Sacramento Business Journal articles from July 1998

Sacramento Business Journal archives from July 1998

Tenco joins with Stockton dealer. (Tenco Tractor Inc.; Holt Bros.)
July 31, 1998... Tenco Tractor Inc., a longtime Sacramento firm that sells and services Caterpillar equipment, is merging with a fellow Caterpillar dealer in Stockton. Tenco and Holt Bros. will join forces Jan. 1. The new company, called Holt of...

Taylor's hotel deadline extended again. (real estate developer David Taylor)
July 31, 1998... Developer Dared Taylor has been given 75 more days to secure investors and a franchise agreement to build a 875 million convention center hotel downtown. In May, the city of Sacramento gave Taylor 45 days to come up with a hotel franchise...

Intel to sell 25 acres of Folsom site.
July 31, 1998... Intel Corp. reconsidering its long-term needs, plans to sell 25 to 50 acres of its Folsom property, reducing its land holdings there by as much as 23 percent. The technology giant still expects to open nine buildings in Folsom eventually,...

Fruit firm signs $50 million office deal. (Rubino Management Group)
July 31, 1998... A San Jose manufacturer of dried fruits is buying about $50 million worth of real estate in Sacramento. The company is Rubino Management Group. Rubino is a major employer in the Yuba City-Marysville area, where it owns 3,000 acres and a...

Portner wants to play ball in Sacramento. (businessman Bruce Portner's plan to bring professional baseball to Sacramento, CA)
July 31, 1998... There's been plenty of talk, but there's still no team. Now Bruce Portner thinks he can do better than all the other baseball boosters who have failed to produce the one thing Sacramento needs to become a ball town again. "You see a...

Mercy wins in FPA shake-out. (Mercy Healthcare Sacramento; FPA Medical Management Inc.)
July 31, 1998... Mercy Healthcare Sacramento appears to be the biggest winner in the shake-out following last week's bankruptcy of FPA Medical Management Inc. Two doctors' groups - Sutter Independent Physicians and Hill Physicians Medical Group - also are...

State bonds fuel growth at aerospace company. (Applied Aerospace Structures)
July 31, 1998... Applied Aerospace Structures, a Stockton firm that makes airplane and satellite parts, plans to hire nearly 200 employees over the next three years. The growth, which would almost double the company's staff, is being fueled by rising demand...

AT&T deal steps up fiber-optic battle. (impact of AT&T's purchase of Teleport Communications Group Inc. on the telephone industry)
July 31, 1998... AT&T Corp.'s newly announced purchase of Teleport Communications Group Inc. has stepped up the competition for luring high-volume phone customers from Pacific Bell. Teleport has been building a local fiber-optic communications system to...

Financing company taps pipeline to Wall Street. (Bancorp Financial Services Inc. of Sacramento)
July 31, 1998... BanCorp Financial Services Inc. of Sacramento has lined up a direct conduit to Wall Street investors with Chicago's Heller Financial Corp. BanCorp is an 18-month-old nationwide wholesale leasing .company. The 14-employee firm buys...

Step Ahead merging with eastern retailer. (Step Ahead Investments Inc.; Dollar Tree STores Inc.)
July 24, 1998... The company that owns the 98[cents] Clearance Centers chain is merging with the nation's largest group of one-dollar discount variety stores. Step Ahead Investments Inc. signed an agreement on Wednesday to merge with Dollar Tree Stores Inc....

Deer Creek to test limit on growth. (housing development in Sacramento County, California)
July 24, 1998... Hearings began this week before the Sacramento County Planning Commission for a real estate project, Deer Creek Hills, that presents the first significant challenge to the county's 1993 general plan. The county planning department's staff has...

Union Pacific starts readying railyards. (Union Pacific Railroad Co.)
July 24, 1998... Union Pacific Railroad Co. is steaming ahead with plans to speed up development of its downtown railyards. The company plans to reroute the rail line that runs along 7th and I streets so that it stands away from three parcels zoned for office...

Shari's to sell berries on the Net. (Shari's Bear'ys Inc.; Internet)
July 24, 1998... Chocolate-dipped strawberries, the treats sold by homegrown company Shari's Bear'ys Inc., are about to go national via the Internet. The retailer is preparing to launch a Web site and a toll-free phone line allowing customers across the...

Bishop Hawk bought out: local firm sold to Chicago's Grubb & Ellis.
July 24, 1998... A home-grown Sacramento commercial real estate brokerage, Bishop Hawk Inc., has been sold to Grubb & Ellis Co. of Chicago for an undisclosed price. Bishop Hawk was the area's second largest brokerage and Grubb & Ellis was third, based on...

