San Francisco Business Times articles from March 1996

San Francisco Business Times archives from March 1996

Mass exodus from S.F. Fashion Center: apparel companies moving en masse to Gift Center and Jewelry Mart. (San Francisco Fashion Center)
March 8, 1996... The last thread holding together the Fashion Center as San Francisco's apparel mart has finally broken. Forty women's clothing and accessory reps - many longtime tenants in the building - have signed a deal to move their showrooms to the...

Oakland retail center ready to move earth. (proposed retail shopping center near Oakland Coliseum)
March 8, 1996... A Los Angeles-based developer is ready to break ground in the next few weeks on a new 270,000-square-foot retail shopping center near the Oakland Coliseum. Zelman Retail Properties has signed leases with Ross Clothing Stores, Office Max and...

Ex-Kaiser chair, CEO quits board. (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.; James Vohs)
March 8, 1996... James Vohs, former chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, has abruptly quit the giant HMO's board of directors on the eve of a major strategic gathering of the organization's top managers. Some observers see his departure as another...

Bank branches in supermarkets.
March 8, 1996... Bank of America and Wells Fargo Bank are under pressure from activists from low-income neighborhood concerned about being left out of a growing trend among banks to put banking centers in supermarkets. Wells Fargo and BofA have led Western...

VeriFone finds a continent to call on: Africa. (VeriFone Inc.)
March 8, 1996... Maker of electronic payment systems establishes subsidiary to tap emerging market Increased credit card use in South Africa has moved a world leader in electronic payment systems to open its first subsidiary on the African continent....

America's computer consultant? (Coteligent Group)
March 8, 1996... S.F. firm raises cash to build a network with a mission: Attacking glitches nationwide After three years of planning, a San Francisco company has launched its bid to become the nation's dominant computer consultant with an initial public...

3 REITs merge into big new player. (Meridian Point Realty Trusts IV, VI and VII; Meridian Industrial Trust)
March 8, 1996... Meridian Point Properties has consolidated three real estate investment trusts under its management to form a new San Francisco-based REIT with a market capitalization of $138 million. Meridian Industrial Trust is a self-administered REIT...

The more the merrier for new breed of restaurateur.(Business Meetings & Hospitality Quarterly)(Industry Overview)
March 8, 1996... The restaurateur's path to success has always been perilous, but at least it used to be simple: build a reputation, then scrape together enough money to open your own place. That was before restaurant start-up costs stretched well into seven...

Student's on-line deal makes the grade - and $3 million. (CUC International Inc.'s acquisition of Jed Katz's Rent Net)
March 8, 1996... Jed Katz, a 25-year-old MBA student at the Haas School of Business, has wasted little time cashing in on his education. Katz just sold Rent Net, the business he co-founded just a year ago, to CUC International for $3 million in stock and...

Recovering hotel industry makes room for development.(Business Meetings & Hospitality Quarterly)(Industry Overview)
March 8, 1996... A development drought has left The List of the Bay Area's largest hotels devoid of substantive changes since the San Francisco Marriott opened in 1989 (see page 15A). But solid occupancy rates and improvement in the financing climate may bring...

Jack London to pen sequel. (Port of Oakland's leasing of Jack London Square)
March 1, 1996... Seven years after completing the construction of the Jack London complex, the Port of Oakland said it has leases or commitments to fill nearly all of the retail space for the first time and has begun planning for a second phase. "We were a...

Going online: failed Go Corp. entrepreneur rebounds with Internet venture. (Jerry Kaplan's new venture Onsale)
March 1, 1996... Convinced his timing is finally right, Jerry Kaplan predicts his newest venture, Onsale, can take him where failed Go Corp. couldn't. Go went up against Bill Gates and Apple Computer in the late '80s and lost when consumers and the industry...

Buyout closes book on children's cataloger's former success story. (acquisition of Biobottoms Inc. by Diplomat Corp.)
March 1, 1996... Biobottoms, the once high-flying Petaluma children's clothing cataloger that recently had bottomed out, has sold out to an East Coast manufacturer of children's apparel for the mass market. Diplomat Corp. of Stony Point, N.Y. paid about $2.5...

Firms seeks to go uphill fast in snowboard licensing deal. (Switch Manufacturing)
March 1, 1996... A 2-year-old San Francisco snowboard equipment company has scored a series of top-tier licensing deals in a quest to establish its quick-release bindings as a technical standard for the fast-growing sport. Switch Manufacturing is battling a...

Good times at last in store for computer storage firms.(Industry Overview)
March 1, 1996... Long plagued by price battles in which the only clear winner has been the consumer, the computer storage industry could post its most profitable year ever this year, according to forecasts by Dataquest Inc. "It's a pretty healthy curve these...

Mail-order wine business gets better with age. (Vintage Directions Inc.)(Small Business Entrepreneurs)(Company Profile)
March 1, 1996... Third-generation Nape Valley native Lesley Berglund and her brother and sister-in-law have turned a Harvard Business School project into a $4 million direct-mail business selling ultra-premium California wines. Berglund was getting her MBA at...

Entrepreneur rekindles old flame. (Mark Johnson's reacquisition of Understanding Business from HarperCollins Publishers)(Small Business Entrepreneurs)
March 1, 1996... In a baptism by fire, Mark Johnson learned how fiercely entrepreneurial style and corporate culture can clash. Johnson co-founded The Understanding Business, an information design firm that develops catalogs, directories, manuals, guidebooks...