Boston Business Journal articles from December 2000

Boston Business Journal archives from December 2000

A lot to lose.
December 22, 2000... Fan Pier plans will mean more parking space woes Each weekday morning, shuttle driver Leonard Joy makes the rounds of the parking lot adjacent to the Federal Courthouse on the South Boston Waterfront. He waits for stragglers and even...

Rent drop predicted for 2001.
December 22, 2000... Everyone has been wondering when Boston's red-hot real estate market would peak. Well, observers say, now we know. Joseph Sciolla, a principal with CRESA Partners LLC, a Boston-based corporate real estate advisory firm, is predicting that...

Harvard Pilgrim to succumb to Partners' power?
December 22, 2000... Wellesley-based Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Inc. is in the midst of renegotiating its contract with Partners HealthCare Inc. And insiders say the HMO will encounter the same difficulties that Waltham-based Tufts Health Plan Inc. had when...

With downgrades, Fleet shares lose some luster.
December 22, 2000... Wall Street is just mild about Fleet. With its stock stuck in neutral, FleetBoston Financial Corp. recently had its shares downgraded for the fourth time since October. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. in New York lowered its...

Holiday surprises in store for shoppers in Bay State.
December 22, 2000... Massachusetts, you're next credit card bill may shock you. Bay State residents are expected to charge about $2.6 billion to their credit cards between Thanksgiving and Christmas, according to CardWeb.com Inc., a Frederick, Md.-based...

Electoral anachronism.
December 22, 2000... Add this to the list of surreal moments since Election Day: Massachusetts' electors met at the Statehouse Dec. 18 to cast their votes for president, a process outlined in our 213-year-old U.S. Constitution. As the electors prepared...

Watch out, George W.
December 22, 2000... Lisa Campoli, managing director of Insignia/ESG Inc., is getting set to take over as president of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board. But friends and colleagues suspect she might have something bigger in store. Among Campoli's...

Cubicle burnout.
December 22, 2000... It was really just a matter of time. We started out with road rage, which shows no signs of abating on our nation's dogged roadways. We've developed air rage, in which irate airline passengers end up in handcuffs after their tensions boil...

CORRECTIONS.
December 22, 2000... * The former Houghton Mifflin Co. employee quoted in the Dec. 8-14 edition of the Boston Business Journal ("Contractors win benefits at publisher") does not work for Prentice Hall. * In the same edition's Executive Profile, Daniel J....

PrimeStreet to buy eLease Financial.
December 22, 2000... BOSTON--PrimeStreet Corp., a credit services provider for companies targeting the small-business market, agreed to acquire eLease Financial Services, a developer of a web-based transaction processing system for leasing companies, banks and...

Ucentric lands $17.5M in 2nd financing round.
December 22, 2000... MAYNARD--Ucentric Systems secured $17.5 million in its second round of funding. Pilot House Ventures Group led the round, which also included first-round investor Polaris Venture Partners. The latest infusion of capital will be used for...

OpenRatings garners $16.9M in second round.
December 22, 2000... BOSTON--Open Ratings, a provider of performance ratings for e-commerce suppliers, raised $16.9 million in its second round of financing. Ampersand Ventures led the round, which included funding from Dun & Bradstreet and Atlas Venture....

Aiming high.
December 22, 2000... Woman real estate executive moves up fast in a male-dominated field It's something of a running joke that Lisa Campoli won't be satisfied until she's achieved world domination. Campoli, the managing director of the capital advisers...

Westbrook buys into 1 Beacon St.
December 22, 2000... Westbrook Partners LLC, which moved into town a year and a half ago, has added to its collection of Boston buildings by acquiring 50 percent of 1 Beacon St., a 1.1-million-square-foot office tower, from Prudential Real Estate Investors. ...

Tech center proposed for S. Weymouth.
December 22, 2000... WEYMOUTH--The dust has barely settled on the Mills Corp.'s failed plans to build a regional mall on the 414-acre former South Weymouth Naval Air Station and already there are a half-dozen new proposals, including a $500 million plan for a...

Worcester airport traffic is beginning to take off.
December 22, 2000... Eric Waldron couldn't help but feel a bit lonely when he took over the reigns of Worcester Regional Airport in the fall of 1998. Hired away from Ohio's Cleveland-Hopkins International Airport to run the struggling regional facility,...

