Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 29

01 0) RELIGION C6 OBITUARIES C8 SATURDAY JULY 10, 1993 mis viwfiM a ti ft Westcor swaps interest in Bottes Stocks lose steam DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS 6.64 The stock market edged higher Friday as a number of investors sat on the sidelines, waiting for important inflation data to be released next week. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 6.64 points, to 3,521.06. Club, an 18-hole championship layout in Phoenix, and Paradise Village Office Park III, a office building at 11811 N. Tatum Blvd. in Phoenix.

The company also owns a majority of the $400 million Camelback Esplanade office development and the Ritz-Carlton hotel at 24th Street and Camelback Road in Phoenix. The Esplanade project was developed in a partnership with the Symington a real-estate company owned by Gov. Fife Symington. That property has been on the market for several months, and sources contend the partnership is close to finalizing a sale. Shimizu and the Symington Co.

also are partners in Scottsdale Seville, a office and retail project in Scottsdale that is reported to have cost $35 million to build. By Terry McDonnell The Arizona Republic Westcor Resorts of Phoenix has traded its ownership interest in The Buttes hotel in Tempe for Japan-based Shimizu Land interest in a 350-acre parcel of undeveloped land in San Diego. Westcor Resorts will continue to manage the 350-room mountaintop hotel under a 30-year contract, Westcor officials said Friday. Westcor developed the property in 1984 for $35 million. Westcor, Shimizu and Mitsui Co.

U.S.A., a subsidiary of another Japanese firm, each owned one-third of the resort until Shimizu acquired Mitsui's interest in 1991. Shimizu and Westcor each owned 50 percent of the San Diego acreage since 1989, when Westcor sold the Japanese company half of its interest in the land. Westcor bought the the Boulders Resort and Club in Carefree and the Hotel Westcourt in northwest Phoenix. The company will remain active in the resort ownership, development and management business, according to Surguine. "Our strategy for the' company is to grow through the acquisition and development of additional resorts, as well as (by) pursuing third-party management contracts," he said.

Shimizu Land a subsidiary of Shimizu Corp. of Tokyo, is the largest construction company in the world. Representatives of Shimizu declined to comment on the trade. Sources said that because of the management contract with Westcor, which expires in 2016, it is not likely that Shimizu intends to sell The Buttes. Shimizu continues to have an ownership interest with Westcor in Stonecreek, The Golf Californiaj)roperty in 1986.

The site, about four miles east of Del Mar, is targeted as a future resort, golf course and residential development. The land is not zoned. Given the time-consuming and costly planning-and-zoning process in southern California, Shimizu was not confident in the prospects of. developing the property, Westcor Vice President Michael Surguine said. "There is a risk'evaluation there," Surguine said.

"Our evaluation of the risk was somewhat different than Shimizu's, and that's what prompted the swap." Surguine would not disclose the values of the San Diego land or hotel property. He said there was no cash exchanged in the deal with Shimizu. i Westcor Resorts, a subsidiary of Phoenix-based Westcor Partners, owns and. manages Circle sale wins round in court Unveiling the Great Pyramid of Vegas Huge resort plans own little Nile Story and chart on PageC3. Auto sales down in Europe Automobile sales in Europe fell 17.5 percent in the first half of 1993, indicating that the industry's recession is worse than originally feared.

Sales in 17 West European countries dropped 18.4 percent in June compared with the same month last year, according to figures released Friday by the French and European Automobile Manufacturers associations. Officials say they are predicting a drop of nearly 16 percent for the year, compared with their prediction in January of a 10 percent decline. VW: No new plant in Spain Volkswagen AG's "chairman said the automaker will not build a controversial plant in Spain's Basque region, according to a report Friday in the German newspaper Die Welt. Ferdinand Piech, chairman of Germany's largest automaker, said the company has no immediate plans to build the auto plant because of the high cost of the project. The plant was conceived by Jose Ignacio Lopez de Arriortua, Volkswagen's new purchasing chief, who jumped from General Motors Corp.

in the spring. Airline talks continue Negotiators for the Machinists union at Northwest Airlines were summoned to their national headquarters in Washington on Friday to discuss possible changes in a concessions package. Union officials would not discuss details but said the airline hasn't yet agreed to changes sought by Machinists. NAFTA agreements closer Negotiators reported substantial progress Friday in Oaxtepec, Mexico, as U.S., Canadian and Mexican delegations ended two days of talks aimed at side agreements to protect workers and the environment under the North American Free Trade Agreement. Differences apparently remain over U.S.

demands for tough enforcement of the agreements, a plan Mexico and Canada fear could infringe upon their sovereignty. The treaty's future was clouded late last month when a U.S. court ruling blocked its approval until the Clinton administration completed a study on its impact. The administration lias appealed the decision, and side-agreement negotiations have continued. Director picked Robert Piceno of Chandler is the new iirector of the Arizona office of the U.S.

