Reported by Star-Bulletin staff & wire
Monday, March 16, 1998
Aetna pays $1 billion for New York Life unit
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Aetna Inc. said it will buy New York Life Insurance Co.'s health-care business for $1.05 billion, adding customers in Texas and the Mid-Atlantic states as part of its plan to focus on health insurance.Aetna will finance the purchase of NYLCare Health Plans, which will add 2.2 million members to its existing health-insurance membership of 13.7 million, by selling bonds. Aetna will pay as much as $300 million in addition starting in 2000 if NYLCare meets earnings and membership targets, Bloomberg News reported.
AOL's Case picked to join NYSE's board
NEW YORK -- In a sign that cyberspace has truly arrived in America's business establishment, America Online Inc.'s Steve Case has been nominated to the board of the New York Stock Exchange.The 39-year-old chief executive and co-founder of America Online -- the world's leading provider of Internet access and online services -- joins such business luminaries as British Airways Chairman Sir Colin Marshall, Ford Motor Chairman Alex Trotman and the head of Time Warner, Gerald Levin, who also were nominated to two-year terms Friday. The Big Board's outside directorship is made up of a dozen of America's top corporate leaders.
Case, a graduate of Punahou Schools, co-founded AOL in 1985, and has helped build its subscriber base to more than 12 million and its market value to more than $13 billion.
Nike to cut 450 jobs on slackening demand
BEAVERTON, Ore. -- Nike Inc. says it will cut about 450 jobs, or 3.5 percent, of its U.S. workforce as well as unspecified numbers abroad.The layoffs are partly attributable to the financial crisis in Asia, where demand for Nike products has dropped sharply in recent months.
Spokesman Lee Weinstein said the company, also facing declining demand at home, will cut about 250 jobs at its Oregon headquarters and 200 in other parts of the country.
McDonald's stock falls after Buffett dumps it
OAK BROOK, Ill. -- McDonald's Corp. shares fell as much as 4.8 percent after the company was omitted from investor Warren Buffett's list of biggest holdings in his annual letter to shareholders Saturday.McDonald's fell $1.621/2 to $53 in late-afternoon trading, after trading as low as $52 on the New York Stock Exchange.
Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said in 1996 it owned about 30.2 million McDonald's shares with a market value of about $1.37 billion.
For 1997, Buffett listed holdings of $750 million or more, and the only one dropped was McDonald's. The letter also showed Buffett cut his holdings in Walt Disney Co., the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. and Wells Fargo & Co.
Pan Am loses Icahn; attracts new suitor
MIAMI -- As 1980s corporate raider Carl C. Icahn pulled out of the bidding for bankrupt Pan Am, Miami investor Milan Mandaric stepped up today as a potential suitor.Mandaric, until now a high-tech investor, met with Pan Am executives over the weekend and should have an offer ready by Friday. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge A. Jay Cristol warned he wants quick action on the airline's fate.