Boston Business Journal articles from November 1990

Boston Business Journal archives from November 1990

Bondholders balk at BNE swap. (Bank of New England offers stock in exchange for debt claims)
November 5, 1990... Bondholders balk at BNE debt swap Bank of New England's bondholders spurned its offer of stock in exchange for debt claims late last month, hampering the bank's latest attempt to build up its depleted capital. The offer was unacceptable...

Dredging plan stirs up dumping debate. (Coastal Oil New England Inc.)
November 5, 1990... DREDGING PLAN STIRS UP DUMPING DEBATE Taking a hard stance on a series of dredging projects planned by a Boston-area oil terminal operator, local environmental groups are pushing state officials to order the company to prepare an...

New Ft. Point zoning raises concern. (Fort Point Channel)
November 5, 1990... New Ft. Point zoning raises concern The Boston Redevelopment Authority (BRA) is putting the finishing touches on zoning guidelines for Fort Point Channel, but the proposed guidelines encompass land south of Summer Street that was not included...

Metapoint: sizzle out of swizzle. (Metapoint Partners of Salem)
November 5, 1990... METAPOINT: SIZZLE OUT OF SWIZZLE Paul Casey and Keith Shaughnessy are into the nuts and bolts of making braided rugs and swizzle sticks. They need to be, because their group, Metapoint Partners of Salem, owns those businesses as...

Bain & Co. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... International consultant Bain & Co. announced last week it would lay off 167 workers at its Boston headquarters as a result of a softened economy and reduced demand for its services. Ownership of the company will transfer from the eight...

Walter F. Curran. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... Walter F. Curran, the former Dean Whitter stockbroker in Boston who admitted to cheating his clients out of $2 million over seven years, saw his five-year prison sentence overturned last week by the 1st District Court of Appeals. In the ruling,...

General Cinema Corp. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... General Cinema Corp. announced last week it would buy a 40 percent minority interest in Neiman Marcus Group for $14.40 per share, or about $240 million. The retail department store will become a wholly owned subsidiary of General Cinema,...

Digital Equipment Corp. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... Digital Equipment Corp. bought the UK-based financial services firm of Data Logic Ltd., a subsidiary of Raytheon Co., for an undisclosed sum. The Maynard computer maker will take over Data Logic's operations, own the rights to its UNIX-based...

Amtrak. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... Amtrak launched its fastest-ever express train to New York City last week. The New England Express takes just under four hours to reach Penn Station in Manhattan from Boston, stopping only at Providence and New Haven along the way. It's a...

Association for Manufacturing Technology. (Debriefing )
November 5, 1990... U.S. machine tool orders reached $264.2 million in September, down 4.6 percent from August, although demand for manufacturing technology is still up, according to a report released last week by the Association for Manufacturing Technology....

Main Street Toy Co. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... Slap bracelets, one of the hottest new items in the toy business, will bring in revenues of $5 million to $8 million to the Simsbury, Conn., toy manufacturer Main Street Toy Co.. The company, created two years ago by former executives from the...

Ferdinand Colleredo-Mansfeld. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... The chairman of the Vault, Ferdinand Colleredo-Mansfeld, bought the real estate investment firm of Cabot, Cabot & Forbes last week from Chicago investor Marshall Field V. Colleredo-Mansfeld has run the $500 million firm for the last four years,...

Bank of Boston. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... Bank of Boston posted its biggest-ever loss of $255 million in the third quarter, more than doubling its loss of $125 million in the third quarter of 1989. BOB officials blamed a sagging real estate market and the downbeat regional economy for...

Boston Redevelopment Authority. (Debriefing)
November 5, 1990... Single-room lodging houses for disadvantaged people were approved for seven Fenway-area buildings by the Boston Redevelopment Authority. The proposal was passed despite vehement opposition by neighborhood groups, and met with support from Mayor...

