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Show Q Financial Markets B10 B Mutual Funds 2 B Local Business B12 B11-B1- The Daily Herald Friday, January 26,1996 Advertiser s raid the bank for Bow! spots January 25, 1996 DOW (Industrials) n NYSE S&P500 AMEX U1TA By SKIP WOLLENBERG AP Business Writer NASDAQ NEW YORK Frogs croak for beer, a goldfish plays dead for a soft drink and a city slicker leads a cattle drive in a snazzy during what may be the most widely watched TV show of the year. Super Bowl XXX on Sunday pits the Dallas Cowboy against the Pittsburgh Steelers for the National Football League championship. But with Dallas heavily favored, don't be surprised if the office chit-chMonday dwells on what ad provided the most NYSE Diarv ii Advances: 1,042 Declines: 1,267 774 Unchanged: Total issues: 3,083 1995 avg. comp. vol.: 422,909,640 four-wheel- er 133 New lows 17 Volume: 545,742,640 at ational Highlights SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) Sun Microsystems Inc. is ready to pay $4 billion for Apple Computer Inc.' Or is it $2.76 billion? Conflicting reports about how much Sun Microsystems might pay for Apple frustrated shareholders and investment bankers Thursday. Apple's stock fell and Sun's rose amid the uncertainty. The two companies continued to discuss their options but declined comment. The New York Times quoted anonymous sources saying Sun had offered $23 per share, while The Wall Street Journal's sources said' the companies were close to agreeing on $33. WASHINGTON (AP) The broker for bankrupt Orange County, Merrill Lynch & Co., wasn't a named defendant in the Securities and Exchange Commission's case against the county. But SEC documents released Wednesday raise serious" questions about Merrill's roltin the financial scandal. These documents show Merrill knew intimately about Orange County's financial risks as early as 1992, suggesting Merrill could face legal sanctions for failing to disclose its knowledge. NEW YORK (AP) The number of U.S. businesses that failed last year declined by less than percent to about 71,200, the business information service Dun & Bradstreet Corp. reported. The liabilities of those busi- 1 entertainment. In some cases, advertisers nesses, however, increased by 29 percent, indicating the failures had a greater impact on the economy, D&B said Thursday. Liabilities of the failed businesses totaled $37.5 billion, compared with $29 billion for the 71,500 failures seen in 1994. NEW YORK (AP) AT&T profit jumped 12 percent before an expected $6.25 billion charge to pay for its breakup into three com- Corp.'s fourth-quart- er panies. Executives said Thursday they were pleased with the record-settin- g Previous close" Percent change Milan 50869 0.1 ...9797J 0.6 EZUB Brussels WASHINGTON (AP) Plans by MCI Communications Inc. and media magnate Rupert Murdoch to deliver television and other services directly to homes via satellite moved a crucial step forward. MCI on Thursday won the last remaining license to do so, bidding $682.5 million in a government auction. MCI and Murdoch's News Corp. are teaming up to develop a range of consumer and business services for television as well as for computers. 1.2 1663 06 0.2 Frankfurt Sydney 7 u2235 7 0.8'ITEfla: 0.9 Hong Kong Tokyo 20312.74 110960.21 0.5 1.3 j ESEEJ 3758.2 0.6 $ Dollar Yen The dollar rose to a two-yehigh against the Japanese yen Thursday. 107 yen 100 yen 11- 0- - Brussels: Srjng. London: Sydney: All Ordinaries. Zurich: Credit Suisse, Milan: MIB. L. j CBS-ne- Frankfurt: DAX Hong Kong: Hang FT 100. Paris: CAC-4Tokyo: Nikkei, Bel-2- j 'f --'- V 80 Amsterdam: MARKETS nearly two years 3221.3 0.3, na not available, AP Sulias's Record low April 19 79.75 yen 70 60 holiday. J FMAMJ J ASONDJ '96 1995 Metals Elarhel 1 from 1.4865; 1.2000 Swiss francs, up from 1.1945; 5.1035 French francs, down from 5.1500; 1.6703 Dutch guilders, up from 1.6655; 1,603.50 Italian lire, up from dol- 1,598.50; 1.3781 Canadian lars, up from .3760. 'The British pound was quoted at' $1.5082, down from $1.5094 late Thursday. ' London dealers fixed a recommended gold price of $407.40 per ounce at midmorning, up from the bid late closing price of $407.25 1 Thursday. In Zurich the bid price at noon was $407. 10, up from $406.80 late Thursday. In Hong Kong, gold rose $5.62 an ounce to close at $407.39. ifrt - j AP Photo, Silver traded in London at $5.58 a troy ounce, unchanged from late Thursday. The Mexican peso was at 7.3700, down from 7.3950 Thursday. Nonferrous Metals NEW YORK (AP) Spot metal prices Thursday. Aluminum - 70.0 cents per lb. London Metal Exch. Thu. Copper - $1.2300 Cathode full plate. U.S. destinations. Copper - $1.1790 per lb, NY Merc spot Thu. Lead - 46 5 cents per lb. Zinc - $4.1923 delivered. Tin, lb. per Wed. Metals Week composite price per lb. Gold - $406.60 Handy & Harman (only daily quote). Gold - $406.60 Trov oz., NY Merc spot month Thu. Silver $5,580 Handy & Harman (only daily quote). Silver - $5,554 per troy oz., NY Merc spot month Thu. Mercury - $250.00 per 76 lb flask. 