Vgricultural Stabilization and Conservation service. He is replacing Arden Palmer, who retiring today after eight years as director, rhe agency, part of the Department of griculture, oversees conservation, and crop-subsidy programs for Vrizona farmers. 'K Neal C. LauronReuters Members of the news media got their first look Friday at the $375 million Luxor resort in Las Vegas. A Phoenix-based division of Perini Building Co.

is general contractor for the resort, scheduled to open in October. By Robert Macy The Associated Press LAS VEGAS Topping-off ceremonies were held Friday for Luxor, a 30-story, pyramid-shape resort that is part of a $2 billion building boom aimed at enticing families to this gaming capital. Members of the media were given their first look inside the $375 million, hotel after the ceremony, -celebrated the laying in place of the building's final structural beams. The Phoenix-based Western U.S. Division of Perini Building Co.

is the general contractor for the project, which is scheduled to open in mid-October. Luxor's most awesome feature is- a 30-story atrium containing 29 million cubic feet of space. Guests are taken to each of four corners of the giant structure aboard gondolas, moving along a miniature river Nile, then carried to their floor via "inclinators" lion on a water-themed entertainment complex, Grand Slam Canyon, which is scheduled to open next month. Following Luxor's opening will be Treasure Island, a $430 million, family-oriented resort being developed on the Strip by Mirage Resorts Inc. And in mid-February, MGM Grand Inc.

will open a hotel and theme park at a cost of $1.1 billion. New York's Times Square. The third takes visitors on a journey into the future and the year 2300. Motorists will enter the resort on the Las Vegas Strip through a 10-story tall replica of the sphinx large enough to accommodate nine lanes of traffic. Luxor is the latest project for Circus Circus, a gaming company known for catering to families.

The company is also spending $75 mil elevators that slip diagonally up each corner of the hotel's interior. Nine Boeing 747s could be stacked in the atrium, hotel officials say. Inside the atrium are three themed areas that make up a $50 million "participatory adventure." One takes visitors into the past and features such interactive attractions as archaeological digs. The second reflects the present, in By Barbara Deters The Arizona Republic A U.S. District Court judge in Phoenix ruled Friday that a group of dissident bondholders of Circle Corp.

has yet to give him enough reason to delay the sale of the company to an international investment group. However, District Judge Paul Rosenblatt did give the creditor group some hope by saying he will make his final decision on the appeal a priority. In addition, he gave the group until July 19 to take its motion for a stay to a higher court, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. "I don't like to talk about bad decisions," said Martin Brecker, attorney for the bondholders group.

"It's on to the 9th Circuit." The bondholders, who are cured creditors of the company, filed a request on Friday with the 9th Circuit in San Francisco seeking a stay in the sale of the Phoenix-based convenience-store chain until a decision on its appeal has been made. Circle has been struggling for three years to get out from under Chapter 1 1 bankruptcy. On June 17, Bankruptcy Judge George Nielsen Jr. signed an order permitting the sale to the investment group, CK Acquisitions, for $399.5 million. CK Acquisitions is led by Invest-corp International a New York holding company consisting primarily of Arab investors.

Investcorp has interests in such U.S. companies as Saks Fifth Avenue and Carvel ice cream. Three of the company's four major creditor groups have backed the sale of the company to CK Acquisitions. The bondholders, who hold about $515 million in unsecured and subordinated claims against the company, have opposed the sale to CK Acquisitions because they will not benefit from the proceeds of the sale. A Circle official said the company expected the decision to be appealed to the higher court.

"It's understandable that the See SALE, page C5 Trend toward layoffs expected to continue Despite recovery, firms still cutting back Corporate managers have learned that productivity gains can be had constantly if workers are pushed enough, Sinai says. Common today is the complaint that one employee is being given work assigned to two or three just a few years ago. ISI Group an economic-research firm based in New York, found such announcements in June rose to 40 from 19 a year ago, up from its May report of 26 announcements. Challenger Gray Christmas a corporate outplacement firm in Chicago, found by tallying media reports that the number of jobs either cut or otherwise reduced in June jumped about 175 percent from May. Of course, such data are necessarily anecdotal.

Hard numbers are not easily found. The government's Bureau of Labor Statistics used to keep track of mass layoffs, but the program was canceled in 1992 ironically, in a funding squeeze. Particularly disturbing, economists and others say, is that the increase in job cutbacks comes at a time when, during a normal economic recovery, companies ought to be adding jobs. These ongoing cuts, punctuated by June's unemployment rise, suggest" that businesses are operating under a strategy of continuous downsizing, say those who follow employment patterns. That trend, they add, appears to be permanent.