Artesyn, H-P saw duty snafu last year. (Artesyn Solutions; Hewlett-Packard Co.)
July 24, 1998... When U.S. Customs Service agents charged in federal court last week that Hewlett-Packard Co. and two affiliated businesses in Roseville had failed to pay duties on more than $6 million in imported goods, it reopened an issue Hewlett-Packard...

Full-service Holiday Inn proposed for Laguna.
July 24, 1998... The family that owns the Geweke auto dealerships plans to build an estimated $8 million Holiday Inn hotel in Laguna next spring. The 113-room hotel would be in a development in the northwest corner of Laguna Boulevard and Highway 99 in Laguna...

Rice industry seeks some unity. (creation of a single commission to represent the industry)
July 24, 1998... Legislation would create a single trade commission The people who grow and sell rice in California are trying to get the state Legislature to create a single new commission to represent their industry. At least five different groups that...

Packard Bell gets early start marketing cheap PC. (Packard Bell NEC)
July 24, 1998... Packard Bell NEC has launched a national advertising campaign to jump-start sales of its $699 personal computer. The Sacramento company's cable TV and newspaper campaign is another round in the pitched battle to win low-cost PC market share....

Businesses fear harm from U.S. plan to protect salmon.
July 17, 1998... Two separate proposals by a federal agency that watches over oceangoing fish could set up new barriers to development in the Central Valley in an effort to protect salmon. The National Marine Fisheries Service is getting ready to declare the...

HMO bails on seniors: costs rise. (health maintenance organization Health Net)
July 17, 1998... Health Net, the third-largest managed-care plan for seniors in the state, is pulling out of the market in 10 rural counties by New Year's Day. The reason: Rates paid by the government are too low to cover projected increases in the cost of...

Both H-P, Intel put hiring on ice. (Hewlett-Packard)
July 17, 1998... One freezes as the other slows Two of the Sacramento. region's top employers, Hewlett-Packard Co. in Roseville and Intel Corp. in Folsom, have put the brakes on local hiring. Hewlett-Packard invoked a job freeze last month after...

Davis considers new business parks. (Davis, California)
July 17, 1998... Davis is debating proposals to allow up to three new business parks in the city. Growth is always a thorny issue in a city that has fought to keep its small-town atmosphere. But the development debate has grown louder lately because the...

More jobs at Mather. (Mather Field, California)
July 17, 1998... Debt collector plans call center A Eureka debt-collection company is considering whether to put a telephone call center at Mather Field that could eventually employ 100 people. Security National Servicing Corp. is negotiating to buy a...

Independent bookstores snag five-figure sums from Penguin. (Penguin Books USA)
July 17, 1998... Local booksellers are being sent thousands of dollars in payouts following a $25 million settlement from a leading publisher accused of antitrust violations. Penguin Books USA has sent checks ranging from $1,000 to more than $14,000 to...

Placerville gets OfficeMax and Big 5. (retail development project in Placerville, California)
July 17, 1998... Site work has begun on Placerville's first significant retail developments in almost a decade. A lawsuit was filed Tuesday, however, to stop the larger of the two ventures. The projects, totaling 40,000 square feet, are under way a...

Firm that helps bones mend sizes up new market: horses. (Special Devices Inc.)(Product Announcement)
July 17, 1998... A small Grass Valley firm that makes devices to support broken bones may have stumbled onto a lucrative new market - racehorses. Special Devices Inc. has developed three gizmos for humans that appear to be strong enough for use on animals...

Production company offers partnerships to raise funds for movie. (Longboard Productions)
July 17, 1998... A local quartet that wants to make a movie is trying to raise $5.2 million by selling limited partnerships. Longboard Productions planned to issue a prospectus today for Windfall Partners, a California Limited Partnership. If the offering...

Med center cuts dollars and docs. (UC Davis Health System)
July 10, 1998... The UC Davis Health System will cut another $10 million from its operating budget in the coming fiscal year. Some of the cuts are stirring controversy. Ten doctors in five communities who had earlier sold their practices to join the UC...

Shasta will build 135 homes downtown. (Shasta Real Estate Co.)
July 10, 1998... Developer Sotiris Kolokotronis and his Shasta Real Estate Co. has inked a deal with the Capitol Area Development Authority that will let Shasta build up to 135 houses and apartments in downtown Sacramento. They amount to the single biggest...

Waste Connections buys 9 firms.
July 10, 1998... Waste Connections Inc., the Roseville waste hauling company that went public in May, is on a shopping spree. Since March 31 - the start of its second quarter - the company has bought nine waste handling firms with combined annual revenue of...