Limos' insurance hiked as consumer rates drop.
December 22, 2000... Many Massachusetts businesses are about to pay more for auto insurance, even as the state mandated an 8.3 percent cut in rates for individuals. The state Division of Insurance recently approved an average 9.8 percent increase for...

CRM provider moves into Westborough headquarters.
December 22, 2000... WESTBOROUGH--Now that Akibia Inc. has moved its world headquarters into an 86,000-square-foot building in Westborough Technology Park, the company expects that most of its expansion over the next two or three years will take place in new...

Small grocery chains feel the pinch of consolidation.
December 22, 2000... When explaining why Ro-Jack's Food Stores Inc. this month was forced to transfer its assets to its largest secured creditor--the publicly held Supervalu Inc. of Eden Prairie, Minn.--the Mansfield company blamed the increasing competition...

New regulations may streamline reimbursement.
December 22, 2000... When most biotech executives start out, they believe their Holy Grail is getting approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to sell their product commercially. However, they quickly learn they have a more elusive goal: to get...

Openpages gets VC to go for 'accidental publishers'.
December 22, 2000... WESTFORD--Harley Manning, a research director with Forrester Research Inc. of Cambridge, calls them "accidental publishers." Manufacturers, retailers and financial services institutions that put pages and pages of content online are now...

Web firm secures $40M in funding.
December 22, 2000... NATICK--While waiting for its chance to go public, 3-year-old edocs Inc. has closed a $40 million round of mezzanine financing. The company, which provides infrastructure for online accounting and billing, raised the money now so that it...

New England nonprofits search for regional voice.
December 22, 2000... They're hospitals, museums, soup kitchens and recreational groups. Taken as a whole, they're as disparate as can be. But, they do have at least two things common. The first is that they're nonprofits. The second is that they have no...

Boston REIT has sights set on SEC project in D.C.
December 22, 2000... A Boston-based real estate investment trust will propose its property as the site for the 630,000-square-foot headquarters of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C. Ray Ritchey, executive vice president of Boston...

Rep. Tierney pledges to file bill on retiree health.
December 22, 2000... Legislation would restore cuts to former Verizon, General Electric workers Local retirees of General Electric Co., along with a few companies now under the umbrella of New York-based Verizon Communications Inc., are joining forces with a...

Advisory group: Cut taxes and improve education.
December 22, 2000... Another tax cut for Bay State businesses could be in the works. A group consisting of business and government leaders appointed in January by the Cellucci administration recently recommended giving tax cuts to high-technology businesses...

Patriots' stadium will be the nation's most expensive.
December 22, 2000... The New England Patriots will spend more money to build a new stadium than any franchise in U.S. sports history after concluding an innovative but complicated finance transaction recently. An analysis of the transaction appeared in Street...

Quadstone to use $30M in funding to build sales.
December 22, 2000... When Hitesh Mehta, a venture capitalist in London, receives an unsolicited credit card offer in the mail, he knows that company made the offer based on information it gathered on him as a consumer. Yet, Mehta tosses those offers in the...

Firm faces challenge: Find new tenant for Globix.
December 22, 2000... Restructuring of industry has telecoms staggering With the collapse of Globix Corp.'s lease of nearly 450,000 square feet at Boston Internet City in Brighton, Boston-based landlord Cabot, Cabot & Forbes of New England Inc. is hunting for...

SmarterKids built smarter web site, analysts believe.
December 22, 2000... NEEDHAM--The stock price of SmarterKids.com Inc. has slid throughout the year, from more than $10 per share at its peak to its current sub-$1 status, but its standing among customers and Internet research firms is on the upswing. ...

MassArt to launch web design certificate program.
December 22, 2000... The Massachusetts College of Art has long been a haven for fine arts and graphic design students, but the school is far from turning a blind eye to the design needs of the business community. For the past several months, MassArt has been...

Pillsbury to edit new high-tech paper in Denver.
December 22, 2000... Mark Pillsbury, currently editor of Mass High Tech, a sister publication of the Boston Business Journal, was named editor and publisher of Front Range TechBiz -- a new weekly publication scheduled to debut in the spring. Produced by...

Congress fixes problem it created for business sakes.
December 22, 2000... A year ago, Congress turned George and Margaret Willard's dream of selling their Nova, Ohio-based business and retiring to Florida into a nightmare. The Willards had sold their home and bought a new home in Williston, Fla., where they...

