San Francisco Business Times articles from October 1993

San Francisco Business Times archives from October 1993

Robert Half buys into legal arena; personnel giant targets all major legal markets. (Robert Half International Inc.)
October 29, 1993... Personnel placement giant Robert Half International has jumped into the Bay Area's legal staff placement arena with the purchase of Kathleen Call Associates of San Francisco and Templeton & Associates of Menlo Park, two paralegal placement...

Dockers president quits Levi Strauss. (Robert Siegel of Levi Strauss Dockers U.S.A.)
October 29, 1993... Robert Siegel has resigned as president of Levi Strauss' Dockers U.S.A. division, leaving the world's largest apparel maker with its pants down and scrambling to replace the man considered to be the father of the wildly successful men's...

The database race: Sybase chases Oracle 'round world. (Sybase Inc.)
October 29, 1993... Sybase Inc., the Emeryville-based software database company, is invading foreign markets at a dizzying pace in an international pursuit of its biggest competitor, Redwood Shores-based Oracle Corp. The company's expansion, involving operations...

An S&L regulator's acts of contrition: new local director leads OTS effort to resolve disputes and cut red tape. (savings and loans, John Robinson of the Office of Thrift Supervision)(includes related article)
October 29, 1993... The western headquarters of the Office of Thrift Supervision, under the leadership of newcomer John Robinson, is stepping up efforts to resolve disputes with thrift operators and chop away burdensome restrictions. Among other things, the OTS...

New health-care delivery system is born; three medical groups join Alta Bates in an East Bay alliance. (Alta Bates Corp.)
October 29, 1993... Alta Bates Corp., the holding company for the East Bay's largest hospital, is pulling together an integrated East Bay health-care delivery system linking at least three major medical groups and nine affiliated hospitals. The system --...

Growing child-care chain poised for expansion spurt. (Children's Discovery Centers of America Inc.)
October 29, 1993... A $13M stock offering would pave way for up to 75 new centers San Rafael-based Children's Discovery Centers of America is replenishing its depleted toy chest with a $13 million stock offering, most of the proceeds of which will be used to...

Delta Dental all smiles thanks to Kaiser deal. (Delta Dental Plan of California, Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.)
October 29, 1993... Delta Dental Plan of California, the nation's largest dental insurer, has struck a deal to offer expanded managed-care dental coverage to 209,000 of Kaiser Permanente's 2.4 million HMO members in Northern California. The deal is a major...

Building a fortune in construction; no. 1-ranked DPR has grown by 5,564 percent. (DPR Construction Inc.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... A month after DPR Construction Inc. opened shop in July 1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the economy began to head into a tailspin and the once-golden Bay Area construction business was losing its luster fast. But Douglas Woods, Peter...

Consultant computes profits; his firm grows by acting as a matchmaker. (Dapru Inc.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... In the mid-1980s, David Killingsworth was working as a design engineer at Bell Labs. As a veteran of the data processing business, he saw an opportunity to merge a growing pool of technical talent with the rising need for management...

Venture funds splurge on biotechnology.
October 29, 1993... Although the market for initial public offerings from biotechnology companies has been weak this year, money from venture capitalists continues to pour into biotech startups. Bay Area venture capitalists in recent weeks have provided seed...

Jeweler's style has the ring of success. (Union Street Goldsmith) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... Designs eschew 'wet spaghetti' Glenda Queen turned an empty storefront into gold 18 years ago, founding the Union Street Goldsmith shop in San Francisco's Marina District. A one-time struggling artist, Queen got into the jewelry design...

Microbrewing for macro-profits; flood of suds at Pete's Wicked Ale. (Pete's Brewing Co.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... Pete Slosberg was marketing business telephone systems in 1985, when he decided to turn a homebrewing hobby into a business. For six years, Slosberg had been making beer in his basement, tinkering with ingredients until he came up with a brew...

Coffee firm brews up hot profits; Spinelli now has 8 stores and is growing. (Spinelli Coffee Co.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... In light of the coffee craze sweeping the country, it's not surprising that one of the fastest-growing Bay Area companies is San Francisco's own Spinelli Coffee Co. But rather than chase after pie-in-the-sky dreams of becoming another...

