By Compiled from Times wires
Published July 1, 2003
CATALINA TO RESTATE: Catalina Marketing Corp. will have to restate earnings and delay filing its annual report with the SEC for the 2003 fiscal year because auditors questioned when the company recognized revenues at its Catalina Health Resource unit. The amount in question is "not likely" to exceed $7-million, said Catalina, which reported annual revenues of about $475-million for the fiscal year ended March 31. Catalina changed auditors a year ago from Arthur Andersen to Ernst & Young. In May Catalina cut costs and jobs and overhauled revenue forecasting methods for health resources. Catalina made the announcement after the stock market closed Monday.
PSC UPHOLDS RESTRICTION: The Florida Public Service Commission unanimously upheld its order Monday restricting a state public counsel investigation into the size of a Progress Energy Florida rate refund, part of a 2002 rate-reduction settlement. The PSC also voted to prohibit the St. Petersburg utility from supporting its case with facts not included in the original settlement, the PSC order that approved the settlement or the transcript of the PSC's final deliberations on the settlement. In addition, commissioners Charles Davidson and Rudy Bradley declined a request from a consumer advocate to recuse themselves from the case. Davidson and Bradley had asked the PSC staff to change a recommendation supporting public counsel's position for a larger refund to one that took no position. The PSC is scheduled to vote July 9 on the refund dispute.
CHECKERS UPGRADED: Checkers Drive-In Restaurants Inc. saw its stock rise 11 percent Monday after an analyst upgraded his rating on the Tampa burger chain. Tony Brenner of Roth Capital Partners raised his rating to "buy" from "neutral," citing the willingness of Checkers' new management to communicate with Wall Street and to "articulate a long-term strategy." The stock closed at $11.31, up $1.08 per share.
BANK BRANCHES OUT: Washington Mutual Inc. announced Friday that it will open 40 to 60 new financial stores in the Tampa Bay area beginning in 2004. The Seattle retail bank employs more than 6,000 people and has 150 branches throughout Florida. Six of the company's home loan centers are in Tampa, as well as the headquarters of a subsidiary, WM Finance. Washington Mutual plans to open two more mortgage centers in the bay area within the year.
DISNEY LAYS OFF 100: Walt Disney World is laying off about 100 carpenters and decorators, spokeswoman Rena Callahan said Monday. The cutbacks represent less than 2.5 percent of the resort's maintenance staff. Expected to benefit are hundreds of other workers who had their hours reduced in April from an average of 40 hours a week to an average of 35 hours. "It came to a point where we had the difficult decision to make between maintaining the reduced hours for the whole Craft Maintenance Council or to reduce the work force and reinstate the 40-hour work week," she said.
AIRTRAN GOES BOEING: Boeing is expected to be named the winner of a $6-billion contract to supply AirTran Airways with 100 planes, fending off a challenge from rival Airbus, which had been making recent inroads among discount airlines, according to the Wall Street Journal. AirTran officials intend to announce their decision today at a news conference in Atlanta. Boeing will supply the rapidly growing low-cost carrier based in Orlando with 100 of its single-aisle Boeing 737s that the airline plans to use for longer-haul routes.
VIVENDI FIGHTS RULING: Vivendi Universal SA, the world's second-largest media company, was ordered to pay fired chief executive Jean-Marie Messier $23.4-million in severance withheld when he was ousted last year. Vivendi will use "all available legal actions" to challenge the decision June 27 by an arbitration panel in New York, the Paris company said.
CHICAGO NUMBER UP: Chicago-area manufacturing expanded less than forecast in June, suggesting a slow recovery for the nation's factories following the war with Iraq, an industry survey showed. The National Association of Purchasing Management-Chicago said its factory index rose to 52.5 from 52.2 in May. Economists had forecast the index to rise to 53, according to a Bloomberg News survey. Until rising stock prices, the lowest interest rates in more than four decades and increased consumer confidence translate into more spending, factories may be reluctant to boost production, economists said.
WASTE MANAGEMENT CUTS: Waste Management Inc. said Monday it will reduce its work force by 600 and eliminate 200 contract positions as part of a plan to reduce its markets and streamline costs. The nation's biggest trash hauler announced a 700-person furlough in March. Waste Management employed 53,000 workers at the beginning of 2003, said company spokeswoman Sarah Simpson. Waste Management said managers as well as workers in the company's operations, finance and billing departments will be affected. The cuts will result in an estimated $20-million in 2003 pretax savings and $50-million annual savings, the company said.
INFORMATION RESOURCES BOUGHT: Information Resources Inc., a provider of sales data from store-checkout scanners, said it had agreed to be acquired and then taken private by an investment group in a deal valued at $98.3-million. The deal will help pay for the company's legal battle with market research firm A.C. Nielsen. Under the agreement announced Sunday, Information Resources will be acquired by an investment unit of Symphony Technology II-A, of Palo Alto, Calif., and Tennenbaum Capital Partners LLC, of Los Angeles, for $3.30 a share.
GM EXTENDS PROMOTIONS: General Motors Corp. said it was extending employee rebates and overnight test drives for consumers until Sept. 2 in an effort to boost U.S. sales. The overnight test drive program, introduced in April, had been set to end July 21. Rebate coupons, originally given to U.S. workers in May to hand out to friends and family, had been scheduled to expire Monday. General Motors is using the two promotions along with no-interest loans and rebates of more than $4,000 on some vehicles to help recover from a 5.9 percent decline in U.S. sales in the first five months of this year. The automaker's sales in May rose 4.1 percent, according to Autodata Corp., and are expected to rise again in June.
SEC LIMITS AWARDS: Corporations listed on the New York Stock Exchange or the Nasdaq Stock Market will have to get shareholder approval before giving executives company stock or options under rules approved Monday by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The rules mark the first time that shareholder approval would be required before a company can hand out shares of stock or options to buy stock to its executives, packages that can be worth millions of dollars. The rules had been drafted and approved by the NYSE and Nasdaq.
ENRON WINS DELAY: A federal judge in New York gave Enron Corp. until July 11 to file its reorganization plan, granting the former energy trader's request for an 11-day extension. The plan was due Monday, but last week Enron asked for more time, saying it had reached tentative agreement with creditors on the plan but needed to work out details. The plan will spell out how Enron will pay back the creditors to whom it owes tens of billions of dollars. Besides splitting proceeds from asset sales, Enron creditors will likely receive stock in the companies created from Enron's remaining assets.
T-BILL RATES RISE: The Treasury Department sold $17-billion in three-month bills at a discount rate of 0.885 percent, up from 0.815 percent last week. An additional $18-billion was sold in six-month bills at a rate of 0.95 percent, up from 0.84 percent last week. In a separate report, the Federal Reserve said the average yield for one-year constant maturity Treasury bills, the most popular index for making changes in adjustable rate mortgages, rose to 1.02 percent last week from 0.95 percent the previous week.
VW LAYS OFF 2,000: German automaker Volkswagen AG will lay off 2,000 employees at its subsidiary in Puebla, Mexico, because of declining sales of the Jetta and New Beetle in the United States and other foreign markets, the company announced Monday. The company said that as of August, daily production would be cut by 23 percent.
AGENCY TOLD TO GO: The Florida Office of Insurance Regulation ordered the Native Assurance Co. Inc. of Hollywood to stop doing business in the state Friday. The office said the insurance company claims to be exempt from federal laws because it serves Seminole Indians, but the tribe said it had not given the company approval to sell insurance to its members. The company, which is not licensed in the state, has been soliciting business and promoting itself with agents to sell health, life and worker's compensation insurance, according to state regulators.