Contractor 'blacklisting' rule arrives before Bush does.
December 22, 2000... The Clinton administration is playing beat the clock with a new regulation that empowers federal contracting officers to block contracts to companies that, in their judgment, do not have a "satisfactory" record of compliance with federal...

Merger review threshold raised from $15M to $50M.
December 22, 2000... As part of its final budget deal, Congress reduced the regulatory burdens for small mergers and acquisitions by increasing the threshold for antitrust reviews from $15 million to $50 million. This means that parties involved in...

Budget gives FTC money to probe retail 'slotting'.
December 22, 2000... The final budget deal approved by Congress also includes $900,000 for the Federal Trade Commission to complete its investigation of "slotting" fees in the grocery business--deals supermarkets make with manufacturers and other suppliers to put...

Workplace injuries decline for seventh year in a row.
December 22, 2000... Job-related injuries and illnesses fell in 1999 for the seventh year in a row, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. There were 5.7 million nonfatal workplace injuries and illnesses last year, a 4 percent drop from the previous...

Musser succeeds Herr as the chairman of NFIB.
December 22, 2000... Tom Musser, an electrical contractor from Kennett Square, Pa., will become chairman of the National Federation of Independent Business in January. Musser succeeds longtime NFIB chairman Jim Herr, chairman and CEO of Herr Foods in...

Coburn wonders if Bush will be `compassionate'.
December 22, 2000... Catherine Crone Coburn, who heads a nonprofit public health consulting firm in Boston called Management Sciences for Health, is watching closely as the new administration in Washington takes shape. She knows a new president could make or...

Southcoast Hospitals seeks license for open-heart surgery.
December 22, 2000... Southeastern Massachusetts isn't about to be left out of the race for a license to conduct open-heart surgery. Southcoast Hospitals Group, a network of three community hospitals, has applied to the state Department of Public Health for...

Portable MRI pays a visit to Marlborough Hospital.
December 22, 2000... Build it and they will come. At least that is what Marlborough Hospital is hoping. The affiliate of Worcester-based U Mass Memorial Medical Center will host a mobile magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) system at the hospital on Tuesdays...

Saunders gives $ 1M; hotel school to take his name.
December 22, 2000... Boston's Newbury College last week announced it was in receipt of a $1 million gift from Boston hotelier Roger Saunders. The gift is the largest in the school's history and will be used to establish the Roger A. Saunders School of Hotel...

Aubuchon Hardware opens store in Bunker Hill Mall.
December 22, 2000... Aubuchon Hardware recently celebrated the opening of its newest store in the Bunker Hill Mall in Charlestown. Aubuchon Hardware stores have more than 10,000 in-stock items, from hardware, housewares and paint, to plumbing, electrical...

French honor Lucien Robert.
December 22, 2000... The French government will give a Boston restaurateur one of its highest civilian honors next month, Lucien Robert, the owner and operator of Maison Robert, will receive the Officier de l'Ordre Nationale du Merite (National Order of...

SmartMouth partners with Stop & Shop Supermarket.
December 22, 2000... Stop & Shop Supermarket Co. of Quincy has signed a contract with SmartMouth Technologies that will provide customized shopping advice and nutritional counseling over the Internet to the grocery chain's customers. The advice will be based...

Restaurant division started.
December 22, 2000... POS/ware Inc., a Pepperell-based firm that specializes in point-of-sale systems, has created a new division offering hardware, software and electronic gift cards for restaurants. Pos/ware Inc.'s products will allow restaurants to track...

Take-out partnership.
December 22, 2000... PlanetBistro.com, a Winchester-based web service that facilitates restaurant takeout and catering deliveries, has announced a partnership with Takeout Taxi of Boston, a multi-restaurant delivery service. PlanetBistro plans to expand its...

The Technology Capital Network.
December 22, 2000... TCN to host financing roundtable for startups Tuesday. Jan. 9: The Technology Capital Network will present an entrepreneurs' financing roundtable, and educational program for entrepreneurs, at the MIT Club, 50 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, from...

The MIT Enterprise Forum.
December 22, 2000... Find out how much your company is really worth Thursday, Jan. 18: The MIT Enterprise Forum will present "valuation: What's my Company Really Worth," which will be the subject of a satellite broadcast from MIT's Kresge Auditorium in Cambridge,...

OSHA to address safety, health issues at forum.
December 22, 2000... The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is co-sponsoring a small-business forum that will focus on construction and general industry. Wednesday, Jan. 17, from 7 a.m. to noon, at the Westover Air Reserve Base in Chicopee. ...

