Boston Business Journal articles from January 1993

Boston Business Journal archives from January 1993

Banks scramble to boost capital ratios. (effects of bank capital regulations on Massachusetts banks) (Industry Overview)
January 4, 1993... Massachusetts bankers last week were anxiously pumping up their institution's capital funds by any means possible in an attempt to meet federal guidelines that went into effect Dec. 19. Executives said they were offering stock, getting...

Hancock beefs up mutual funds. (John Hancock Mutual Funds Inc.'s marketing strategies)
January 4, 1993... John Hancock Mutual Funds rang in the new year $4.5 billion richer, with an expanding family of funds that has heated up local competition for the investment dollar. Key acquisitions, an expanded management team and a new-found focus on...

Makowski wants rival with Edison connection. (planned purchase by J. Makowski Co. of Altresco Financial Inc.; Boston Edison Co.)
January 4, 1993... After losing an energy project bid to Altresco Financial last spring, J. Makowski Co. of Boston is now looking to purchase one of its competitors. Makowski is now in buyout discussions with Altresco Financial, which last June won a...

Hub makes play for sports business. (Greater Boston Convention and Tourist Bureau's efforts to attract sports tournaments)
January 4, 1993... The Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau hopes the creation of a sports meetings and conventions division will help attract up to $40 million worth of new sports-related business over the next seven years. "This effort is an...

Securitizing commercial property is a hot draw. (growing interest in asset-backed financing for real estate industry in Boston, Massachusetts) (Industry Overview)
January 4, 1993... Peter Capobianco, managing partner of Kenneth Leventhal & Co., felt the accounting firm's recent breakfast seminar on securitizing commercial real estate would generate a good crowd, but he never foresaw it reaching the point where organizers...

Jeffrey G. Saunders: the natural host. (president of Copley Square Hotel)
January 4, 1993... Jeffrey Saunders was born to be a hotelier. His is the third generation of a family business that has maintained the regal traditions of the great old Boston hotel properties. What his grandfather, Irving Saunders, began with the purchase of...

Defense lawyers heed the call of the boardroom. (corporations' need for legal defense against criminal liability)(includes related article on restriction on attorneys to serve corporate boards of directors) (Focus: The Legal Profession) (Industry Overview)
January 4, 1993... As the specter of criminal liability looms ever larger over the heads of corporate America, criminal defense work has become a more significant practice for the region's corporate law firms. Since the mid-1980s, when federal and state...

Liability fears inspire twists on partnership. (proposal by Boston Bar Association and Massachusetts Bar Association to create limited liability partnerships) (Focus: The Legal Profession)
January 4, 1993... Under current Massachusetts law, a general partner of a partnership is jointly and severally liable for the negligence or fault of any partner in the performance of service. That is, even if the partner of a law firm is not personally at...

Courthouse expansion has the public in mind. (planned construction of Suffolk County Courthouse complex in Massachusetts) (Focus: The Legal Profession)
January 4, 1993... The Weld administration announced plans in mid-December to go ahead with the $72 million construction of a new Suffolk County Courthouse complex at New Chardon Street and a $68 million rehabilitation of the 53-year-old "new" and 100-year-"old"...

Business breakups swell caseloads of area lawyers. (parting of ways of partners in limited partnerships) (Focus: The Legal Profession)
January 4, 1993... "Corporate divorce," the separation of partners in a privately held business, is not a new twist on corporate law, but it is increasingly common. In the past five years, business divorce has doubled or even tripled by some estimates, opening up...

Telco Systems. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
January 4, 1993... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Norwood Stock symbol: TELC Market: NASDAQ Annual revenue: $96,661,000 Net income: ...

OTC stocks lead charge in 4Q. (over-the-counter; fourth quarter) (Stock Watch)
January 11, 1993... Investor expectations surged and gave Bay State companies a shot in the arm in the fourth quarter of 1992. The Massachusetts Stock Index, buoyed by renewed interest in small-cap issues, grew 11.1 percent to reach 1,894.9. In contrast, the S&P...

Dartmouth decision about Hydro-Quebec resonates locally. (Dartmouth College; Hydro-Quebec power project)
January 11, 1993... Harvard, Tufts and BU hear calls to divest endowments of bonds Dartmouth College's recent decision to divest of its holdings in the controversial Hydro-Quebec power project raises the divestment issue anew on some Boston-area universities that...