Lotus may be fair game for European copycats. (Lotus Development Co.)
November 5, 1990... Lotus may be fair game for European copycats It appears Lotus Development Co. may not be able to protect its software from copycat European software programs that "look and feel" like Lotus 1-2-3 as the European Commission's software...

New capital. (Edsun Laboratories Inc. finances product development)
November 5, 1990... Edsun New capital Edsun Laboratories Inc. recently announced a second round of financing totaling $5.8 million for the continued development of products using the company's patented Continuous Edge Graphics technology. The...

Boston Thermal steamed over Edison stonewalling. (Boston Thermal Energy, Boston Edison)
November 5, 1990... Boston Thermal steamed over Edison stonewalling Boston Thermal Energy has everything in place to build its new $120 million steam generation plant in South Boston--a site, a fuel contract, the blessing of the city and even support from wary...

Raytheon's tenuous reliance on defense orders.
November 5, 1990... Raytheon's tenuous reliance on defense orders Although defense contractor Raytheon saw its projects, such as the Milstar communications satellite, squeak through the federal budget negotiations unscathed, analysts agree that that aspect of...

Law students, summer and a buyer's market. (law firm hiring)
November 5, 1990... Law students, summer and a buyer's market While major Boston-area law firms refuse to admit they are hiring fewer lawyers, job placement officers at local law schools maintain that sluggish economic conditions have slowed recruitment of their...

MDs say cost containment can hamper care.
November 5, 1990... MDs say cost containment can hamper care As Massachusetts and the rest of the nation continue to embrace managed health care, a growing number of physicians are reacting unfavorably to the new cost-containment environment under which they...

Raymond Group sells dock site to Aquarium. (New England Aquarium)
November 5, 1990... Raymond Group sells dock site to Aquarium The Raymond Group has officially sold Dry Dock 5 at Yard's End in the Charlestown Navy Yard to the New England Aquarium for $1, a formality that moves the Aquarium's Central Wharf site closer to the...

Haymarket's urge to merge. (Haymarket Co-operative Bank)
November 5, 1990... Haymarket's urge to merge Is Somerville's Central Bank a natural? Over the last five years, Frank Viola, president of Haymarket Co-operative Bank, lightened his institution by four branch offices, leaving one lone outpost near The New...

Gabriel Schmergel: an instinct for technology. (Personnel File)
November 5, 1990... Gabriel Schmergel An instinct for technology In the beginning, biotechnology hooked Gabriel Schmergel. It was 10 years ago, when enthusiastic talk of cure-alls and cloned genes first catapulted the new science out of labs and into the...

BPI's got a brand-new bag; the firm sees a profit and goes public. (BPI Environmental Inc.) (Stock Watch)
November 5, 1990... BPI's got a brand-new bag The firm sees a profit and goes public Executives at BPI Environmental in Taunton hope that this election day voters across the country will vote green and support the slew of environmental and recycling...

Massachusetts Port Authority. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... The Massachusetts Port Authority has named McDougall Associates, an advertising, marketing and public relations firm, as its new agency of record. McDougall will develop and implement marketing strategies for both the Logan Airport ground...

Wyman Gordon Co. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... Wyman Gordon Co. has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $.20 per share, payable Dec. 10 to stockholders of record at the close of business on Nov. 30.

Home Port Bancorp. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... Home Port Bancorp reported a loss of $.85 cents per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30. A cash dividend of $.03 per share was declared for shareholders of record as of Nov. 1 to be paid Nov. 13.

Multilink. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... Multilink has developed a new software enhancement package for its audio teleconferencing systems. The software will furnish users with a comprehensive conferencing system with direct user access control. Other package features include...

Atex Color Imaging Systems. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... Atex Color Imaging Systems has produced a new APPLE Macintosh utility program for the professional color publishing community. The program, Color-Port, will allow interchange between lowcost imaging workstation products and high-end color...