Entrepreneurs wanted.
December 22, 2000... The Boston Business Journal is always looking for interesting stories about entrepreneurs. If you know about a young company of interest, then contact the BBJ. All fields of business are considered, including high-tech, manufacturing, retail...

Study: Businesses may have overpaid taxes.
December 22, 2000... Tax season is just around the corner, and some local small-business owners may be in for a pleasant surprise this year, according to the results of a new federal report that found many companies are due a substantial refund. According to...

Double vision.
December 22, 2000... Entrepreneurs take their love of classic movies to double-feature DVD format ROCKPORT--In what has become an annual holiday ritual, millions of television viewers tuned in earlier this week to watch 'The Sound of Music," the 35-year-old...

Area's Largest Sports Attractions.
December 22, 2000... Area's Largest Sports Attractions (ranked by attendance) [*] Rank Event Attendance 1 103rd Boston Marathon 1,000,000e April...

Genuity Inc.'s stock price, ratings show some bounce.
December 22, 2000... Burlington-based Genuity Inc. was faring a bit better in the market last week. As the Nasdaq climbed back up, the network services provider's stock price jumped 23 percent from a Nov. 30 share price of $4.31 to $5.30 on Dec. 13. ...

I-Logix expands globally with distribution deals.
December 22, 2000... I-Logix Inc. of Andover pushed its global presence this past week by signing distributor partnerships to sell the company's application development platform, Rhapsody, in five new worldwide markets. HWA Create Co. Ltd. of Beijing will be...

EMC Corp. takes a hit.
December 22, 2000... EMC Corp. of Hopkinton was hit with a downgrade Dec. 15 by an analyst at Bear Stearns and Co. Inc. of New York from "buy" to "attractive." EMO, a leader in the data storage field, and one of the technology pillars of the Massachusetts...

Battery Ventures charges up SupplyChange with funding.
December 22, 2000... Battery Ventures LP of Wellesley was the lead investor in Somerville-based SupplyChange Inc., which raised $7.1 million in its first round of funding, according to the company's announcement this past week. SupplyChange will use the money for...

Interlynx Technologies buys ProAct in $60 million deal.
December 22, 2000... Interlynx Technologies of Boston was bought for $60 million by ProAct Technologies Corp. of New York, the companies announced this past week. The Massachusetts' company's human resources software, InterAction, will become part of the...

Name game goes on.
December 22, 2000... Bedford software maker PSDI has changed its name to MRO Software Inc. The company's software is used for maintenance, repair and operations management, hence the initials MRO. The company, which previously was traded on the Nasdaq as PSDI,...

Reasons for holiday cheer still plentiful this season.
December 22, 2000... For some of you in the financial services industry, 2000 was tough, what with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the Nasdaq down for the year. Venture capital funding cooled in the third quarter. And insurance commissioner Linda...

Charlesbank Capital Partners acquires Arkansas company.
December 22, 2000... And now, some here's some business to be wrapped up before year-end. Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC, a Boston-based private investment firm, said it has acquired IntelliMark, an information technology staffing company and data network...

No coal in these stockings.
December 22, 2000... And to close, here's some holiday cheer about some Boston-area institutions: * John Hancock Funds Inc. recently received Dalbar Inc.'s No. 1 rating among broker/dealers for excelling at customer service. The fund group, a subsidiary of...

SUIT CASE.
December 22, 2000... Packing for a business trip? Image consultants can help you dress for on-the-road success Imagine getting dressed for that big out-of-town meeting and finding a coffee stain on your shirt. Or a broken zipper on your skirt. Or a pant hem...

Corporate travel departments can chisel away at rising costs.
December 22, 2000... Believe it or not, it's time to start thinking about next year's business travel costs. If the prognosticators at consulting firm Runzheimer International are correct, your business should brace for a 7 percent increase in overall travel...

In a jam? Alternatives offer relief for commuter ills.
December 22, 2000... More than 2.1 million Bay State workers--72.2 percent of all commuters--drive to work alone. And that number may increase as more companies take advantage of the region's economy and expand into Greater Boston. If you think the traffic...

'Direct links' help upgrade booking procedure.
December 22, 2000... "Direct Links"--technology that allows corporations to bypass standard intermediaries such as a customer reservation system (CRS) in the business-travel booking process--represent the latest in a fast-moving flurry of high-tech advances for...

