San Francisco Business Times articles from September 1999

San Francisco Business Times archives from September 1999

BofA Securities hits jackpot.(Bank of America Securities finances $3 billion debt offering for Park Place Entertainment)
September 3, 1999... More than luck pays off in record $3 billion Las Vegas finance deal Banc of America Securities of San Francisco is rolling the dice on the largest financing package in gambling industry history - a $3 billion debt offering for Las...

E-Loan hunts acquisitions, new markets.(E-Loan Corp.)
September 3, 1999... CEO: 'We're looking at everything in the consumer's debt portfolio' Fresh from its initial public offering just two months ago, online mortgage provider E-Loan Corp. is diving headfirst into an aggressive expansion program, moving into new...

Buyout firm urges sale of Crown.(Plantagenet Capital pushes for sale of Crown Vantage Corp.)
September 3, 1999... Plantagenet Capital is pushing for the sale of Oakland's Crown Vantage Corp., setting the local buyout firm on a collision course with the management of the money-losing company. San Francisco-based Plantagenet has filed a notice with the...

Wells Fargo faces up to future.(Wells Fargo & Co.'s joint venture with Cash America to launch check-cashing automated teller machines)
September 3, 1999... ATM venture uses face ID to beat fraud in check-cashing market A Wells Fargo & Co. joint venture, launching, new-wave check-cashing ATMs this month, looks to change the face of banking one face at a lime. InnoVentry anticipates...

Hot new acts warm up licensing for Winterland.(revenues of Winterland expected to reach $100 million in 1999 due to the hottest names in entertainment, licensing and merchandising)
September 3, 1999... Emerging from the deep freeze of bankruptcy to capitalize on the hottest names in entertainment, merchandising and licensing company Winterland is poised to hit $100 million in revenues this year. The San Leandro-based company, an industry...

Giants' park no big hit for rivals.(San Francisco Giants' privately financed Pacific Bell Park stadium)
September 3, 1999... As the privately financed Pacific Bell Park nears completion, rival baseball owners nationwide are scrambling to explain why their hometown governments had to cough up millions for new stadiums. The San Francisco Giants raised and borrowed...

Rail renaissance.(rail systems in San Francisco Bay Area, California expand to meet commuting needs of workers)
September 3, 1999... With ridership up, rail systems expand to meet commuting needs of Bay Area workers Light rail in Santa Clara County has reached capacity, San Francisco's Muni is overflowing, and BART can't extend past Fremont fast enough to satisfy...

No parking becomes key issue for S.F. businesses.(San Francisco, California)
September 3, 1999... Don Fisher used to whip around San Francisco in his own car. No more. Today, when the Gap Inc. chairman hobnobs with the city's movers and shakers, his assistant drops him off in order to avoid navigating the city's increasingly clogged...

Fed-up commuters blame transit agency quagmire.(presence of numerous transit agencies worsen traffic congestion in the San Francisco Bay Area, California)
September 3, 1999... From Sunnyvale to San Francisco, out to Suisun City and down the infamous Sunol Grade, Bay Area residents are fed up with highway congestion and mass transit misfires. Things have gotten so bad out there that thousands of people are...

Translating global strategies.(Luz Inc. specializes in translating World Wide Web sites and other business-related writings into different languages)
September 3, 1999... Luz Inc. makes sense out of international commerce Translating business materials into everything from French to Farsi wasn't a problem for Sanford Wright and Monique Rivas. Translating those skills into business success has proven to be a...

Buyout giants bargain on Asia; Richard C. Blum Associates, Texas Pacific unleash $400M fund.(Texas Pacific Group)
September 10, 1999... San Francisco-based buyout fired Newbridge Capital Group has raised nearly $400 million for another Asian foray, seeking to scoop up bargains as the region continues its rapid recovery. The joint venture between buyout giants Richard C....

New lease on life: RentNet grabs space.(RentNet Inc.'s renting of office in San Francisco, CA)
September 10, 1999... RentNet Inc., the fast-growing online apartment rental service, has inked a lease for nearly 100,000 square feet that more than quadruples the company's presence in San Francisco and positions it for the launch of its "super" real estate...

Benicia flexes industrial muscle; building boom targets business other Bay Area cities shun.(Benicia, CA)
September 10, 1999... With 1.2 million square feet of industrial construction completed in the last five years and as much again in the future, out-of-the-way Benicia is rapidly becoming an industrial hot spot. A 600,000-square-foot project is entitled, another...

Two more Internet firms link up for web wars.(Novo Interactive; Blue Marble)
September 10, 1999... In yet another merger of Internet services shops, San Francisco's Novo Interactive is joining forces with Blue Marble of New York. Blue Marble is 100 percent owned by the MacManus Group, a global advertising holding company. As part of the...

Cal Fed stops by Albertson's, picks up a banking deal.(California Federal Bank's plan for 'video branches' in Albertson's stores)
September 10, 1999... California Federal Bank will swell the ranks of its supermarket branches - possibly opening a handful of "video branches" - in new and remodeled Albertson's stores next year. In all, Cal Fed could roll out a couple dozen in-store branches...

Business group says open space has become an economic issue.(preservation of California's landscapes)
September 10, 1999... A statewide business coalition has called for the preservation of $12 billion worth of open space to preserve California's landscapes, its $3.6 billion wildlife viewing "industry" and its quality of life. The best way to keep California's...

GSIC Realty takes bite out of Big Apple office market.(purchase of office building in New York, NY)
September 10, 1999... Singapore is taking a major bite out of the Big Apple. Redwood City-based GSIC Realty Corp., which invests pension fund assets of Singapore citizens into U.S. commercial real estate, has agreed to pay roughly $550 million for 1211 Avenue of...