Technology Concepts. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... Technology Concepts, a software consulting and engineering firm, has signed an agreement with Everex Systems for the distribution of its CommUnity-DOS and CommUnity-Mac software in the professional market. Everex, a manufacturer of personal...

Stride Rite's elder care is a tough act to follow. (shoe manufacturer)
November 5, 1990... Stride Rite's elder care is a tough act to follow Nearly 20 years ago, Stride Rite, the Boston shoe manufacturer, led the way in corporate child care, establishing one of the nation's first employer-sponsored day-care centers at its Roxbury...

Hospitals discover the versatility of video.
November 5, 1990... Hospitals discover the versatility of video Lights! Camera! Operate? The video boom of the '80s brought many changes, from the way we watch movies to way corporations train employees or introduce a new product line to customers. It's no...

Employers take a closer look at substance abuse.
November 5, 1990... Employers take a closer look at substance abuse For years, many companies denied they had a substance-abuse problem in their "family" of employees--acting like a lot of substance abusers and co-dependents themselves. But that...

Mounting costs usher in return-to-work centers. (worker's comp costs)
November 5, 1990... Mounting costs usher in return-to-work centers A firefighter injures his knee in a ladder fall. A truck driver delivers a 100-pound bag of flour, wrenching his shoulder. A nurse turns a patient and sprains her back. If this was 1980,...

BancBoston Capital. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... A BancBoston Capital affiliate has invested $2.5 million of equity capital in the acquisition of Reserve Iron and Metal, a Cleveland-based scrap metal recycler, iron processor and scrap broker. BancBoston is the lead investor in this...

Mortgage Finance Group. (Corporate Notes)
November 5, 1990... The Mortgage Finance Group, member of The Boston Financial Group, has obtained $3.4 million from a major life insurance company subsidiary for the financing of the Rule Industries Building. Rule Industries is a Massachusetts-based manufacturer...

Summit sets its sights on cornea sculpting: rivals merge in an effort to corner market and patents. (Summit Technology Inc.)
November 12, 1990... SUMMIT SETS ITS SIGHTS ON CORNEA SCULPTING When Summit Technology Inc. patented a laser treatment for nearsightedness this summer, its third-quarter revenues soared 313 percent. The Watertown-based company tripled in size and moved to...

State Street steps up retreat from retail. (State Street Bank and Trust Co. retreating from the credit card business)
November 12, 1990... State Street steps up retreat from retail With the selling of its credit card portfolio to an undisclosed buyer for $425 million a week ago, State Street Bank shed a small but symbolic part of the bank's retail services. Once a pioneer in...

State eases rules on lead-paint insurers. (Massachusetts Division of Insurance)
November 12, 1990... STATE EASES RULES ON LEAD-PAINT INSURERS In an unprecedented move, the state Division of Insurance is expected to release a ruling later this month that will allow insurance companies to limit coverage of residences built before 1965 that...

David Egan. (Fast Track)
November 12, 1990... David Egan David Egan has been named president and CEO of Digital News Publishing, a subsidiary of IDG Communications, Egan will continue to serve as publisher of the company's biweekly newspaper Digital NEWS, a position he assumed earlier...

Instrumentation Laboratories. (Fast Track)
November 12, 1990... Instrumentation Laboratories Instrumentation Laboratories, a developer of clinical diagnostic systems, has named P. Thomas Vogel as president of the company. Previously, Vogel was president and CEO of Serono Diagnostics, and had been senior...

Bill Fello. (Fast Track)
November 12, 1990... Bill Fello Bill Fello has been named president and CEO at Logica Data Architects. Fello assumes his new responsibilities following a three-year tenure as president and CEO of Touch Communictions. He also served as president of Xerox...

Grove Bank for Savings. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Grove Bank for Savings The board of directors at Grove Bank for Savings has postponed a proposed holding company formation. The proposal was approved by bank stockholders earlier this year. State and federal regulatory approvals are still...