Share prices: Should you buy, sell or simply yawn?
December 22, 2000... You hear on the news one evening that the stock of Amalgamated Dust & Lint Corp. "closed up," ending the day at a price of $1.50 per share. Because you have no intention of buying stock in this less-than-venerated firm, its share price...

CORPORATE ALBUM.
December 22, 2000... Parexel International Corp. THE BUSINESS Parexel is a contract research organization, providing R&D, marketing and consulting services to pharmaceutical and biotechnology firms worldwide. Its research services, which account for...

MASSACHUSETTS STOCK INDEX.
December 22, 2000... MASSACHUSETTS STOCK INDEX Ticker Close Pct. 52-week Company Symbol Price Chg. High Low P/E A. D. Technologies Inc. ADTC...

Boston on the Record.
December 22, 2000... PERSONNEL FILE ADVERTISING/COMMUNICATIONS Arnold Worldwide in Boston promoted the following: Cindy Lovell and Ross O'Donovan, management supervisors; Colette McNulty, account supervisor; Denise Ott and Jennifer Stott, assistant...

South Shore Chamber of Commerce.
December 22, 2000... South Shore Chamber of Commerce recently handed out its Success Profile of the Year Awards, recognizing companies that have demonstrated solid consecutive growth over a thee-year period in either staffing, net income or real estate space....

R.L. Jeannotte Inc.
December 22, 2000... R.L. Jeannotte Inc. of Shirley received the 2000 Excellence in Construction Eagle Award from the Associated Builders and Contractors. The company received the award in the category of commercial/institutional/ industrial construction ($1 to...

Monitor Builders Inc.
December 22, 2000... Boston-based contractor Monitor Builders Inc. received the Excellence in Construction Award from the Massachusetts Chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors, in recognition of the firm's efforts on the $32 million construction and...

Red Sun Press.
December 22, 2000... Red Sun Press of Jamaica Plain received the Year 2000 Massachusetts "Buy Recycled and Environmentally. Preferred Products" Business Award, in recognition of the company's efforts to promote recycled products.

Sasaki Associates Inc.
December 22, 2000... Sasaki Associates Inc. of Watertown earned three awards at the 2000 America Society of Landscape Architects Professional Awards Program, in recognition of the following projects: the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Light Rail Transitway Mall;...

Alliance for the Commonwealth.
December 22, 2000... Alliance for the Commonwealth, a Boston-based nonpartisan research and educational foundation, in cooperation with the Massachusetts Port Authority, issued a call for nominations for the 6th Annual Massachusetts Export Achievement Awards. The...

State Street Corp.
December 22, 2000... State Street Corp. of Boston signed a definitive agreement to purchase a majority interest in Bel Air Investment Advisors LLO, an L.A.-based independent investment management firm serving high net worth individuals and families. Bel Air will...

John Hancock Funds.
December 22, 2000... John Hancock Funds of Boston introduced the John Hancock Multi Cap Growth Fund, which invests in a wide spectrum of growth-oriented stocks of companies of all sizes. Lead portfolio manager for the new fund is Anurag Pandit, who is also on the...

Merrill Lynch.
December 22, 2000... Financial management and advisory company Merrill Lynch opened a new office located at 201 Broadway, 5th Floor, in the Kendall Square area of Cambridge, reachable by telephone at (617) 374-8500.

Fantini & Gorga.
December 22, 2000... Fantini & Gorga of Boston arranged $7 mil lion in construction/permanent financing for a Hampton Inn, located just off I-93 in Braintree, which was scheduled to open to the public on Dec. 15.

Hingham Institution For Savings.
December 22, 2000... Hingham Institution For Savings launched PCBank24, its new fully-transactional online banking service. Features allow customers to review account activity, obtain balances, transfer funds, verify checks paid, obtain loan account information,...

New England Systems and Solutions LLC.
December 22, 2000... New England Systems and Solutions LLC, an accounting software provider and affiliate of Rockland CPA firm Needel, Welch and Stone PC, was named a member of the Denver-based Fundware Partner Advisory Council of American Fundware Inc., a...

Genzyme General of Cambridge.
December 22, 2000... Genzyme General of Cambridge entered into a license agreement for a class of small-molecule compounds that may be useful in treating lysosomal storage disorders. The agreement with the University of Michigan covers a series of U.S. and...