New Bank of Sac raises $11 million. (Bank of Sacramento)
July 10, 1998... The new Bank of Sacramento has raised more than $11.5 million and is all set to open Monday. The bank was expected to be given the nod by the state Department of Financial Institutions in time to open its doors in the Landmark Building at...

Unify Corp. reunifies; marketing is back from San Jose. (California)
July 10, 1998... Unify Corp., struggling back to profitability by selling software aimed at the exploding Internet commerce market, is moving its marketing unit to Sacramento from San Jose. The company, which moved its comparatively small headquarters to San...

PacifiCare severs its ties with FPA. (PacifiCare Health Systems Inc.; FPA Medical Management Inc.)
July 10, 1998... PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. is severing all its contracts with FPA Medical Management Inc. due to fears that the financially strapped company won't be able to provide good care to the HMO's members. The decision affects 200,000 PacifiCare...

Western Health brings 360 more docs on board. (Western Health Advantage)
July 10, 1998... Western Health Advantage is adding 360 local doctors affiliated with the Golden State Physicians Medical Group to its network, effective Aug. 1. It's the first expansion beyond the three core partners that formed the health maintenance...

Travel-center builder aims to open one in Yolo County. (California)
July 10, 1998... The nation's largest privately owned operator of travel centers plans to build one along Interstate 5 in Dunnigan, Yolo County. The center would replace Dunnigan Truck Service, a truck stop that has been on the site east of I-5 at Road 8 and...

Audio Partners' recent growth is based on fiction.
July 10, 1998... Self-help was good for business. Inspiration was better. But nothing boosts revenue like fiction. That's true, at least, for the books-on-tape business, where a boom in fiction is propelling an expected 25 percent growth in revenue by year's...

Aphton signs up with drug giant. (Aphton Corp.'s alliance with SmithKline Beecham to develop and market a vaccine for prostate cancer)
July 3, 1998... Aphton Corp., a low-profile biopharmaceutical company in Woodland, has landed another high-profile deal with one of the world's largest drug manufacturers. SmithKline Beecham of Middlesex, England, is putting $10 million into Aphton's bid to...

Insurer delays offering: Financial Pacific caught in filings backlog. (Financial Pacific Insurance Group Inc.)
July 3, 1998... A Rocklin insurance company that planned to go public last month has delayed its stock offering until the end of July. Financial Pacific Insurance Group Inc. is stuck in a backlog of filings at the federal Securities and Exchange Commission....

Mercy may get docs from FPA. (Mercy Healthcare Sacramento; FPA Medical Management Inc.)
July 3, 1998... Mercy Healthcare Sacramento is on the inside track to pick up the practices of 33 primary-care doctors that are now owned by FPA Medical Management Inc., the Business Journal has learned. FPA is a San Diego company under severe financial...

Lousy weather sticks Track 'n Trail with two lousy quarters. (impact of El Nino on shoe retailer's poor 1st qtr and 2nd qtr 1998 performance)
July 3, 1998... Add Track 'n Trail Inc. to the list of businesses blaming El Nino for poor performance. The publicly traded shoe retailer based in El Dorado Hills is expected to release disappointing results for its second quarter, which ended June 26....

Cities aiming to raise more revenue from hotels: Roseville, Placer put tax hike on November ballot.
July 3, 1998... Roseville, Placer put tax hike on November ballot Roseville and Placer County residents will vote on plans to increase their hotel taxes on the November ballot. It's the second time the city and the county have tried to raise more money...

Trammell Crow buys apartment complex; deal marks firm's re-entry here. (Trammell Crow Residential; Discovery Park in South Natomas)
July 3, 1998... Deal marks firm's re-entry here One of the country's biggest apartment investors has bought Sacramento's biggest apartment complex. Trammell Crow Residential of Atlanta paid Fore Property Co. of Westlake Village $29.2 million for the...

Truckers fight plan to blacklist diesel. (plan to add diesel fuel to list of toxic contaminants)
July 3, 1998... Truckers and tanners are fighting a plan by California air pollution regulators to add diesel fuel to their official list of toxic air contaminants. State authorities say the diesel listing won't really change anything. Diesel is already...

Owner of C&H Sugar sweet on capital's real estate.
July 3, 1998... A Hawaiian shipping and sugar company that's developing 1,813 acres near Pilot Hill is also buying some $40 million worth of Sacramento office buildings. Alexander & Baldwin of Honolulu has been planning a residential community at Pilot Hill...

State Farm fights car insurance ruling. (State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co.)
July 3, 1998... State Farm Insurance Cos. will appeal a judge's ruling that throws out California's current system of basing auto insurance rates primarily upon where a driver lives. Insurance trade organizations are blasting the ruling, while consumer...