The Tennessean from Nashville, Tennessee • Page 27

a GLASSDFDE0 Wall Street 2E Employment 3E Mutual Funds 3E Going, going, gonel Try our 18 auction ads Pages 4-1 OE WEDNESDAY, MARCH 3, 1993 IRE BUSINESS Eagle groraiidfiig looms lar tte- Union, carrier leaders to meet with mediator 'Tm optimistic about it. We want to get it settled." TIM JOHNSON Transport Workers Union Local 570 By TIM MARTIN day. If no agreement is reached, Ea pay hikes of 2 in 1994 and 3 in 1995 and 1996. TWU officials say they want a shorter contract, possibly a three-year deal, because of a potential improvement in the economy. "We know right now the economic factors are not in anyone's favor," Johnson said.

"But that can change if the economy improves." American has said it can't afford to stay in the airline business long-term at its current labor costs. The airline has prepared several contigency plans for Eagle, depending on the outcome of this week's talks. "We hope to get an agreement," said spokesman Al Comeaux. Eagle flown here as Flagship Airlines has about 1,300 workers in Middle Tennessee. The TWU contracts cover about 1,100 ground crew members and mechanics here and in New York, Miami and Raleigh, N.C.

Airline officials and union representatives haven't bargained since last month. Talks began in May, and TWU workers have rejected two tentative agreements with the airline. The latest offer was a four-year pact that provided no pay increases until May 1994, followed by annual TENNESSEAN NEWS SERVICES Raytheon and Fluor units set venture A Raytheon Co. subsidiary is teaming up with Fluor Daniel Inc. to help build a major refinery in Thailand valued at $2.2 billion, the companies announced yesterday.

Fluor Daniel, a subsidiary of Irvine, Fluor and The Badger a unit of Lexington, Raytheon, signed a letter of intent with Rayong Refinery Staff Writer American Eagle and union leaders will meet with a federal mediator tomorrow in an effort to avoid flight disruption at the airline. Eagle's ground crews and mechanics could strike Sunday, or airline officials could find alternative means to operate, unless an agreement is reached by midnight Satur- gle service at Nashville International Airport could be disrupted. Eagle currently has about 130 daily flights to 39 cities from this city. Both union and airline officials are hopeful the talks will prevent a work stoppage. The negotiations come near the end of a 30-day cooling off period ordered by the feder- al government Feb.

5. "I'm optimistic about it," said Tim Johnson, president of Transport Workers Union Local 570 here. "We want to get it settled." American officials agree. Exchange Club treated to Cherry Director reveals plans for upcoming projects By ED GREGORY Staff Writer Advertising executivemovie director John Cherry told the Exchange Club of Nashville yesterday that business negotiations should be "three-act plays" like classic dramas or his own Ernest movies. I i 'I '1 Co.

to build the project in Rayong province, Thailand. Fluor Daniel and Badger will handle engineering, design and construction for the project about 90 miles south of Bangkok on the Gulf of Thailand. The refinery, expected to be finished in 1996, will employ 1,200 people. Hadsell said the refinery would be one of the biggest built from scratch in Asia. Card interest rate cut GE Capital said yesterday it is lowering the core interest rate on its GE Rewards MasterCard to 16.9 and dropping the card's $25 annual fee, retroactive to last September.

The new rate, down from 18.4, is being offered to attract more customers and will be given to consumers with good credit histories, the company said. Most GE Rewards cardholders will qualify for either the new 16.9 rate or an existing 14.9 rate the company has offered to customers with "strong" credit histories, GE said. Guilty plea in fraud case A second former Phar-Mor Inc. executive pleaded guilty yesterday for his part in a $1 billion fraud and embezzlement scheme that forced the discount drugstore chain to seek bankruptcy court protection. Patrick Finn, who was chief financial officer, pleaded guilty to five counts of money laundering.

1 In movies, the "first act" is used to introduce the characters and the conflict, the second, develops the plot and the characters, and the third brings the resolution of the Si. i MmZ' 1 Jr. 1 T- 1 f- lT 1 Peyton Hot open there, following Parisian. However, because developers CBL Associates have not been able to finalize financing for Parisian, no date has been set for its opening. Construction continues on the J.C Penney store, scheduled to open Nov.

