Boston Business Journal articles from December 1992

Boston Business Journal archives from December 1992

Lawyer goes to bat for minor leagues. (Arthur Hittner, co-owner of Elmira Pioneers)
December 7, 1992... Owning a major-league baseball franchise is out of the question for most investors. With expansion teams such as the Florida Marlins and Colorado Rockies fetching prices of $95 million, only the Ted Turners of the world need apply. But...

Lynn cleanup bill worries DEP. (Lynn Waterfront Industrial Park; Department of Environmental Protection)
December 7, 1992... Three Lynn businesses are behind a bill before the Legislature's Joint Committee on Natural Resources that would bypass the review process by which the state Department of Environmental Protection prioritizes the cleanup of hazardous waste sites....

Banking officials decry FAS 107 as burdensome. (Financial Accounting Standards Board Rule 107)
December 7, 1992... A new accounting rule requiring all companies to disclose the fair market value of financial assets is being criticized by banking officials as an unnecessary burden on financial institutions. These assets, which include cash, investment...

Shreve switch keeps jeweler in the family. (Shreve, Crump and Low Company Inc.)
December 7, 1992... At least one thing won't be changing at 192-year-old Shreve Crump & Low: the owner's last name. When Barrie Birks last month bought the high-class jewelry retailer for about $5 million from the bankrupt Henry Birks & Sons Ltd., owned by his...

Labor coalition brings Hollywood to Bay State. (Film and Video Labor Coalition; Hollywood, California; Massachusetts)
December 7, 1992... A statewide coalition that teams up area unions with the Massachusetts film office is being credited for a surge in the number of television and movie productions that have decided to film on location here. In the two years since the Film and...

Start-up with right product gets venture capital. (new business enterprises)
December 7, 1992... The pool of venture capital money available to fund start-ups is much smaller today than it was in the mid-1980s, but falling interest rates have persuaded some investors to take a second look at newer companies. Dorothy Swithenbank, president...

222 Berkeley St. achieves 100 percent occupancy. (office building in Boston, Massachusetts)
December 7, 1992... The 222 Berkeley St. building in Boston's Back Bay has reached 100 percent occupancy, the owners of the 22-story tower announced last week. While an important goal for any office building, the completion of leasing at 222 Berkeley is especially...

John C. Warren. (CEO and president of Sterling Bancshares Corp., CEO, President and Chairman of Sterling Bank) (Personnel File)
December 7, 1992... The right to be bold Sterling Bank's John Warren is a CEO who makes his own pot of bad coffee in the office in the morning, drives a Buick and eats lunch in a restaurant that greets its patrons with a giant, talking mechanical iguana. He has...

Castle Square's joint ownership wins high marks. (Focus: Real Estate)
December 7, 1992... Commercial tenants of the Castle Square housing development in Boston's South End have had five months to assess the new owners and managers, and they like what they see. They watched closely as Winn Development Co. and the Castle Square...

Condo groups push bill to help them collect dues. (condominium associations) (Focus: Real Estate)
December 7, 1992... With just weeks left on the legislative calendar, supporters of a bill to enable condo associations to collect millions in past dues are scrambling to save the measure from being watered down. The condo bill now before the state Senate attempts...

Domed stadium lacks a solid financial base. (Focus: Real Estate)
December 7, 1992... A grandiose plan by the state to build a domed stadium and mega-convention center in the Boston area has local real estate players contemplating whether the proposal is feasible in today's anemic commercial development market. Despite its...

Pope brings optimism to GBREB presidency. (Dana G. Pope; Greater Boston Real Estate Board) (Focus: Real Estate)
December 7, 1992... This January a high office will change hands locally, too, as Dana G. Pope, senior vice president of The Dolben Co. in Boston, becomes president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board (GBREB) for 1993. He does so fortified by his upbeat...

Landlords protest rental subsidy cuts. (Focus: Real Estate)
December 7, 1992... A new program to provide low-income people with rental subsidies is drawing fire from landlords who find the measure a poor substitute for what was known as the 707 Rental Assistance Program. "It's stupid, financially," said Gioia DeCarlo,...

Contractors claim new liability law goes too far. (Focus: Real Estate)
December 7, 1992... The Associated General Contractors of Massachusetts is seeking a revision of a new law placing liability for construction accidents on building permit holders. But among industry leaders, legislators and lawyers, there is no consensus on...

Plymouth Rubber Co. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
December 7, 1992... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Canton Stock symbol: PLRA Market: ASE Annual revenue: ...