Will hub merchant fit Clinton puzzle? (Eli Segal)
January 11, 1993... Before Eli Segal decides to expand his Boston mail-order puzzle and magazine business, he is waiting to hear from a friend--President-elect Bill Clinton. Segal, who served as chief of staff of the Clinton presidential campaign, may be in line...

Plastics buff up silversmith. (Syratech Corp.)
January 11, 1993... East Boston-based Syratech, best known as a leader in the silver gift and holloware business, has also found a silver lining in its plastics division. The parent of four silversmiths, Syratech went public last month to pay down debt and...

Biotech IPOs multiply in rebounding stock market. (initial public offerings)
January 11, 1993... Massachusetts biotech companies are hoping to capitalize on a rebounding stock market in the coming weeks. Industry insiders are hoping the success of three fourth-quarter IPOs--those of Alpha-Beta Technology, Vision Sciences and Creative...

Chamber of commerce adopts issues for 1993. (Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce)
January 11, 1993... Although it will continue to be involved in a broad array of public policy questions, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce has decided to focus on four issues in the coming year. The strategy, which was prompted by the chamber's board of...

NSC gets bigger piece of asbestos removal market. (NSC Corp. merges with Brand Companies Inc.)
January 11, 1993... In a move expected to triple the size of its asbestos abatement services business, Methuen-based NSC Corp. is merging with one of its major competitors. The deal with Brand Cos., a subsidiary of Chemical Waste Management, will give NSC...

Downtown deals raise hope in leasing market. (Boston, Massachusetts)
January 11, 1993... Much like the Massachusetts Legislature, the legacy of 1992 continued into 1993 for the Boston commercial leasing market last week, as two major downtown deals in the works for much of last year finally came to completion. Following the...

Kodak quits, DEC returns to pre-press market. (Eastman Kodak Co.; Digital Equipment Corp.) (Focus: Printing and Graphics)
January 11, 1993... Eastman Kodak Co. has sharpened the focus of its imaging business by selling its Billerica-based Atex subsidiary, a supplier of pre-press systems, while fellow high-tech giant Digital Equipment Corp. recently re-entered the pre-press market as a...

Business news takes a quicker route to readers. (electronic newspapers) (Focus: Printing and Graphics)
January 11, 1993... Sitting in his Boston office, Bob Chepak holds up a prototype of his company's latest product: a 20-page business newspaper to be sent electronically. "We think this is going to be the country's first electronic newspaper," said Chepak, vice...

Digital cameras, CDs offer new photo ops. (Focus: Printing and Graphics)
January 11, 1993... Exciting technologies have recently come to the graphic arts market to provide users with high-quality, affordable and convenient ways of converting images into digital data. Electronic cameras and the Kodak Photo CD may very likely alter the...

Innovations aid artists but worry color shops. (electronic color separation) (Focus: Printing and Graphics)
January 11, 1993... Three years ago, whenever graphic artist Michael Sullivan was planning a four-color printing project for a client, he would schedule a week or more to have the artwork's mechanicals sent to a color separation house, where it would be prepped for...

CSP Inc. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
January 11, 1993... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Billerica Stock symbol: CSPI Market: NASDAQ Annual revenue: $16,035,000 Net income: $1,678,000 Employees: ...

Other people's money: investors pour $10 billion into mutual funds.
January 18, 1993... Most companies would be ecstatic to do $60 million worth of new business in a year. In the fourth quarter of 1992, Fidelity Investments pulled in that much money from eager new investors every hour of each working day. Fidelity's...

Small stocks, big returns. (Mutual Funds)
January 18, 1993... TABULAR DATA OMITTED Mutual funds that boldly invested in small companies were the funds to beat in the fourth quarter of 1992. The performance of small-cap issues helped locally based funds achieve an average gain of 4.9 percent, up 105...

BOB on the prowl for office space. (Bank of Boston Corp.)
January 18, 1993... Bank of Boston, which recently signed a major long-term lease at its 100 Federal St. headquarters in the city's financial district, is reportedly seeking 200,000 square feet of additional office space in the market, several sources said last...

NE Electric files appeal to externalities ruling. (New England Electric System)
January 18, 1993... New England Electric Systems (NEES) has appealed to the state's highest court a controversial environmental regulation it claims will increase utility rates. The state Department of Public Utilities' (DPU) environmental externalities ruling,...

