San Francisco Business Times articles from October 1996

San Francisco Business Times archives from October 1996

Car Max/AutoNation burn rubber for Bay Area locales.
October 25, 1996... AutoNation USA and CarMax are on a collision course in the East Bay. The two deep-pocketed competitors, which are aggressively expanding nationwide to dominate the new category of automobile superstores, have established southern Alameda...

Realty mogul Sam Zell strikes again. (Equity Office's acquisition of 201 Mission St. highrise)
October 25, 1996... Chicago financier Sam Zell is putting San Francisco's 201 Mission St. highrise on his 1996 holiday shopping list. Price tag: $80 million. Real estate sources say Zell's Equity Office real estate investment firm has the 30-story office tower...

Autodesk hits the skids. (Autodesk Inc.)
October 25, 1996... After years of breakneck growth, revenues and profits at Autodesk Inc. have begun to shrink and its stock price has fallen victim to the law of gravity. The problem: The San Rafael-based company's famous computer-aided design software...

Hungry for more: Powerfood gets in shape for major marketing run. (Powerfood Inc.)
October 25, 1996... The Berkeley-based maker of PowerBars is ramping up marketing efforts to cement its dominant position in the $100 million energy bar market. Last week, Powerfood Inc. hired San Francisco-based Citron Haligman Bedecarre to handle its $7...

Special-effects firm creates image with moguls and cash. (Pacific Data Images)
October 25, 1996... Pacific Data Images has gone Hollywood. Now the Palo Alto-based company is doubling its work force and searching for expansion space. Growth at the special-effects company is being spurred by work on its first animated feature for DreamWorks...

New medical group plugs in to East Bay's cultural diversity. (UniMed Provider Network)
October 25, 1996... A brand-new medical group focusing on the East Bay's multicultural communities has opened its doors in Fremont. UniMed Provider Network, an independent practice association, was launched quietly in recent weeks. It already links more than 50...

Architect redesigns his career. (Richard Pollack)(Small Business Growth Strategies)
October 25, 1996... When he left a large firm to start his own business in 1985, interior architect Richard Pollack discovered he had hidden talents. "It became clear I could do things I didn't know I had in me," he said. The shift to entrepreneurship "was a...

Granny Goose spreads its wings. (Granny Goose Foods Inc.)
October 18, 1996... Deal for $50M Utah snack maker would fuel eastward migration Granny Goose Foods, Inc., the fast growing Oakland-based snack-food company, has an appetite for a troubled Utah snack-maker now in bankruptcy. Granny Goose is believed to be the...

Highrise heroics. (financial rescue of Norland Properties' troubled First Interstate Center by Westbrook Partners)
October 18, 1996... A white knight has ridden to the rescue of Norland Properties and its financially-troubled First Interstate Center. Westbrook Partners, a New York-based real estate investment fund, reached an agreement Oct. 11 with Norland and its primary...

Rising tech firm to feel @Home in Redwood City. (@Home Corp.)
October 18, 1996... Double-digit growth at @Home Corp. has forced it to find a new home: a 500,000-square-foot headquarters campus in Redwood City. The Mountain View-based provider of high-speed Internet access via cable TV modems is concluding talks with the...

Warriors ticket sales dribble instead of shoot. (Golden State Warriors basketball team)
October 18, 1996... With opening night at the San Jose Arena two weeks away, the Golden State Warriors are finding their temporary South Bay home a tough sell for many longtime season ticket holders. Even with the addition of 900 new season ticket subscribers...

Hungry Alta Bates has eyes on bigger piece of Kaiser's pie. (Alta Bates Medical Center; Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc.)
October 18, 1996... Alta Bates Medical Center has already snatched part of the business up for grabs from Kaiser Permanente's decision to shut its aging Oakland Medical Center next year. Now it wants the rest. Kaiser earlier this month signed an agreement with...

Sale of bakeries could bring in a lot of dough. (Specialty Foods Corp.'s Mother's Cake and Cookie Co. and San Francisco French Bread Co.)
October 18, 1996... Mother's Cakes and Cookies Co. and the San Francisco French Bread Co., put on the block by their parent Specialty Foods Corp., have attracted several interested buyers ready to gobble them up. The two high-profile baked-goods companies in...