5 New York. Platinum troy oz., N.Y. (contract). t Platinum - $422.60 .N.Y. Thu. oz. per troy non-ferro- .5093-.529- -- $416.00-$417.2- Merc-spo- 'l one of six new commercials Pepsi-Colplans, to debut on Super Bowl Sunday, football and baseball star DeionJ Sanders proves he's just as fast as the Road Runner. In "Wile E. Coyote," a efforts to bum a Bud Light. Jack Palance leads a cattle drive in a new Ford pickup. Nike Inc., which ran a ad last year showing Dennis Hopper delivering a Patton-lik- e ode to football, features pee-we- e comfootball in three mercials this year celebrating the sport. Advertisers and ad consultants say the Super Bowl offers an unmatched onetime opportunity to introduce a product, deliver a sales theme or show off an arresting creative idea. American Honda Motor Co., which bought three commercials last year, won't be advertising during the game this year, however. Their ads were all placed in the break that ran with two min- utes left in the San Francisco 49ers' 49-2- 6 drubbing of the Sant . Diego Chargers. "We would have hoped to see a closer game," Art Garner said. Charlton Heston is the latest to reject Johnny the moocher's 1 s & 1 yJ I -- Honda-spokesma- ... hi i ni in S mi rff .wmiim .rnr A' ? K- - Nonetheless, 1 By FARRELL KRAMER AP Business Writer said. Business Week cited unusual action in stocks over a period of several months. An article detailing its suspicions appears in the magazine's Feb. 5 issue, which was released Thursday. The same sort of fraud surfaced at Business Week in 1988. when law enforcers ensnared people using advance information of the g tips to magazine's score in the market. Shepard said he did not believe the current troubles were coming from inside the magazine or from America Online, which publishes an electronic version of the magazine. Business Week said it alerted the Securities and Exchange Commission and officials of the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq Stock Market after the most 1 Business Week NEW YORK may be the victim of an insider for the second trading scam time in eight years. The magazine, reporting on itself, said it had detected a'pattern'', of unusual trading in stocks meti- -' tioned in its "Inside Wall Street" column and taken the matter to regulators. The activity suggested someone might be getting an early look at Business Week's pages. "We feel that we're the victims of a theft." editor in chief Stephen B. Shepard said in a telephone interview. "People are stealing our information before it's available to the general public and we need to do all we can to stop it. because it's a matter of the integrity of our process and the magazine." he 1 stock-toutin- get ink but By FARRELL KRAMER AP Business Writer NEW YORK 1 As Wall Street traders scrambled Wednesday for ways to spin gold from the nation's largest bank merger, the executives of Noah's New York Bagels sat back and relaxed. Their deal was done. One day earlier. Noah's had agreed to be bought by a bigger bagel baker. Compared with $1 1.6 billion merger of Wells Fargo and First Interstate, the $100 million deal for chewy dough was just a nosh. But for Noah's and Einstein Bros. Bagels, the merger was a feast. "The complexity of it is really Glenn says astounding," Bacheller, Noah's chief executive. "For something a hundred times that size, it's hard to imagine what the details would be." Bacheller isn't the only one com-panic- mom-and-po- anyone can escape noticing last year's surge in corporate mergers; 1995 set a record, with 9.008 trips down the aisle almost quadrupling the number Hardly seen in 1985. But beneath the deals like Walt Disney's purchase of Capital CitiesABC were myrithe ad smaller combinations vast majority of mergers, in fact. high-profi- le Cap Cities sold for about $19 billion; last year's average deal cost $51 million, according to Securities Data Co.. w hich tabulates such things. For working people, the proliferation of smaller deals means the Honda knows of a Super Bow l ad. "You're still not going to reach that many people on any other show." Garner said. in stocks recent suspicious tradins was noticed on Jan. 18. The stocks were all included in the "Inside Wall Street" column, which can affect the price of issues it mentions. The magazine goes to press on Wednesday and is released to Business Week staffers and the media Thursday beginning at 5: 15 p.m. It is available on AOL at about 7 p.m. Business Week said the senior editor who oversees the column noticed a pattern of unusual price and volume movements on numerous Thursdays before the issues were released publicly. "We have no idea where it's coming from." Shepard told the A P. He said the SEC had not provided Business Week with any further information on what might be happening. At the SEC, associate director Gary Sundick declined to it touts comment. Eleven people, including three stockbrokers, were either convic-t-eor settled charges related to the 1988 insider trading of informa tion from "Inside Wall Street." This time around, the maga.ibe became suspicious on Jan. 18 d " merger craze may be coming to