Selling office furniture in the '90s: it's no desk job. (Industry Overview)
October 29, 1993... Bay Area office furniture retailers, bumped and scraped by the recession, gained some stability in 1993 -- in part, through consolidation. Most companies on this week's List showed no growth or slipping revenues in 1992, but company...

Keeping the beat; CEO holds business close to heart. (Raytel Medical Corp.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... Sometimes it's better to switch than fight. Since completing its transition in 1991 from a specialized computer manufacturer to a cardiac monitoring and diagnostic imaging company, Raytel Medical Corp.'s revenues have more than doubled from...

LAM Research. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... NASDAQ: LRCX 4650 Cushing Parkway Fremont 94538 (510) 659-0200 UPDATE Lam is one of the world's biggest suppliers of semiconductor processing equipment used to manufacture integrated circuits, or chips. It experienced a 57 percent increase...

Biotech detection firm finds profits. (BioGenex Laboratories Inc.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... Public offering may be in the offing A $20,000 second mortgage on his house was all the seed capital Krishan Kalra had at his disposal when he founded BioGenex Laboratories in San Ramon. "It was quite a challenge," Kalra said of his 1981...

Entrepreneur's story made for print; software that soups-up printers scores big hits. (MicroLogic Software Inc.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... Disappointed by the purchase of his first dot-matrix computer printer because of its lack of flexibility, Frank Hainze wrote a program that not only solved the problem, but created a $6 million software business to boot. Hainze, founder and...

Recruitment ad firm is much-wanted. (The Hamel Group) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... It specializes in the biotech and health care fields After having worked for a local recruitment advertising firm for three years, Pamela Hamel decided there must be a better way to service clients. Virtually all recruitment firms handle a...

Booming with the mutual fund boom; investment pro stocks up on business. (California Investment Trust Fund Group) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Directory)
October 29, 1993... There was a time when the mutual fund business seemed slow and plodding -- a safe but decidedly unsexy place for people to park their bucks on their way to retirement. But at a time when historically low interest rates are cutting into other...

Selling the beat of a different drum; musicians score $20 million firm. (Digidesign Inc.) (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies) (Company Profile)
October 29, 1993... When Peter Gotchar and Evan Brooks formed Digidesign, they were dreaming more of making Billboard's Top 40 than Fortune magazine's Top 500. They haven't reached either, but the company formed in 1984 by the two then-23-year-old musicians has...

Where to catch a cab, or chard, in San Mateo County. (San Mateo County, California) (Special Report: Peninsula Quarterly)
October 29, 1993... Vinters may be few, but the wines are 'made with passion' It's a far cry and a couple of hours' drive from the world-renowned Napa and Sonoma valleys, but San Mateo County is nevertheless making a splash in the wine world. Because of the...

Fast growing and primed for profits; strategies of the Bay Area's top 100. (Bay Area Top 100 Fastest Growing Private Companies)
October 29, 1993... The Business Times' Top 100: How they built niches and mastered the ordinary Exotic ale. Organic foods. A screen-saver with flying toasters. These are some of out-of-the-ordinary products that have put local entrepreneurs on the Business...

San Mateo's downtown turnaround; dangling incentives, Peninsula city rolls out the red carpet for retail. (San Mateo, California) (Special Report: Peninsula Quarterly)
October 29, 1993... Like many Bay Area suburban communities of a certain age, San Mateo is striving to revitalize a dated downtown business district. At the same time, officials in this city of 85,000 are working to attract high-tech companies and to foster...

Blue Shield-UniHealth merger on critical list. (Blue Shield of California; UniHealth America)
October 22, 1993... Blue Shield of California's proposed $6.5 billion merger with Southern California's UniHealth America has been wheeled into the intensive care unit and is on deathwatch. The shaky mega-deal -- designed to create a giant statewide...

Steaming hot coffee company makes move on Starbucks Corp. (Pasqua Inc.)(includes related article)
October 22, 1993... Hoping to play Burger King to Starbucks' McDonalds in the coffee wars, San Francisco-based Pasqua is raising money to finance 47 new outlets in the next two years. The 10-year-old company last month enlisted the aid of New York investment...

Seller smoked on purchase of Oyster Point. (business park in San Francisco, California)
October 22, 1993... Complex sells for 31% less than 1990 price Oyster Point Business Park, a 450,000-square-foot bayside office development in South San Francisco, has been sold by its Japanese owner for a reported $48 million. Okamoto Corporation Co. Ltd. of...