Sandwich Cooperative Bank. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Sandwich Cooperative Bank The board of directors at Sandwich Cooperative Bank has voted to suspend the bank's quarterly cash dividend. This vote was precipitated by reduced income levels at the Sandwich institution, which currently has...

Prudential Capital Corp. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Polaroid Corp. Polaroid Corp. has filed a motion with the U.S. Massachusetts District Court for an amendment of the judgment on its patent suit against Eastman Kodak. If granted, the amendment will increase Polaroid's $909 million...

The Boston Five Cent Savings Bank. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... The Boston Five Cent Savings Bank The Boston Five cent Savings Bank has donated $1,500 to the Federated Dorchester Neighborhood Houses. FDNH is a home and center-base provider of a variety of health and social services to diverse...

Argosy Asset Management. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Argosy Asset Management Argosy Asset Management has acquired a majority interest in India Wharf Assoc. The two Boston-based firms manage over $120 million in assets for both individuals and the tax-qualified commercial clients. Argosy's...

Excel Bancorp. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Excel Bancorp Excel Bancorp, the parent company of Quincy Savings Bank and Lincoln Trust Co., has adopted a shareholder rights plan. This plan, which protects shareholders' investments in case of a hostile takeover attempt, entitles holders...

Bay State Gas Co. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Bay State Gas Co. Bay State Gas Co. has declared a regular quarterly dividend of $0.32 per common share of stock, payable Dec. 1 to shareholders of record Nov. 16.

Eastern Enterprises. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Eastern Enterprises Eastern Enterprises has declared a cash dividend for the quarter of $0.35 cents per share, payable Jan. 2 to shareholders of record Dec. 3.

BayBanks. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... BoCoEX INDEX The start of November marks the beginning of a new era in the used computer market as the first orders appeared for used computers with the 80486 processor. While there are few of these models available for sale, the fact that...

Thermo Process Systems. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Thermo Process Systems Thermo Process Systems has signed a contract exceeding $1 million to furnish soil-treatment services for Fort McDill, the U.S. Air Force base in Tampa. TPS Technologies, a subsidiary of the company, will treat 21,000...

Polaroid Corp. (Corporate Notes)
November 12, 1990... Prudential Capital Corp. Prudential Capital Corp., a subsidiary of The Prudential, has completed a $150 million financing for The New England Education Loan Marketing Corp., known as Nellie Mae, a national secondary market purchaser of...

Lotus woos Samna. (Lotus Development Corp. proposes acquisition)
November 12, 1990... Lotus woos Samna Lotus Development Corp. has proposed an acquisition of Samna Corp., a software company in Atlanta, for $18.84 per share, or about $65 million. Analysts questioned the premium price the Cambridge software maker offered to...

GM bows out. (General Motors Corp. closes Framingham plant)
November 12, 1990... GM bows out General motors formally closed the Framingham manufacturing plant that has not disgorged a car in 14 months, and announced it would temporarily rehire its former Framingham workers to dismantle it. The automobile giant reported...

Brits implement additional layoffs. (Fenwal Inc.)
November 12, 1990... Brits implement additional layoffs More personnel contractions are occurring at Ashland-based Fenwal Inc. (see BBJ, July 2). Last week the fire-suppression products company laid off an estimated 30 employees in the Controls and Protection...

State approves reform package. (Massachusetts Department of Insurance, workers compensation premium regulation)
November 12, 1990... State approves reform package The state's Division of Insurance approved a package of proposals last week designed to help get spiraling workers' compensation premiums under control. The newregulations provide incentives for employers to...

Fire sprinkler rule stirs regulatory debate. (Massachusetts buildings must have back-flow preventer valves in fore-sprinkler systems)
November 12, 1990... Fire-sprinkler rule stirs regulatory debate Massachesutts business and building owners will have to pay an estimated $500 million to adapt building fire-sprinkler sysems to comply with a water-supply protection regulation that some charge is...