3 at the CoolSprings Galleria in Franklin. The store was originally scheduled to be the fifth anchor store to Macy closings won't affect plans here CHERRY drama or the closing of the sale, he said. "You've got the setup, the carry-through and the kill," Cherry said. Cherry who serves on Mayor Bredesen's Metro Film Commission turned aside questions about why two of his next three Ernest movies will be filmed in Canada instead of here. The tfiange of scenery is saving about $1 million for Cherry and his backers at ABC.

About half of that will be spent here on set construction and post-production, he said. Four big-screen Ernest movies done for Disney had budgets of $6 million to $9 million each, he said. The made-for-TV Ernest movies have $3 million budgets. Cherry drew laughter from his audience of several hundred business and civic leaders when he unveiled a series of new one-minute story ads featuring Ernest actor Jim Varney as character Astor Clement, a man Cherry described as being "as much above us as Ernest is below us." The new Jim Varney commercials whose haughty refrain is "your world as I see it" start with the actor sitting In a plush chair, saying something pithy about infor open in the fall of 1992, still has no construction date nor a scheduled opening. "They are still planning on coming to the CoolSprings Galleria, but we still are working on finalizing the financing," said Michael Le-bovitz, CBL project manager for the mall.

CBL, which will build the store and lease it to Parisian, isn't alone in its quest for financing, according to David Baker, senior sales associate for retail properties at CB Commercial Real Estate here. Because banks have been forced to fake over so many failed real estate developments, even good projects are having difficulty getting financing. Macy's, Bullock's and I. Magnin stores in Connecticut, New Jersey, California and the state of Washington over the next several months, eliminating 1,450 jobs. Plans are to place as many of those people as possible, and some could eventually be relocated here.

"Certainly we will need to find store managers and department managers for the store and we may find people within our own organization to handle those positions," said Michael Freitag, a Macy spokesman. "But generally when we enter a new market, the vast majority of our positions are filled by people in the community." Parisian, which was originally scheduled to By LINDA A. MOORE Staff Writer The announced closing of 11 stores owned by R.H. Macy Co. will not impede plans for the retailer to open a store in the Bellevue Center in 1995.

However, Birmingham, Parisian's plans to open a store in Franklin are on hold due to the inability of Chattanooga-based CBL Associates to secure financing for the project. Meanwhile, J.C Penney is on schedule for the Nov. 3 opening of its new at the CoolSprings Galleria in Franklin. As part of its reorganization, Macy will close three counts of wire fraud and two counts each of mail fraud, bank fraud and helping prepare false income tax returns. Finn promised to testify against company co-founder and former President Michael Monus, who has pleaded innocent to a 129-count indictment Last month, former Vice President Jeffrey Walley pleaded guilty to four counts and also agreed to testify against Monus.

2 magazines purchased Architectural Digest and Bon Apetit magazines are being sold to the publisher of the Conde Nast group of magazines that already includes JG and Gourmet, it was announced yesterday. S.I. Newhouse chairman of Conde Nast Publications Inc. and its privately-held parent Advance Publications, said he signed an agreement to buy the magazines and related assets of Knapp Communications Corp. The terms of the deal were not disclosed, but Knapp reportedly was seeking more than $150 Leading indicators edge higher Index of loading indicators SawonaHy dju9td Indw, 1982 100 mation coming up (the commercial) and how it relates to "you common people.

After a 30-second commercial and a cameo appearances by other Varney-Cherry characters, including Ernest the spot returns for a final sardonic remark from Astor Clement The crowd seemed less impressed by another idea under development a Saturday program similar to professional wrestling but built around highly dramatized "paint ball" competition. Teams of characters dressed in costumes that seem a hybrid between hockey uniforms and clown suits participate in battles in scenes shot at Centennial Park and Fannie Mae Dees Park, also known as the Dragon Park. "Who is this program intended for?" one Exchange club member asked. "Adult males and teen-agers," Cherry replied. years.