Medicare business finally booms for HMOs. (health maintenance organizations) (Industry Overview)
October 22, 1993... Industry leaders are battling over share of 'Medicare-risk' niche After years of false starts, HMOs are suddenly enjoying explosive growth in their Medicare business locally, boosting the number of enrollees by nearly 50 percent in just the...

Catellus, lender reach accord to refinance $388 million loan. (Catellus Development Corp.; Prudential Insurance Company of America)
October 22, 1993... Developer agrees to pay $102M by January San Francisco-based Catellus Development Corp. has reached agreement with its biggest lender, Prudential Insurance Company of America, to refinance a $388 million loan with a 10-year $286 million loan...

Patent lawsuit heads for court. (Autodesk Inc.; Preco Industries Inc.) (Autodesk Moves - Physical, Legal)
October 22, 1993... Autodesk Inc., the fast-growing Sausalito-based computer-aided design software maker, has been hit by a patent-infringement lawsuit involving the product with which the company is most closely identified. Filed by Lenexa, Kan.-based Preco...

Foster City's Vintage Park gets met with foreclosures.
October 22, 1993... Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. has foreclosed on two office buildings in Vintage Park, a research and development business campus developed by Hillman Properties West Inc. in San Francisco. New York-based Metropolitan Life took over the...

Software maker's new program: leave Sausalito for San Rafael. (Autodesk Moves - Physical, Legal)
October 22, 1993... Software giant Autodesk Inc. has altered its expansion plans and now intends to relocate its entire corporate operation from Sausalito to San Rafael by 1995. The company, which has been based in Sausalito since it was founded in 1982, said...

Real estate firm links up with mortgage banker. (Fox and Carskadon Inc.; Hamilton Financial Corp.)
October 22, 1993... San Carlos-based Fox & Carskadon, the Bay Area's largest residential real estate firm, has joined forces with San Francisco's Hamilton Financial Corp., the largest local independent mortgage banker, in a joint venture designed to further...

Businesses poised to re-establish South Africa links.
October 22, 1993... Yet many still anxiously fear violating soon-to-be repealed sanctions The repeal of sanctions against doing business with South Africa has some Bay Area companies rushing back into the racially divided nation, but many others are awaiting...

Large commercial printer drowns in sea of red ink. (Pacific Lithograph Co.)
October 22, 1993... A turnaround effort fails after buyout negotiations collapse Pacific Lithograph Co., the largest commercial printer in the Bay Area, has closed its doors after 26 years in business, the victim of labor woes and sharply declining revenues....

Richmond's job-placement program gets the job done. (Richmond, California)
October 22, 1993... It took two years for the city of Richmond to get its job-placement program off the ground, but the patience is finally paying off for the city -- and area employers. Consider: * In the last nine months the job-placement program, called...

Upstart biotech firm raises $32M in venture capital. (Tularik Inc.)
October 22, 1993... High-tech entrepreneur Ed McCracken joins the company's board An upstart South San Francisco biotech company with a decorated team of research scientists on staff has attracted $32 million in financial backing and high-powered Silicon Graphic...

Merging by trial. (law firms) (Special Report: Business of Law)
October 22, 1993... Law firms are uniting -- and doing all they can to avoid a clash of cultures Earlier this month, eight of the nine attorneys from the South of Market law firm of Natkin Weisbach Higginbotham packed up their bags and moved into the offices of...

Record company spins profits with New Agers. (Real Music)
October 22, 1993... Terence Yallop is the owner of Real Music, a record label that has sold more than 1 million cassettes and CDs. But he got his start in the business in 1982, when he was manager of a Real Foods natural food market in Sausalito. It was there...

Financial services company calls itself the 'McDonald's of accounting.' (Montgomery Financial Services Corp.)
October 22, 1993... Paying bills might be one of the more unpleasant aspects of doing business, but Henry Montgomery has made it his whole business. Montgomery Financial Services Corp. of San Mateo provides small and medium-sized companies with day-to-day...

Auto security firm aims to lock up the market. (ProLock Auto Security Systems)
October 22, 1993... Bruce Moore has built a $6.5 million business keeping auto thieves at bay. His Pleasanton-based company, Prolock Auto Security Systems, manufactures an electronic auto ignition lock that prevents a car from starting without a specially coded...