Law firm Wilson Sonsini to establish S.F. outpost.(Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's plan to open office in San Francisco, CA)
September 10, 1999... Palo Alto law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati plans to open a San Francisco office - its third outside Silicon Valley. The firm seeks space for about 60 lawyers, said CFO Harvey Schloss, and hopes to open the office by the end of the...

Jack Thompson.(Executive Profile)(chairman and CEO of Homestake Mining Co.)
September 10, 1999... Name: Jack Thompson. Title: Chairman and CEO. Company: Homestake Mining Co., the San Francisco-based company that is the world's third-largest producer of gold. Education: Bachelor of science degree in mining and engineering from...

Wells insures the bottom line; led by Tim King, bolstered insurance unit must meet mighty revenue expectations.(Insurance & Employee Benefits)(Wells Fargo Insurance)
September 10, 1999... Tim King totes two business cards for the insurance firm he runs - one with a Wells Fargo & Co. stagecoach, the other with a Norwest Bank logo. When the two banks merged last year, King was tapped to run its combined insurance business....

Sitting on a time bomb: thousands of Bay Area buildings risk destruction when the big one strikes.(earthquake threatens real estate industry)
September 17, 1999... Thousands of Bay Area buildings risk destruction when The Big One strikes After 10 years and hundreds of millions of dollars in retrofitting following the Loma Prieta earthquake, seismologists and engineers warn that the Bay Area risks...

Credit card companies take charge.
September 17, 1999... Credit-card issuers are redeploying their marketing forces, zeroing in on the most profitable customers and reconsidering annual fees, in light of ebbing margins. But while savvy consumers are taking advantage of warring card-hawking ploys...

Will web rival send video stores reeling?(online video tape rental company Kozmo.com)
September 17, 1999... Kozmo.com delivers instant gratification to impulsive e-shoppers The Internet has just blown away another of life's small frustrations: Never being able to rent the video you want because it's forever AWOL from the video store shelf. ...

Nike exec joins Fogdog Sports.(Tim Joyce hired as president of sporting goods retailer)
September 17, 1999... Fogdog Sports Inc. - named for a term that means "a clear spot that appears in breaking fog" - is attempting to clear a spot for itself in the increasingly dense online retailing business. In the past month, the Internet sporting goods...

Cable power: AT&T and Internet rivals spar for control of high-speed cable lines.
September 17, 1999... The eyes and ears of the country were tuned in on San Francisco this summer, but not for its cable cars or fine cuisine. This time, it was a fur-flying debate on whether to open up the city's cable network to all Internet service providers. ...

AirTouch, Sprint use cell phones to surf the web.(AirTouch Cellular; Sprint PCS)
September 17, 1999... Internet users, formerly leashed to their modems while cruising the web, are now able to surf untethered with new wireless Internet services by AirTouch Cellular and Sprint PCS. AirTouch last month debuted Net Access, a system that allows...

Telecom giants see Fremont as America of the future.(California)
September 17, 1999... Ask anyone to name a city at the center of the new digital economy, and you'll get several answers: San Francisco, San Jose, maybe Palo Alto. But ask telecommunications executives where they want to be, and they'll give you a different,...

City development cap looms over boom.(San Francisco, CA's building restrictions)
September 24, 1999... As S.F. bumps against building limits for first time in 1990s, fight brews over multimedia San Francisco's 4-year-old building boom is pushing up against the city's voter-approved building restrictions for the first time in a decade,...

Taking account: BoFA, a year on: as merger anniversary nears, S.F. ponders its reduced role in future of the nation's largest bank.(Bank of America Corp.'s merger with NationsBank; San Francisco, CA)
September 24, 1999... As merger anniversary nears, S.F. ponders its reduced role in future of the nation's largest bank One year after the historic merger that moved Bank of America Corp.'s headquarters from San Francisco to Charlotte, N.C., the Bay Area's...

Web spins around small business; Net startups seek to fill gaps for 20 million entrepreneurs.
September 24, 1999... Entrepreneurs are the new rock stars of the business world, complete with a new entourage of Internet startups catering to their every whim. AllBusiness.com is the latest site to launch, debuting last week. The San Francisco-based company...

Emeryville gives nod to citywide building boom.(Emeryville, CA)
September 24, 1999... Emeryville's commercial boom is escalating, with city approval of a 26-acre project, plus two smaller developments in the works and two deals just signed. In one of its largest projects ever, Cincinnati-based Madison Marquette plans to...

Peter Noster.(Executive Profile)(CEO of DPR Construction Inc.)
September 24, 1999... Name: Peter Nosler. Title: CEO. Company: DPR Construction Inc., the Redwood City-based builder with revenue of $1.3 billion and more than 1,700 employees. Education: Bachelor of science degree in physics and mathematics from Walla...

Preview vies for the top in Internet travel market.(Preview Travel)
September 24, 1999... When Chris Clouser joined Preview Travel in August, he saw more than just a company that had squandered its early lead in Internet travel to Microsoft's Expedia and Sabre Holdings' Travelocity. Instead, the new CEO said he saw a brand that...

Advent comes of age in era of online stock fever.(Advent Software)
September 24, 1999... Persistence has paid off for Advent Software. The 16-year-old San Francisco company, which develops software for the financial industry, was a slow starter in its first decade, but has recorded steady growth for the past six years. At the...

Schwab turns to the law to keep its cyber buzz words.(Charles Schwab & Co.'s filing of a trademark to protect the phrase 'Clicks and mortar')
September 24, 1999... "Clicks and mortar": It's the latest catchphrase in the fast-changing lexicon of cyberspace. It's also a pretty logical one. In fact, the words fit together so well that nobody should have had to coin that phrase. But Charles Schwab & Co....