Acquisition fever heats up prices of local bank stocks. (Industry Overview)
December 14, 1992... Bank Worcester and Neworld Bank called likely merger targets Massachusetts bank and thrift stocks are at or near their 52-week highs, and they may have the Bank of Boston to thank for it. Since the bank announced in late summer that it was...

Weighing their options. (stock options of CML Group Inc. and Acton Corp.)
December 14, 1992... CML execs and others may follow Eisner's lead The board of directors at CML Group has encouraged top executives at the Acton retailer to follow Michael Eisner's lead and exercise their stock options before the end of the year. "We decided...

Au Bon Pain rolling in the dough. (chain restaurants)
December 14, 1992... Countless investors and analysts eat breakfast or lunch at Au Bon Pain in Boston, Washington, New York and Chicago every day. They know the product well. And along with their croissants and coffee, they're buying the stock, too. The Boston...

Mahoney's adds recycling to boost Christmas tree biz. (Christmas tree recycling business of Mahoney's Garden Center)
December 14, 1992... Next to filling shopping lists and planning celebrations, it's not the most pressing anxiety of the holiday season, but more and more the question is popping up: What happens to that Christmas tree after Dec. 25? Municipalities, state...

Monitor Channel sells off broadcasting equipment.
December 14, 1992... More than 300 television executives from as far away as Peru descended on Boston last week to bid on the defunct Monitor Channel's equipment in the largest fire sale of top-shelf broadcasting equipment in history. "This was the largest auction...

Mann wins account for Four Seasons hotels. (Irma S. Mann Strategic Marketing to market hotels owned by Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts)
December 14, 1992... Toronto-based Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts has awarded the marketing contract for four of its hotels, including its newest property in New York City, to Irma S. Mann Strategic Marketing. Both companies declined to disclose the details of the...

High-tech yacht enters high-end cruise market. (The Odyssey)
December 14, 1992... Consumers and companies pining for an upscale meal on Boston Harbor will have double the choices in 1993 with the arrival of a new dinner ship to the area. The Odyssey, a 175-foot, high-tech yacht currently based in Chicago, will travel up the...

Blue Cross denies MHA's charges of foot-dragging. (Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts; Massachusetts Hospital Association)
December 14, 1992... Officials at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts lashed out at the Massachusetts Hospital Association last week over MHA surveys that showed little progress in the insurer's contracting effort with hospitals for both its indemnity...

Biotech stocks enjoy a post-election surge. (biotechnology industry)
December 14, 1992... Local biotech issues have surged an average of 20 percent since the presidential election, but whether that is enough to lift them out of their 1992 slump is a matter of debate among analysts. The best performers include Cambridge-based Genzyme...

Competing proposals aim to prevent HMO crashes. (health maintenance organizations) (Focus: Health Care)
December 14, 1992... The state Division of Insurance, the Massachusetts Association of HMOs (MAHMO) and the Massachusetts Hospital Association (MHA) have filed bills for the 1993 legislative session that each propose to tighten the state's financial oversight of...

Unions reluctant to accept managed care. (labor unions) (Focus: Health Care)
December 14, 1992... When Teamsters Local 25's Health Services & Insurance Plan lost $10 million in two years, leaders of the largest Teamsters local in New England knew they had to take dramatic steps to be able to continue providing health benefits for 6,000 union...

Clinton's arrival causes speculation on change. (Bill Clinton's health care reform policy) (Focus: Health Care)
December 14, 1992... Bill Clinton made health care reform a top priority during the campaign and probably won't wait too long to propose changes. And though it's too early to know the exact details, local business leaders have been analyzing the president-to-be's...

Data seen as weapon against soaring costs. (health care rates) (Focus: Health Care)
December 14, 1992... As health care in the United States continues on its logarithmic path to unaffordability, a detectable shift is occurring, local experts say. Employers in Massachusetts are becoming more discriminating consumers, demanding greater accountability...

Dynatech Corp. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
December 14, 1992... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Burlington Stock symbol: DYTC Market: NASDAQ Annual revenue: $486,364,000 Net...

New Devens plan risks prison. (proposal to use another site for planned federal prison in Fort Devens, Massachusetts)
December 21, 1992... Business leaders in the communities surrounding Fort Devens, which is slated to close in 1995, are concerned that an effort by Gov. William Weld to move a proposed federal prison to a remote part of the fort could derail plans to site the $140...

Insurers leery of partners policies. (insurance companies reluctant to provide insurance to employees' domestic partners)
December 21, 1992... When International Data Group decided to make health care benefits available to the domestic partners of its employees, the Boston-based publisher had to begin by shopping for a new insurance company. According to Tom Mathews, director of...