Securities firms grow fat off decline in interest rates. (Industry Overview)
October 22, 1993... With record revenues, some have doubled the brokers on their staff Thanks to a robust market in stocks and bonds and declining interest rates, Bay Area securities firms, like their counterparts throughout the country, are having a spectacular...

BEI Electronics Inc. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
October 22, 1993... NASDAQ: BEII One Post St., Suite 2500 San Francisco 94104 (415) 956-4477 UPDATE BEI develops, manufactures and markets motion-control systems and components with commercial and defense applications. It employs 1,250 people, about 20...

Law students struggle with the job of finding a job. (Special Report: Business of Law)
October 22, 1993... Fresh from a string of job interviews, Hastings law school student David Gehrig should be feeling pretty good. But he's not. "I'm fairly certain I'm 0 for 6," Gehrig said. Gehrig, who's in his second year, is in the midst of on-campus...

Downturn strategy: mining legal work in joint ventures. (law firms) (Special Report: Business of Law)
October 22, 1993... A rise in corporate alliances keeps law firms busy in an otherwise torpid market The Bay Area's law firms, hungry for new business in a slow economy, are tapping into the rising tide of strategic partnerships and joint ventures. By...

Business takes on the Tenderloin. (Tenderloin Business Advisory Group)
October 15, 1993... 10-year plan in the works to clean up neighborhood In a rare partnership, the San Francisco Hilton Hotel and several other major tenants of the city's crime-ridden Tenderloin have set aside their historic mistrust of the area's community...

See's Candies sweet on foreign expansion. (See's Candy Shops Inc.)
October 15, 1993... South San Francisco-based See's Candies Inc. is planning to open a retail store in Guadalajara by the end of the year, the first leg of a widespread expansion plan into Mexico, Asia and Canada. A $200 million subsidiary of Omaha-based...

Tri-Valley Growers plant seeds in ex-Soviet Union.
October 15, 1993... Tri-Valley Growers, an $800 million San Francisco-based producer of such prominent canned brands as S&W and Libby's, is scouting the former Soviet Union for long-term business deals in hopes of snaring a piece of the region's nascent...

Manager decides one REIT is better than three. (real estate investment trust)(Pres David Goss)
October 15, 1993... Franklin Resources' subsidiary will consolidate REITs worth $115M A subsidiary of San Mateo-based financial services giant Franklin Resources Inc. plans to merge three privately held real estate investment trusts with assets totaling $115...

Doctors' group expands operations to East Bay. (Mullikin Medical Centers Inc.)
October 15, 1993... Mullikin Medical Centers, a fast-growing Southern California "super group" making major inroads in the Bay Area, has added an East Bay doctors' group and expects to link up with several other groups by year-end. The for-profit doctors'...

Invasion ushers in new competition for Hill Physicians. (Hill Physicians Medical Group)
October 15, 1993... No one has lit a match yet, but many observers are predicting that Mullikin Medical Centers' invasion of the East Bay will soon result in an explosive confrontation with Hill Physicians Medical Group. That's because Hill Physicians, the East...

Stars founder ready to dish up new offerings. (Jereliah Tower)
October 15, 1993... The owner of Stars, one of San Francisco's most successful restaurants, has pulled together a string of deals to open as many as five new restaurants in the next two years. Jeremiah Tower, the founder of Stars, opened his second restaurant...

Owners fear soaking from sprinkler law.
October 15, 1993... A group of residential highrise owners in San Francisco is fighting to snuff out an ordinance sponsored by Supervisor Tom Hsieh that would require buildings over 75 feet tall to install fire-fighting sprinkler systems, saying it would cost them...

Sources: First Interstate may vacate highrise. (First Intestate Bank)
October 15, 1993... The bank says it's now looking to sublease half its space First Interstate Bank is considering moving out of its flagship San Francisco address at First Interstate Center and may sublease much of its 116,000 square feet to MCI...

New Bay Area stock issues set Wall Street afire.
October 15, 1993... Leading gainers include Gymboree, ReSound and 3DO A sizzling market for initial public offerings has sent new Bay Area stock issues soaring to huge price increases. Fourteen of the 18 Bay Area companies that have gone public this year are...