Cold comfort. (Oakland, CA's foreclosure of downtown skating rink owned by U.S. Ice Ventures Corp.)
October 18, 1996... Oakland moves to recoup $11M bad loan for ice rink The city of Oakland has begun foreclosure proceedings on the downtown ice skating rink it loaned $11 million to finance, less than six months after the center's grand opening. U.S. Ice...

Feds wonder of HMO mergers are healthy for consumers. (US Dept. of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission; health maintenance organizations)
October 18, 1996... The frenzied pace of health maintenance organization mergers is attracting the attention of regulators, with the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission increasing their scrutiny of such deals with an eye toward price-fixing and...

Game maker's recovery plan: kids and monsters. (Maxis Inc.)
October 18, 1996... Sam Poole, the new chief executive of video-game maker Maxis Inc., has outlined his strategy to help recapture the Walnut Creek-based company's dwindling fortunes. Poole, a former Walt Disney executive, has inherited leadership of a company...

Contractor puts talents to work. (Judith Thompson, owner of Thompson Brooks Inc.)
October 18, 1996... In general contracting, Judith Thompson found a business that taps her diverse knowledge and experience. She has a bachelor's degree in fine art and studied drawing and architecture in Paris. She got a master's degree in education and...

Giants take early lead in seat sales. (San Francisco Giants)
October 11, 1996... Campaign on target for seat licenses and luxury box suites Brushing off yet another losing season, San Francisco Giants season ticket holders and corporate sponsors are snapping up charter seats and luxury suites at the soon-to-be-built...

PacBell removes top Internet execs. (Pacific Bell; Richard Hronicek, Greg Straughn)
October 11, 1996... Pacific Bell has removed the two top executives from its Internet Services operation, signaling that the division may be struggling five months after going online. President Richard Hronicek will remain with PacBell in an as-yet-undetermined...

Wine maker Louis M. Martini pours into China.
October 11, 1996... Vintner Louis M. Martini is aiming to make fine wines in the land of tea. The Napa-based winery is wrapping up its first overseas joint-venture contract with Tong Hua Winery in China's Jilin province. The company aims to start distributing...

Dr. Laura hangs up on KPIX to take KGO's call. (talk show host Laura Schlessinger to transfer to KGO-AM radio station)
October 11, 1996... KGO-AM has stolen highly rated syndicated radio talk-show host Dr. Laura Schlessinger from Bay Area rival KPIX-FM. The switch is a coup for KGO, already the overall No. 1-rated station in the Bay Area, especially among devotees of newstalk...

H-P, booming in Shanghai, gets ready to build. (Hewlett-Packard Co.)
October 11, 1996... Hewlett-Packard Co. is building a new factory in Shanghai in an effort to consolidate its China operations. The $32 billion Palo Alto-based company has bought a parcel of land and is designing a manufacturing compound to make inkjet printers,...

Power partners: IBM helps PG&E weave a web strategy.
October 11, 1996... IBM and Pacific Gas & Electric Co. have entered a partnership to help the utility profit from the Internet. PG&E is turning to the Internet to tackle two problems: competition and customer service. Under a contract valued at more than $15...

Company shifts with changing winds. (Davis Instruments Inc.)(Company Profile)
October 11, 1996... When Jim Acquistapace and his partner, Bob Selig, graduated from Stanford Business School in 1969, they set out to buy a business. Why buy instead of starting a company from scratch? Basically because the partners had no particular product...

Embroidery company keeps clients in stitches. (Nordic Needle Corp.)(Column)
October 11, 1996... For the last 20 years, Roz Watnemo and Sue Meier have parlayed their passion for an obscure form of Norwegian embroidery into a successful small business. It all started when the two college friends signed up for a class in Hardanger...