Faceoff on I-93: Home Depot versus Somerville Lumber. (competition between Home Depot Inc. and Somerville Lumber and Supply Company Inc. stores on Interstate 93)
December 21, 1992... The Somerville Lumber billboard along Interstate 93 may try to divert traffic past the new, big, bright and orange Home Depot planted alongside the highway, but it might not be that easy. Although they're located just yards away from each other...

Phone cos. dial for dollars on campus. (long-distance telephone services in universities and colleges)
December 21, 1992... With their sights set on future residential customers, the nation's three leading long-distance telephone service carriers are intensifying their efforts to win area college contracts. AT&T, which has faced stiff competition from MCI and...

New DPU head defends 'evolving' ideology. (environmental policy of Kenneth Gordon, incoming chairman of Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities)
December 21, 1992... The Maine utility regulator named recently to head the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) backed off from earlier criticisms of environmental regulation of utilities in a recent interview. "I think that my views have evolved a...

EPA considering hike in toxic cleanup costs. (proposal that may result in an increase in cost to private companies involved in cleanups of toxic waste sites)
December 21, 1992... A proposal currently before the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could increase the cost to private companies implicated in toxic waste site cleanups and stir further debate on the efficiency of federal actions. The proposal comes...

Market to protect self-insured firms grows. (reinsurance services for business enterprises) (Industry Overview)
December 21, 1992... As more and more businesses turn to self-insurance to cut their health care costs, insurance companies are finding that there is a corresponding demand for stop-loss insurance. The New England, John Hancock Life Insurance Co., Worcester-based...

Marc O'Brien: man of many missions. (president of O'Brien Management)
December 21, 1992... Twenty years ago, Marc O'Brien turned his back on Wall Street and a bountiful six-figure salary at Lehman Brothers for a $20,000-per-year job as a research associate at Harvard Business School. An offspring of the idealism of the 1960s, he was...

Business benefits in phone rate shift. (New England Telephone's reduced rates)(includes related article on NYNEX Corp.'s video dial tone technology) (Focus: Telecommunications)
December 21, 1992... New England Telephone will be ringing in the New Year with some good news for Massachusetts businesses: lower phone rates and reductions in services such as 800 numbers and digital data offerings. With the exception of an increase for unlimited...

Phone innovations test limits of privacy. (use of automatic number identification by businesses and individuals) (Focus: Telecommunications)
December 21, 1992... As advances in telecommunications technology press the boundaries of how individuals communicate with others, phone companies locally and nationally are getting caught in a slippery debate over where their services should end and a person's...

Banking by screen phone. (Bank of Boston's testing of use of screen telephone for home banking services) (Focus: Telecommunications)
December 21, 1992... Managers at Bank of Boston say their new screen telephone is the wave of the future. Some banking analysts view it more modestly, calling it the latest step in the evolution of home banking. Consumers will decide the phone's fate next year, when...

Satellite system covets cable TV customers. (direct broadcast satellite services) (Focus: Telecommunications)
December 21, 1992... Is America ready to get its TV programming served up on a different dish? Namely, a satellite dish? Alpha Industries, based in Woburn, hopes so. The company makes microwave components, used in a kind of Star Wars TV called Direct Broadcast...

LTX Corp. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
December 21, 1992... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Westwood Stock symbol: LTXX Market: NASDAQ Annual revenue: ...

Economic engines remain in neutral. (Massachusetts economic forecast) (Panel Discussion)
December 28, 1992... The Massachusetts economy just never got going in 1992; for every two steps forward, it took one step back. To assess the performance of business in Massachusetts in 1992 and glimpse what the future holds in 1993, Boston Business Journal editor...

Service to a 'T' as MBTA tops '92 call-wait survey. (Metropolitan Boston Transit Authority)
December 28, 1992... After a disappointing finish last year, the MBTA tops this year's list of winners in the Boston Business Journal's annual Call-Wait Survey. The agency captured the number one spot by implementing a new Automated Voice Response (AVR) system in...

Home Depot will sue over West Roxy site. (home improvement stores denied license to build store at West Roxbury, Boston, Massachusetts)
December 28, 1992... Home Depot, the Atlanta-based home improvement company, will file a lawsuit against the city of Boston seeking to reverse the rejection of a store outlet proposed at 1213 VFW Parkway in West Roxbury. John Roberts, manager of Home Depot's...

Clean Air Act requirements can't be put off. (includes related article) (Preview: Environment)
December 28, 1992... The march toward deadlines on compliance with the federal Clean Air Act will pick up pace in 1992, as will consumer and environmental monitoring of the Boston Harbor and Central Artery projects. While the first Democratic presidential...