a workplace near you. That's because Americans in increasing numbers are employed by small and midsized companies "What it says is more and more people are going to encounter the experience once or twice in their careers of changing employers without changing jobs." says Dvvight L. Gcrtz, an author and consultant at Mercer Management Consulting in Lexington, Mass, That can bring with it the threat of layoff or at the very least a new boss, altered responsibilities and an otherwise changing workplace. If things weren't going well at work, change may be an improvement, but who wants to mess w ith a good thing? Mergers and layoffs have come d as many companies see cutting staff as a way to boost sales and impress investors. The Wells Faigo-FirInterstate mar hand-in-han- st 1 J J when it noticed stock in a compfi-- 1 ny called Creative Biomolec'ules j Inc. rose SI. 25 to close at $9.87 12 on heavy volume. A column j mentioning the company went 'to j ; f press the day before. That marked the 1th time Busi- ness Week had noticed unusual i - ' ! action. "After that, we just decided ! enough's enough." Shepard said. He met with others at the magazine J and decided to alert official's. ; Business Week said its parent J Inc., was company. McGraw-Hil- l cooperating with the SEC and oth-- 1 ' 1 er officials. ! take the cake mini-merge- rs s, with bis eves. Little-know- n in deals small enough to escape most public notice, have been merging by the fistful. Their size, however, belies their signifip cance. Together, these Ameriare reshaping mergers ca. n the value ed TV commercial by Owens Corning which is slated to air on Super Bowl Sunday. Business Week smelling a rat Mega-deal- s The U.S. LONDON (AP) 106.63 at currency was trading 106.92 from down Japanese yen, late Thursday and below a late quote of 06.76 in Tokyo today. Other dollar rates in Europe compared with late Thursday: 1.4865 German marks, unchanged le Pepsi-Col- a Co. has four minutes of commercials. One shows a goldfish that plays dead but revives when a youngster drops Pepsi in its bowl. In another, a Coca-Col- a delivery man is a on convenience store caught camera raiding the Pepsi cooler. Two longtime actors show up in the Super Bowl ads. h, Zurich London high-profi- sports event this year. Anheuser-Busc- h Inc. has purchased four minutes, and plans to run another in a quirky series of ads launched last year featuring frogs that collectively croak its flagship beer name, Budweiser. It has Clydesdale horses, penguins and buzzards in three other ads. The Pink Panther battles space invaders such as fully animat "Chilling Cold" in a new high-tec- against the yen in Tokyo on Thursday, following supportive comments Saturday from officials of major industrial nations. At one point Thursday in Tokyo, the dollar traded at 107.53 yen. X, "j F1945.97 j commercials even with the of the Summer prospect Olympics in Atlanta providing advertisers with another AP Photo Just nine months TOKYO (AP) dollar lows sank the to ago, against the Japanese yen. Now the greenback is making a comeback. The U.S. currency hit its highin i iiim, niunuyiiis est level Paris te breakup. The charge drove AT&T to a net loss of $2.68 billion, or $1.67 a share, for the quarter. Without the charge, AT&T earned $1.5 billion, or 94 cents a share. all-ti- Amsterdam half-minu- performance, which came despite the upheaval related to the World Performance of key stock markets have drawn on visits to the zoo for inspiration. Other ads use aging stars and cute shots of football's littlest warriors to score points with viewers. The Super Bowl has long provided Madison Avenue with a showcase for creativity and the networks with a reason to charge record sums for advertising time. The game typically attracts 100 million or more viewers and is usually the year's biggest draw on television. With that much attention, the networks have been able to boost ad rates a notch higher each year. This year. NBC charged a record $1.2 million on average for each of 58 commercial slots. . That's $40,000 a second a solid annual wage for many people or about what it costs for a new low-en- d luxury car. NBC executives say they were able to get a 20 percent increase over the $1 million ABC got for last year's Super Bowl ! j riage is expected to cost thousands ol lobs. For smaller menzers. the numbers are proportional. Sixteen percent of all layoffe due ""to reported last year w ere . .ilj.lil.it, ... t l.r. nttf .1 . Mercer-relate- d layoffs totaled - 72.083. I J Small mergers are often driVeli by the same factors behind' the J boom among the big boys; fhe$"Ye not limited to bakers and ,fkvisls and taxi companies. Some of The! smallest mergers last year came in industries as diverse as cable tele-- t vision, airlines and electronic-yob-- j Iishing. , ,j j One difference, however, is tliatt little deals often involve just, one! division or plant of a larger com- pany. That's how companies larget and small are nipping and tuikjiigi themselves into more attractive packages for the competitive second half of the '90s. |