"The restructuring and downsizing goes on and on and on and on in the U.S. economy as company after company uses cost cutting to grow profits in a soft-revenue world," says Allen Sinai, chief economist at Economic Advisers Inc. "Keeping the head count down is the primary corporate strategy these days, and I don't think that's going to change anytime soon." By Farrell Kramer The Associated Press NEW YORK With U.S. companies expected to post healthy second-quarter earnings, it may seem like a good time to look for a job. But corporate America has something else in mind.

Layoffs seem to be back in force. For instance, AlliedSignal Aerospace Co. said Friday that it will lay off 850 to 1,000 of its Phoenix workers over the next few months as part of a major restructuring of its engine-manufacturing operations. And two organizations that track corporate-layoff announcements report significant increases in June from the month before. Government data seem to corroborate their findings.

The nation's unemployment rate grew to 7 percent in June from 6.9 percent in May. a glance Aircraft Service International a diami, subsidiary of Dial Corp, las been awarded a five-year fuel-service ontract for the hew Denver International Airport, which is scheduled to open by ear-end. Tucson's KOLD-TV (Chan-lel 13) is among the eight network-affiliated elevision stations that St. Joseph, News-Press Gazette Co. has agreed sell for a total of $110 million to New Vision Communications a recently 3rmed media company based in East Mich.

lompiled by Robert Ogle from reports by The rizona Republic, The New York Times, The ssociated Press and Knight-Ridder Tribune. Legal inside trades must pass 2 tests, follow rules uestion: A local BUSINESS DATABANK Friday's prices in New York trading as of 4 p.m. EDT. over-the-counter stock was selling for about $16 early ONE U.S. DOLLAR EQUALS: in lyyj.

in Marcn, tne top otticers SIS 1 German marks 1.7220 Up from 1.7023. British pounds 0.6752 Up from 0.6689. Japanese yen 109.96 Up from 108.54. GOLD SUSAN BOM Creators Syndicate returned the money, eliminating the need for a trial. No short selling.

Insiders cannot short-sell stock they do not own. If they do own the stock and sell it short, the certificate must be delivered within 20 days. Since the purpose of a short sale is to hedge against a price drop, this provision prevents the insider from taking unfair advantage of negative information that is still confidential. For the second test of legitimacy, "material non-public information" is defined as facts which, had they been known, would have caused the price to move. If the officers in question did not use insider information or break any of the reporting rules, their selling was within the confines of the law.

However, when the massive selling was taking place, you should have taken it as a signal that "something (was) rotten in the state of Denmark." In fact, the more insiders sell and the larger the trades, the more weight should be given to the warning. The first thing to do is check whether there are any negative news releases. But even if there is no bad news, the increase in selling volume alone can be enough to drive the price down. Whenever you see the price dropping fast and there's no bad news, there might be some corporate hanky-panky going on. If you suspect that insider information was used by the officers (or anyone else, for that matter), I suggest you contact the SEC's Division of Enforcement, Washington, D.C., 20549, and provide as many facts and details as you have.

If your suspicions prove correct, you may collect a bounty of up to 10 percent of any recovery. Susan Bondy welcomes readers' questions, but the volume of mail prevents her from answering each letter personally. Write to Bondy in care of The Arizona Republic, P.O Box 1950, Phoenix, AZ 85001. though they do not technically qualify as insiders). This provision, part of the 1968 Williams Act, provides stockholders with an early warning of potential takeover attempts.

Reporting transactions. If there is any change in ownership (through the purchase or sale of stock or exercise of options, the insider must file a report within 10 days after the close of the calendar month. This enables the SEC and stockholders to watch insiders' actions. The list of insider trades is published free of charge by the SEC. Ban on short-swing profits.

Insiders must hold their stock for a minimum of six months. Any profits they realize within the six-month period may be confiscated and returned to the company. A suit to recover any such profit can be brought by the corporation itself or by any stockholder on behalf of the company. In the past, most insiders caught taking short-term profits have voluntarily SILVER $5,003 $391.60 i I a troy ounce a troy ounce. sold a large number of shares.

Shortly afterward, the stock dropped to $4 and has remained there. Can this be considered insider trading? If so, in your opinion, can action be taken, or would it be just a waste of time? Answer: The selling or buying of a company's stock by its executives certainly is classified as insider trading, but not all forms of insider trading are illegal. There are two tests for the legality of insider trades: 1) Did the officers follow the Securities and Exchange Commission's reporting regulations? 2) Did the insiders use "material, non-public information" (also called insider information) when making their transactions? The major reporting restrictions placed on insiders are: Down from $394.90. Down trom $5,051. OIL $17.89 a barrel of light, sweet crude for August delivery.

Up from $17.79. Initial reporting. All insiders must report their holdings to the SEC. An insider is broadly defined as a director, a corporate officer or any stockholder who owns 10 percent or more of any class of stock. Any individual, corporation, partnership or institution that owns at least 5 percent of a firm's stock must also report the holdings (even FEDERAL FUNDS RATE: 2.9375 Trie Arizona Republic.