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Business Today

Coast Dental Services seeks to go private

By wire services
Published July 9, 2005

Shareholders of Coast Dental Services Inc. will be asked at an annual meeting Monday to approve a bid to take the publicly-held Tampa company private.

The dental practice management business wants to merge with Intelident Merger Corp., a company owned by the Diasti Family Limited Partnership. The Diastis, two of whom are Coast executives, already own 67 percent of Coast Dental's stock. The remaining 33 percent is held by unaffiliated shareholders who will receive $9.25 a share upon completion of the merger. Dissenting shareholders who wish to challenge the buyout offer have the right to ask the courts to review the company's offer. Coast's shares, which are traded over-the-counter, closed Friday at $7.99, down 41 cents.

Community activist Al Pina ended a 13-day hunger strike Friday, shortly after SunTrust Banks sent out a news release saying it had made $24-billion in loans to low- and moderate-income clients, minority borrowers and small businesses statewide over the past five years. Pina wanted more low-income spending from the bank. Thomas Kuntz, president and CEO of the Atlanta bank's Florida unit, said he expects community lending to exceed $24-billion in the next five years.

Deloitte & Touche LLP, the largest U.S. accounting firm, is being investigated by federal regulators over a 2003 audit of Navistar International Corp., according to a document authorizing the probe. The Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, in a two-page order issued in May, said Deloitte's work at Navistar may have failed to comply with at least five auditing standards. While the document doesn't explain what Deloitte may have done wrong, Navistar said in January that its finance unit erred in accounting for customer truck loans that were packaged into securities for sale to investors.

German teenager Sven Jaschan, who created the Sasser computer worm that snarled tens of thousands of computers last year, was convicted Friday on charges including computer sabotage and given a 21-month suspended sentence. The worm had raced around the world, exploiting a flaw in Microsoft Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems. Sasser caused infected computers to crash and reboot, making it impossible to work on them.

Lea Fastow, wife of former Enron Corp. finance chief Andrew Fastow, was released Friday from a halfway house, ending a year's prison term for failing to declare her husband's illegal kickbacks as income, her attorney said. She will remain on federal parole for another year.

The Yelm, Wash., Town Council barred residents from mentioning Wal-Mart at meetings, prompting a challenge by civil libertarians.

The retailing giant has an application pending to build a superstore, spurring controversy in the small town about 15 miles southeast of Olympia. Officials just got tired of hearing about it.

In a letter to the council, American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Aaron H. Caplan said his group thinks it is unconstitutional to ban any mention of Wal-Mart at council meetings. The term "big-box stores" also is banned, as is "moratorium."

Anyone uttering the forbidden terms is ordered to sit down.

The ACLU does not plan to sue over the issue, spokesman Doug Honig said.

Wal-Mart did not respond to a call for comment.

A red lizard on a job seeker's arm once might have meant "hit the road" in business. But maybe not for long.

More than one-third of young people now sport tattoos and other forms of body art, according to a recent survey by the outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc.

That means 1.3-million college graduates are expected to enter the work force - and so are their tattoos and piercings.

While employers may ban body art, many don't for fear of lawsuits. But in fact, companies - not employees - win the majority of discrimination suits because tattoos and piercings, said image and etiquette consultant Jill Bremer.

Porsche AG, Europe's most-profitable carmaker, has established a design and marketing partnership with Ferragamo Finanziaria SpA, the holding company of the Italian luxury goods maker, to develop shoes and leather accessories for men.

The carmaker's Porsche-Design unit plans to market products such as bags and suitcases thorough the venture, the company said. Look for the line this fall.

Information from Associated Press and Bloomberg News was used in this report.

[Last modified July 9, 2005, 01:01:15]