Peninsula investors focus on eyeglass lens manufacturer. (AEA Investors Inc.; Sola Group Ltd.)
October 15, 1993... Huge debt incurred in $315 million purchase A Menlo Park-based investment partnership is taking on $180 million in debt to finance a $315 million purchase of Sola Group, one of the world's largest manufacturers of plastic eyeglass lenses....

Local accounting firm censured by SEC for sloppy work. (Hemming Morse Inc.)
October 15, 1993... Partner barred from practicing before commission for 18 months The Securities and Exchange Commission has censured the San Francisco office of the Hemming Morse accounting firm because of its allegedly sloppy work for Vintage Group Inc., a...

Sedgwick James unites California insurance offices. (Sedgwick James Inc.)
October 15, 1993... Sedgwick James Inc., one of the nation's largest insurance brokerages, is consolidating its California offices into a single operating region -- a step expected to boost the already significant influence of its San Francisco regional office....

Bay Area real estate developers fail to hit pay dirt.
October 15, 1993... For anyone new to California, this week's List confirms what most of us already know too well: Many of the Bay Area's biggest commercial real estate developers haven't been very busy lately. Dallas-based Lincoln Property Co. topped The List...

Catellus Development. (proxy report excerpts)
October 15, 1993... NYSE: CDX 201 Mission St. San Francisco 94105 (415) 974-4500 UPDATE Catellus Development is one of the country's largest publicly traded real estate companies, with 931,000 acres of developed and undeveloped land in California and 10 other...

East Bay retailers succeed in hitting target customers.
October 15, 1993... It's been a rough last couple of years for retailers in general, particularly those with large California operations. On the other hand, the half-dozen or so large retailers based in the East Bay have managed to weather the recession rather...

Saving Main Street: cities fight for downtown vitality.
October 15, 1993... Not too long ago, the East Bay's main streets and downtowns did a brisk retail business. Local five-and-dimes, hardware stores and dress shops provided a reliable source of everything from birthday cards to bolts. This, of course, preceded...

East Bay is making way for warehouse retailing.
October 15, 1993... Wal-Mart, Costco and other monoliths discover room to grow -- affordably The East Bay is enjoying a boom in warehouse-style big-box retail development. Leading the way are such retailers as Wal-Mart and Costco, who are lured by the East...

Kaiser introduces new plan to boost growth; HMO giant wants to alter stodgy image. (Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.; health maintenance organization)
October 8, 1993... KAISER ENROLLMENT BY REGION Enrollment Percent Region as of 6/92 As of 7/93 change Northern California 2,439,620 2,426,841 -0.5 Southern California ...

Banks opening their vaults to small business: local banks set $3 billion aside for small biz loans. (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Union Bank; San Francisco Bay area) (Industry Overview)
October 8, 1993... In an effort to crack the so-called credit crunch, nearly four dozen California banks have joined forces to form a statewide loan pool that could begin lending $100 million to small businesses by 1995. Formed under the auspices of the Federal...

CalPERS rescues languishing S.F. real estate project. (California Public Employees Retirement System; San Francisco, California)
October 8, 1993... San Francisco developer Rick Holliday, who struggled for years to land the financing for a $17 million condominium and live-work loft project on Potrero Hill, has now sold the development to an investment management firm funded by the...

Banks opening their vaults to small business; local banks set $3 billion asi de for small biz loans. (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Union Bank; San Francisc o Bay area) (Industry Overview)
October 8, 1993... The Bay Area's three biggest banks, invading turf once ruled by small community lenders, are planning to roll out at least $3 billion in small business loans over the next three years. The banks, Bank of America, Wells Fargo and Union Bank,...

Union under siege as rivals woo Bay area nurses. (California Nurses Association; San Francisco Bay area)
October 8, 1993... Nurses at four major Bay Area hospitals are trying to decertify the beleaguered California Nurses Association as their collective bargaining agent, and are organizing at several other local facilities. The Northern California Nurses...

East Bay shipper's marketing strategy: open the books. (San Francisco Bay, O rient Overseas Container Line Inc.)
October 8, 1993... Faced with increasingly stiff competition, Pleasanton-based OOCL Inc. is marketing itself as a "customer-driven carrier" delivering tailor-made service, including logistics responsibilities. What's more, to differentiate itself from its...