Chromatography and biotech's next phase. (drug purification technology introduced in the Soviet Union)
November 12, 1990... Chromatography and biotech's next phase In the Soviet Union, where refuse insulin treatments that are often impure and result in complications, a Masschusetts biotech company is introducing chromatogrphy, a method of drug purification that...

Ben Thompson: designing places for people. (architect)(Personnel File)
November 12, 1990... BEN THOMPSON In 1968 architect Benjamin Thompson addressed the graduating class at Wayne State University in Detroit and delivered a vision of American life he called the "City of Man." It was a poetic, sensual picture of how building...

Syratech: Number 1 with a silver bullet. (Wallace International Silversmiths Inc. merges with Towle Silversmiths)
November 19, 1990... Syratech: Number 1 with a silver bullet When the merger of 300-year-old Towle Silversmiths of Newburyport and East Boston silvermaker Wallace International was announced this summer, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) decided that the...

Digital to cut health costs with new HMO. (Digital Equipment Corp., health maintenance organization) (HealthNet Systems Inc.)
November 19, 1990... DIGITAL TO CUT HEALTH COSTS WITH NEW HMO Digital Equipment Corp. has unveiled a new strategy to prod its employees toward managed health care. Rather than limiting health plans - as other employers have done - Digital, the state's largest...

A natural niche for New Morn. (New Morning cereal company)
November 19, 1990... A NATURAL NICHE FOR NEW MORN Gene Fialkoff is an unabashed rip-off artist. Fialkoff, president of New Morn in Acton, makes cereals that look and taste almost like the top-selling cereals, except that his contain no refined sugar, no...

Property taxes to rocket for suburbanites: commercial values off.
November 19, 1990... PROPERTY TAXES TO ROCKET FOR SUBURBANITES Declining commercial real estate values are expected to haunt individual homeowners in the form of property-tax increases of up to 25 percent, particularly in markets where office and R&D vacancy...

Strobe shines a light on a batch of problems. (Programart's Strobe computer program fine-tunes software applications)
November 19, 1990... Strobe shines a light on a batch of problems A Cambridge software company is capitalizing on the region's sagging economy with a software "tuning" program that helps corporations put off costly system upgrades. Programart's Strobe is an...

BWSC grapples with delinquent customers. (Boston, Massachusetts. Commission on Water and Sewer)
November 19, 1990... BWSC grapples with delinquent customers Burdened by millions of dollars in overdue accounts, the Boston Water & Sewer Commission (BWSC) is stepping up collection efforts with delinquent customers, including the owners of several struggling...

Deals, retailers revive dormant State Street.
November 19, 1990... Deals, retailers revive dormant State Street When Brooks Brothers started to hunt around for another location in Boston more than two and a half years ago, the traditional clothier settled on the financial district. It was a perfect fit...

Foreign-owned firms in flux, survey shows. (KPMG Peat Marwick)
November 19, 1990... Foreign-owned firms in flux, survey shows Massachusetts companies with foreign parent firms may not be expanding as rapidly as they have in the past, according to a survey released by KPMG Peat Marwick. In fact, news about foreign...

High-tech tailor alters tradition to suit clients. (Albert Andrews Ltd.)
November 19, 1990... High-tech tailor alters tradition to suit clients Albert Andrews Ltd., a Framingham-based maker of custom men's suits, is introducing some new wrinkles in the old business of tailoring. The kicker is not so much that Albert Andrews...

The state's small businesses deserve better. (column)
November 19, 1990... The state's small businesses deserve better As Governor-elect William Weld prepares to take office, two of his most important and obvious tasks are to restore the confidence of the business community in state government and to ensure that not...

NorthEastern on the hot seat: Freddie Mac conducts an inquiry. (NorthEastern Mortgage Company Inc.; Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp.)
November 19, 1990... NorthEastern on the hot seat NorthEastern Mortgage Co., one of the top mortgage lenders in the Boston area, was temporarily suspended earlier this month from selling loans to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., the secondary mortgage...