Novell-Unix alliance will have far-reaching effects. (Novell Inc.; Unix Systems Laboratories Inc.)
January 18, 1993... Novell's plan to acquire Unix Systems Laboratories (USL) from AT&T is expected to have a ripple effect on the Massachusetts computer industry. If the deal is approved, local networking companies and makers of workstations are all expected to...

Unified Europe offers opportunity to exporters.
January 18, 1993... The unification of Europe into a single market will offer a mixed bag to local companies seeking to do business there, several trade analysts predict. The strengthened European Community, which became effective Jan. 1, has created a business...

401(k) participants are offered more choices. (salary-reduction savings plan)
January 18, 1993... As 401(k) plans quickly become an individual's first or second largest personal asset, employees are demanding more control over how their money is invested. Not surprisingly, the major players in the industry have been scrambling to provide...

Pasta company stands firm against the giants. (Trio's Original Italian Pasta Co.) (Company Profile)
January 18, 1993... After six years and $5 million in losses, Trio's Original Italian Pasta Co. may have finally turned the corner. "I have always believed that this product line was a superior product line," said Paul Stevens, Trio's CEO. Stevens' patience has...

Local firms not broken up about Czechoslovakia.
January 18, 1993... Massachusetts companies doing business in the former Czechoslovakia say they are optimistic the breakup of the country will not hurt their enterprises there. LoJack Corp., which is gearing up to turn on its CarSearch system in the Czech...

More architects step in before spots are chosen. (Focus: Business Relocation)
January 18, 1993... It used to be that a relocating company generally brought in an architect to design the new space after it had been chosen. No longer. The past few years have seen a trend toward including the architect early in the relocation process, as part...

Digital helps small firms to reach Europe. (Digital Equipment Corp.) (Focus: Business Relocation)
January 18, 1993... Despite the New England recession, ESA Inc. has had plenty of success selling analytical instruments domestically. Sales this year were up a healthy 10 percent. But in Europe, which accounts for a third of the Bedford-based company's revenue,...

Grove Bank. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
January 18, 1993... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Brookline Stock symbol: GROV Market: NASDAQ Annual revenue: $3,235,000 Net income: ...

NE Life's premium dollars drop. (New England Mutual Life Insurance Co.)
January 25, 1993... Life insurance premiums collected by New England Mutual Life Insurance Co., the state's third-largest life insurer, dropped nearly 10 percent in the third quarter of 1992 compared to the same period in 1991. Across the state, the 16...

Home builders and land developers hit with septic shock: changes to code could cost malls, condos and businesses big bucks. (septic system installation laws) (Industry Overview)
January 25, 1993... Long-overdue changes to the state's septic system code will increase the cost of building homes, strip malls and office developments, and add new costs to existing properties, industry groups are warning regulators. The sweeping update of the...

Mulligan stages a comeback. (First Mutual Bank of Boston president Gerald T. Mulligan)
January 25, 1993... Hard-charging Gerald T. Mulligan has experienced the dizzying highs and lows of New England banking in the last decade like few of his peers. As president of Boston's First Mutual Bank for Savings for six years and CEO for two more, Mulligan...

Beth Israel posts $3M loss in Q1. (Beth Israel Hospital's first quarter loss)
January 25, 1993... Officials at Beth Israel Hospital last week acknowledged that the Boston-based institution struggled during the first quarter of fiscal 1993, recording a significant $3 million operating loss for the period from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. But spokeswoman...

Boston hotels were eager to check out of 1992. (Industry Overview)
January 25, 1993... Even though they won't all admit it, most Boston hoteliers were happy to see 1992 end. For although profits may have picked up at some properties, revenue and room occupancy rates remained relatively flat against 1991 returns, indicating the...

Patriots play defense for revived Raytheon. (Patriot missile)(Raytheon Corp.)
January 25, 1993... Worldwide interest in Raytheon's Patriot air-defense system has sent stock in the Lexington-based defense contractor soaring 24 percent in the past three months to near $52 a share. Despite planned U.S. defense cutbacks, Raytheon's...

Progress Software reaps profits, wants visibility.
January 25, 1993... While heavy hitters in the Bay State high-tech industry are trying to forget their dismal fortunes of 1992, Progress Software Corp. is gearing up for a repeat performance of a banner year. The Bedford-based company is red-hot. With $85...