Dow Chemical makes way for business park. (Dow Chemical Co. Administrative Office and Research campus Walnut Creek, California)
October 4, 1996... Dow Chemical Co. has sold its 23-acre Walnut Creek campus to a local real estate investor with plans to turn the land into a new Class A office park. Walnut Creek real estate investor Mark Hall heads a private partnership that closed escrow...

Sharper Image aims to cure its ills with marketing blitz. (Sharper Image Corp.)
October 4, 1996... The Sharper Image is moving on three fronts to hone its marketing effort in time for the all-important Christmas season. The San Francisco catalog and specialty retail company has: * Launched the first major media advertising campaign in...

GMO strikes gold. (Goldberg Moser O'Neill Advertising)
October 4, 1996... The hottest ad shop in San Francisco San Francisco ad shop Goldberg Moser O'Neill is on a business joyride. The agency has picked up 11 new clients so far this year, adding more than $100 million to its billings. The latest account win...

Gilead Sciences clinches $150M deal. (Gilead Sciences Inc.)
October 4, 1996... Gilead Sciences' progress in fighting the flu could garner it $50 million in cash and an estimated $100 million in research funding from a long-term deal with a Swiss pharmaceutical giant. Under terms of the late September agreement, Basel,...

New leader seeks to carry Bridge over troubled water after death of charismatic founder in Bosnian air crash. (Bridge Housing Pres. Carol Galante; former Pres. Don Terner)(Real Estate Quarterly)
October 4, 1996... When Bridge Housing Corp. President Don Terner died in a plane crash in Bosnia last April, fears that the San Francisco-based affordable housing development company would perish as well added to the shock of Terner's death. In many ways,...

In Century 21, residential sales will be shot into cyberspace, the world's brokerage giant decide. (Century 21 Real Estate Corp.)(Real Estate Quarterly)
October 4, 1996... On Aug. 1, the owners of Hartford Properties, the largest woman-owned residential real estate agency in San Francisco with $75 million in home sales last year, aligned itself with Century 21 Real Estate Corp. While its decision to join forces...

Big insurer says what Bay Area needs is one more HMO. (New York Life Insurance Co.; NYLCare Health Plans Inc.; San Francisco Bay Area)
October 4, 1996... An upstart health plan backed by New York Life has set up shop in the East Bay with plans to crack the tough Northern California HMO market. NYLCare Health Plans Inc., a recently formed managed care subsidiary of huge New York Life Insurance...

Newborn Lucent plans to grow up fast in East Bay. (Lucent Technologies Inc.; San Francisco Bay Area)
October 4, 1996... Lucent Technologies, the AT&T technology spin-off, expects to increase its Bay Area work force by 25 percent, or about 350 employees, in the next 12 months. Of Lucent's 3,400 California employees, 1,400 are based in the East Bay - in San...

Walnut Creek aims to head off telecom chaos. (California)
October 4, 1996... Walnut Creek is working to establish a far-reaching telecommunications policy. The effort is being driven by deregulation, the need to build a new communications infrastructure and the desire to be economically competitive. "Change is...

Car retailer wheels, deals on 'Net to accelerate sales. (Tasha Inc.; Internet)
October 4, 1996... The Bay Area largest automobile retailer is revving up sales through the Internet. The Fremont-based Tasha Group has launched its own web site and has created a proprietary online service for matching consumers with new and used vehicles and...

Trade at Bay Area ports catapults 25 percent. (San Francisco Bay Area)
October 4, 1996... Trade in the Bay Area continues to outshine the rest of the nation. Combined imports and exports through the San Francisco Customs District leapt 24.7 percent during the first half of this year. Rising exports helped to chip away at the trade...

Tech entrepreneur shrunk to fit. (Midrange Network Systems Inc.'s downsizing)
October 4, 1996... Downsizing is typically associated with large corporations, but entrepreneur Ken Gordon had to downsize his fledgling company after just a year in business. "It was very hard," Gordon said of his decision to cut all three employees from the...

Small business vs. Congress: the final score.
October 4, 1996... For better or worse, the 104th Congress will have an impact on small businesses for years to come. After opening the doors to at least 18 bills that directly affect small businesses, Congress and President Clinton already have acted upon...