J. Terrence Murray: envisioning number one. (CEO Fleet/Norstar Financial Group)
November 19, 1990... J. Terrence Murray Envisioning number one Fleet/Norstar Financial Group threw a social earlier this month and more than 200 clients and prospective clients showed up. Lawyers, manufacturers, high-tech executives and real estate developers...

DOR says, better get ready: service tax on schedule, unless.... (Massachusetts Department of Revenue)
November 19, 1990... DOR says, better get ready Even though Gov.-elect William Weld has asked the Legislature to repeal the sales tax on services, and even though legislative leaders have said that they will likely approve a measure to delay implementing the tax...

Design duo puts Limited in retail's vanguard. (Howard Elkus, David Manfredi) (monthly real estate supplement)
November 19, 1990... Design duo puts Limited in retail's vanguard The wave of the future in shopping center development is increasingly pegged to "anchorless" malls, a retail concept that presumes clusters of small specialty outlets are replacing big department...

Manipulating land use rules: arbitrary officialdom, take heed. (monthly real estate supplement)
November 19, 1990... Manipulating land use rules Governor-elect William Weld is said to have little use for property use regulations - especially those that expropriate private property for public purposes under the guise of beneficent social policy. Though...

Arrow Automotive Industries. (company profile)
November 19, 1990... Arrow Automotive Industries Arrow Automotive Industries is a national precision remanufacturer of replacement parts for a variety of vehicles, including passenger cars, light and heavy trucks, farm machinery and heavy-duty equipment used in...

Crane's connection. (state treasurer Robert Q. Crane to head board of Merkert Enterprises; includes other business items)
November 19, 1990... Crane's connection Robert Q. Crane, the outgoing state treasurer, announced last week he would head the board of Merkert Enterprises, a food brokerage business based in Canton. Crane wouldn't disclose the proposed salary. Crane's ties to...

Mail-order war. (dispute over Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association's plan to allow prescriptions by mail; includes other business items)
November 19, 1990... Mail-order war At a State House hearing last week, Massachusetts lawmakers and members of the pharmaceutical industry disputed a plan by Blue Cross and Blue Shield to allow its 285,000 elderly customers to fill their prescriptions by mail....

Layoffs. (includes Textron Inc.'s merging of its Bell Aerospace Textron and Textron Defense Systems divisions)
November 19, 1990... Layoffs Reebok International Ltd. announced last week it laid off 59 employees to "tighten up... and focus the priorities" of the giant sneaker manufacturer, an official said. The layoffs represent less than 1 percent of Reebok's workforce....

High-tech front. (Stratus Computer Inc. markets service to Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines; includes other business items)
November 19, 1990... High-tech front Stratus Computer lined up distributors in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines to expand its fault-tolerant computer services in the Asia-Pacific market. Already, Stratus sales in Indonesia and the Philippines have totaled...

Inmagic. (Boston on the Record)
November 19, 1990... Inmagic Inmagic, developer of textbase software, recently appointed Phillip Green as president and CEO. Green had been product manager, director of systems software and director of product marketing for Lotus Development Corp. He has also...

Nynex Information Resources Co. (reciprocal sales agreement with British Telecommunications PLC) (Corporate Notes)
November 19, 1990... Nynex Information Resources Co. Nynex Information Resources Co. has made a reciprocal sales agreement with British Telecommunications. Under the terms of the agreement, NYNEX will be able to sell advertising to British Telecom's directories...

State Mutual Securities Trust. (Dividends)
November 19, 1990... State Mutual Securities Trust State Mutual Securities Trust has declared a quarterly dividend of $0.26 per share, payable Dec. 31 to shareholders of record on Nov. 30.

XTRA Corp. (Dividends)
November 19, 1990... XTRA Corp. XTRA Corp. has declared a regular quarterly cash dividend of $0.18 per share, payable on Nov. 30 to common stockholders of record on Nov. 21.