Wars" creator George Lucas has left one of the city's fastest-growing companies out in the...

Catellus cuts back retail at Mission Bay.(Catellus Development Corp)
June 18, 1999... Changing market conditions have forced Catellus Development Corp. to scale back and recast the retail portion of its huge Mission Bay project in San Francisco. A burst of entertainment building - including the 350,000-square-foot Sony...

Solitary solution: Inktomi quintet emerges with a way to to take toil out of web searches.
June 18, 1999... Inktomi quintet emerges with a way to take toil out of web searches Inktomi Corp. locked five of their brightest computer scientists inside a laboratory for 18 months to devise a solution to one of the web's most frustrating problems:...

Net stocks take a licking but IPOs keep on ticking.(initial public offering)
June 18, 1999... Internet stocks have been punished since early spring, yet that isn't halting the stampede of web-based companies filing for initial public offerings. On June 14, San Francisco-based Internet portal LookSmart and Bamboo.com, a Palo...

Joie de Vivre resorts to new hospitality strategy.
June 18, 1999... San Francisco-based Joie de Vivre Hospitality is opening its first resort property and taking over a neighborhood hotel in San Francisco as it diversifies from its downtown hotel business. The company's resort division has completed...

Power play: Bechtel ditches go-it-alone strategy to bolster global power-plant building prowess.
June 18, 1999... With privatization sweeping the globe and energy deregulation spreading across the United States, Bechtel Group is poised for a new era of power-plant building. Bechtel is best known as a global builder of massive bridge and transportation...

PG&E new business push can't generate respect.(Pacific Gas and Electric)
June 18, 1999... Stuck with a stodgy utility image, PG&E Corp. is the energy industry's equivalent of Rodney Dangerfield. The problem is that San Francisco-based PG&E isn't getting any respect on Wall Street, despite aggressive diversification into...

Hair today, gone tomorrow: plucky cosmetic technology venture seeking to wax its competition around the world.(Vanishing Point Inc.)
June 25, 1999... Loading up on venture capital to launch a high-tech business in the Bay Area doesn't make Melisse Shaban unusual. Her idea - a nationwide chain of hair-removal clinics - does. Shaban's 2-year-old Vanishing Point Inc. has opened two of its...

Snack mogul puts chips on net startup.(venture capitalist Keith Kim)
June 25, 1999... Oakland entrepreneur Keith Kim has gathered some crumbs from his successful turnaround of Granny Goose Foods and is putting the potato chip proceeds to work on the Internet. Kim has formed a $10 million venture capital fund called Spencer...

Cost Plus World Markets loads up its cart: Oakland retailer to go on national spending spree to double chain.
June 25, 1999... Buoyed by strong sales growth and flush with cash, Oakland's Cost Plus World Markets Inc. will speed up its store openings, aiming to double the chain within four years. The specialty retailer of home products, food and wines operates 94...

PG&E signs up realty giant for big energy push.(Pacific Gas and Electric)
June 25, 1999... San Francisco-based PG&E Energy Services, upping the stakes in its race to lock up the energy market for large commercial properties, has teamed up with real estate giant Jones Lang LaSalle. The two firms' new joint venture, called Real...

Two tenants chase big space at Landmark.(DelMonte Foods Co. and E-Offering Inc. express intentions to lease at Landmark building on Market Street in downtown San Francisco)
June 25, 1999... The Landmark, a $100 million renovation project at the foot of Market Street, could soon be home to one of San Francisco's oldest companies, and one of its newest. Del Monte Foods Co., the 108-year-old purveyor of canned fruits and...

Pixar turns tiny toys and bugs into box-office boffo.(Pixar Animation Studios)
June 25, 1999... First with toys, then bugs and soon monsters, Pixar Animation Studios is proving to be more than just a one-hit wonder. The Richmond film company, formed in 1986 after Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs purchased the 40-member...

Price war taking toll on Internet retailer Onsale.(online retailer)
June 25, 1999... Is Onsale destined to be one of the first casualties of the cutthroat Internet economy? The warning signs are there. The Menlo Park-based online retailer is in the midst of a price war so braising it loses money on every piece of computer...

What's in a tech name? Part vision, part whimsy.
June 25, 1999... Amazon, Pixar and Yahoo: names don't give a due about the companies' business, but still conjure up vivid images of what they do. Part of that success is due to successful marketing campaigns. But it helps to have names that roll off the...

S.F.'s party goes on: but after a half-decade building boom, the strain starts to show.(San Francisco Structures)
June 25, 1999... As San Francisco enters its third straight year of development nirvana, a question can be heard rising up from among the pounding and clanking: Is this too much of a good thing? The flurry of public and private projects that are reshaping...

Pier 1 goes from warehouse to showpiece.(San Francisco Structures)
June 25, 1999... Pier 1, once a warehouse for sugar, will soon resonate with sweetness for the Port of San Francisco as it prepares to convert it into its new headquarters. The $42 million project is significant because it marks the first project to move...

Catholic Healthcare West bleeds red ink: S.F. hospital system, facing $225M drubbing, slashes eight execs.
June 25, 1999... CHW's financial health Gross Operative FY revenue gain/cost Net '97 $3.2B ($72.7M) $36M '98 $3.5B (32M) $73M '99 $4.4B ($225M) ($82M) Source:...