Fleet plunges into the mutual fund industry. (Fleet Investment Services)
January 25, 1993... Fleet Investment Services, a subsidiary of Fleet Financial Group, has signed up 20,000 new mutual fund customers in the past year--a sign that, with the right marketing, banks can be successful players in the burgeoning industry. Though banks...

Software program to net fishy medical claims. (Health Payment Review's claims processing software)
January 25, 1993... A Boston firm is launching a software product that will let payers review 100 percent of all outpatient claims in an effort to ferret out overbilling or unnecessary treatment. The product--being rolled out this month--could potentially save the...

Venture capital heeds calls for biotech space. (BioLease, Health Care Investments Corp. joint venture)
January 25, 1993... With some offbeat financing arrangements, a group of venture capitalists and a Boston real estate developer are attempting to solve the space crunch for some local biotech companies. BioLease, formed by commercial real estate developer Ted...

Milton Glass: gentle persuasion. (Gillette Co. vice president of finance and chief of investor relations)
January 25, 1993... In the hallowed halls of some of Wall Street's most prestigious investment houses, analysts continue to gloat about the killing they made on Gillette Co. The stock climbed 2,000 percent, from $3 per share in the early 1980s--when the razor...

CD-ROM becomes a hit in business. (Focus: Computers and Software)
January 25, 1993... CD-ROM is catching on. Compact Disc-Read Only Memory is rapidly becoming an accepted way for businesses to store and retrieve large volumes of data rapidly and inexpensively. As prices for both the hardware (optical disk drives) and the...

Hard numbers looking good for Bay State software firms. (Focus: Computers and Software) (Industry Overview)
January 25, 1993... Who says there's no life in the state's economy? Not Sesha Pratap. He heads a Cambridge software development company whose work force has grown at a pace of 100 percent a year for the past couple of years. Pratap's CenterLine Software makes...

Multimedia systems test limits of storage capacity. (Focus: Computers and Software)
January 25, 1993... As the information society grows, data managers are increasingly faced with a staggering problem: How do we store all this stuff? Further contributing to a data manager's information headache is the sophistication, power and flavor of the...

Microsoft's Access goes to work for the user. (Focus: Computers and Software)
January 25, 1993... Of the Big Three applications in personal computing, databases (spreadsheets and word processors being the other two) have sent the most users walking away from their computers scratching their heads. Database makers are notorious for claiming...

Ground Round Restaurants. (Proxy Report Excerpts) (Company Profile)
January 25, 1993... THE BUSINESS Headquarters: Braintree Stock symbol: GRX Market: ASE Annual revenue: $226,466,000 Net income: $4,646 Employees: ...

Health care becomes first choice for cuts. (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... At a Cambridge City Council meeting last fall, four of the city's top executives sat surrounded by about 200 angry union workers. At the mere mention of Personnel Director Michael Gardner's name, the workers booed. The topic was health care...

Withholding law hits retirement payouts. (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... Retirees, newly laid-off workers and employees who change jobs could lose 20 cents of every dollar in their employer-sponsored retirement plans if they fail to plan for the change in job status. A new law requires employers to withhold 20...

IRS is taking a closer look at benefit plans. (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... Qualified benefit plans are not simple to administer. According to benefits consultants, many companies are suddenly finding--often in the midst of an IRS examination--that they are in violation of their plans. After several years of lax...

Reinventing the circle: mentoring groups are taking shape in Boston. (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... It may not be the next wave in the halls of corporate America, but what seems like the '90s answer to corporate mentoring is sweeping through one of the state's largest companies. Welcome to networking, or mentoring, circles. Spurred by the...

Study supports pay/performance link for CEOs. (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... How much should the captains of America's corporations be compensated for their work? That's a question that, to some observers, seems to defy reason. "The world of executive compensation," wrote University of California at Berkeley Professor...

Monsanto adds options for displaced workers. (Monsanto Chemical Co.)(includes related article) (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... Under the federal plant closing law, a company with 100 or more employees is required to give workers 60 days notice of a plant shutdown. A more stringent state plant closing law mandates 13 weeks written notice to employees prior to a shutdown....

Employee leasing can divert a paper blizzard. (Human Resources)
January 25, 1993... Employee leasing programs have been around for more than 20 years, but they are enjoying a recent boom. According to the National Staff Leasing Association (NSLA), approximately 1 million workers are employed under lease agreements, more than...