It's the Rio thing: beverage distributor uncaps 'new age' fizz. Golden Brands Inc.'s Rio Breeze soft drinks)
October 8, 1993... Golden Brands Inc., a San Francisco company with 60 years of experience marketing and distributing other companies' beverages, is hitting the market with its own Rio Breeze line of products in the rapidly changing soft-drink market. Golden...

Patron-hungry restaurants sign onto credit card scheme. (San Francisco Bay a rea) (Industry Overview)
October 8, 1993... Desperate for patrons, Bay Area restaurants are splitting their receipts with a San Francisco marketing company that issues a credit card entitling diners to 25 percent discounts while it pays the restaurants 50 cents on the dollar. Western...

Vacancy rate drops a notch in financial district. (San Francisco, California )
October 8, 1993... Providing a bright note for San Francisco high-rise owners, a majority of the various commercial real estate brokerages that track the market found that the vacancy rate for the city's Financial District fell in the third quarter. Cushman &...

FDIC to shutter S.F. HQ, moving operations south. (Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.; San Francisco, California headquarters)
October 8, 1993... About 300 people will be affected The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., responding to an unrelenting wave of bank failures in Southern California, will close its West Coast liquidation headquarters in San Francisco over the next 18 months and...

Energy conservation company gets plugged into profits. (Save Energy) (Small Business Entrepreneurs)
October 8, 1993... Efficiency expert back on track after mail-order snafu Michael Gorman has turned energy savings into profit. His San Francisco company, Save Energy, makes homes and other buildings energy efficient through changes in lighting, the addition...

Airlines getting past turbulence, head for blue skies: Oakland Airport reports a record number of passengers. (Industry Overview)
October 8, 1993... The top airlines serving the Bay Area flew 19 million passengers out of the San Francisco International and Oakland International airports during the year ending June 30, according to the Business Times' List of the region's 25 largest...

Informix Software. (Informix Software Inc.)(Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
October 8, 1993... NASDAQ: IFMX 4100 Bohannon Drive Menlo Park 94025 (415) 570-3000 UPDATE Informix designs, develops, manufactures, markets and supports database management systems. The company, which employs about 1,500 people worldwide, began shipping...

Bay area health care prepares for surgery. (San Francisco Bay, California) ( Special Report: Health Care Services Directory) (Industry Overview)
October 8, 1993... No matter what happens to Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's health care reform package, the Bay Area's health care industry is guaranteed to undergo radical surgery in the next few years. That rough consensus -- expressed by a host of...

Schwab expanding to three foreign lands. (Charles Schwab Corp.)
October 1, 1993... Stock brokerage opening offices in Asia, Europe, Latin America Charles Schwab Corp., the largest discount brokerage in the nation, has embarked on a drive to expand internationally, with plans to open offices in Asia, Europe and Latin...

Three bus tour companies take detour to Ch. 11.
October 1, 1993... Three San Francisco charter bus operatos -- Scenic Hyway Tours, Express Tours Unlimited, and AmTravel International -- have filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in recent months, victims of rising costs and high competition that has...

Wireless cable fund is broke, investors sue.
October 1, 1993... Investors hoping to make a quick killing in the wireless cable market lost nearly $2 million last month when a Redwood City investment firm went belly up -- the latest in a series of business failures throughout the nation related to wireless...

Suddenly, TakeCare is a billion-dollar company. (TakeCare Inc.)
October 1, 1993... Acquisitions place HMO is big leagues, but more growth may be needed TakeCAre Inc., one of the fastest growing companies in the Bay Area, is about to eclipse $1 billion in revenues thanks to a series of acqusitions that have tripled the...

Pacific Bank gets $15M in sorely needed capital.
October 1, 1993... San Francisco-based Pacific Bank, which has seen its fiscal house fall into disarray with the collapse of the real estate market, may finally be on its way to meeting federal captial requirements thanks to an infusikon of $15 million and a...

Catellus prepares $200M bond offering. (Catellus Development Corp.)
October 1, 1993... San Francisco-based Catellus Development Corp. has filed its intent to issue $200 million in bonds to pay down its single largest loan, held by Prudential Insurance Company of America. The developer of Mission Bay, a San Francisco project...

Biz mag restructures. (California Business magazine)
October 1, 1993... Editor assumes new role as part-owner Mansoor Zakaria has stepped down as publisher and editor-in-chief of California Business magazine, handing the reigns to former editor and new part-owner Umberto Tosi in what the publication's...