Analysts expect increasing home sales in the months ahead will be one of the economy's bright spots, with spin offs into manufacturing as people buy new furniture and new appliances to put into their new homes. "The housing sector will continue to be a leading sector for the economy. The only impediment is the jobs sector and that should improve as the year progresses," said economist Mark Zandi of Regional Financial Associates of West Chester, Pa. Economists predict overall growth between 3 and 3.5 this year in the gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced in the United States. That's a marked improvement over 2.1 for all of last year but more subdued than the 4.8 pace in the fourth quarter.

"We will see further improvement but that improvement will be moderate and modest," Zandi said. The leading index, although far from perfect is designed to predict movements in the economy six to nine months in advance. Three consecutive declines often are taken as a warning signal of an impending recession. WASHINGTON (AP) The government's main forecasting gauge of future economic activity inched up in January, suggesting a steady but modest expansion this year. Meanwhile, new home sales plunged during the month.

Analysts weren't unduly alarmed, though. They said the drop was partly related to bad weather and they expect low mortgage rates will entice more people into buying homes later this year. The Commerce Department said yesterday its Index of Leading Indicators edged just 0.1 higher in January. Usually that would be taken as a prognosticator of near stagnation, but it followed a large 1.7 jump in December, the biggest in nearly a decade. Taken together, the two months portray an economy poised to grow at a healthy, though far from spectacular pace, analysts said.

"The economy slowed somewhat in early 1993 but it still has a lot of forward momentum. We should do pretty nicely the first half of this year," said economist Bruce Steinberg of Merrill Lynch. In a separate report, the department said new home sales in January plunged 13.8 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 561,000. It was the biggest drop in 1 1 Pepsi, growers patch tiff The Pepsi-Cola Co. patched up its differences yesterday with artichoke growers angered by Pepsi's negative portrayal of the vegetable in a television commercial.

Pepsi and the California Artichoke Advisory Board sowed the seeds of goodwill by planting an artichoke patch underwritten by the soft drink giant The ad, aired during the Super Bowt features a TV chef whose droning lecture on artichoke preparation is cut short by quick-cut scenes of frolicking Pepsi drinkers. 152 It 15fl 1 nT nn 144 142 Lmjuuuuuuuuul Fill AM 4 i A i tW Jan. "92 Dec "92 Jan. 1 146.3 1 1 152.8 1 1152.9 AP Sourct: U.S. Oept of Comnwrc MARKETS The StOCk market soared in late NEWSMAKERS Debra JackSOn has been promoted Dow Industrials trading yesterday, encouraged in part by reports from Washington of broadening support for President Clinton's economic plan.

The dollar settled lower on world COMPANIES Bridgestone-Firestone inc. said this week it would conduct its own investigation of safety at its Des Moines, Iowa tractor tire plant as it appeals $252,500 in state fines. The Iowa Division of Labor Services earlier cited the plant for 73 safety violations, 58 of them considered "serious." One $35,000 fine was in connection with a September fire at the plant B-F, a Brentwood-based company, has Tennessee plants in Lavergne and Warren County. TENNESSEAN NEWS SERVICES AGENDA "Professional Sales seminar wil be presented tomrnorow by David J. Ul, consultant and professor of sales and marketing at Belmont University, p.ra, Oprytand Hotel.

Info: 952-6255. The Volunteer State Chapter of the Appraisal Institute sponsoring "Standards of Professional continuing education by Randy Scheidt of Indianapolis and Gary Bemes of Atlanta, tomrnorow through Sunday at Quality I no-Airport Infcc 883-5490. 15.12 v3.400.53 vice president or business development and relocation with Coldwell Banker Southern Associates, John Oampitt vice president and regional manager, announced Jackson has been with the residential real estate firm for one year. A 1 SECTION EDITORS Candy McCampbefl, Business News Eol-tor, 2S9-607B. Emm Nelson Baxter, Assistant Business Editor, 259-8096.

For questions or information, please cafl from 9 am to 5 p.m., Monday-Friday. 1 II currency markets as prospects dimmed for lower interest rates In Germany. Gold rose. Silver was mixed. Story and tables JACKSON.