The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 34

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 1 1, 1989 The Palm Beach Post SL PAGE 1 1 More business news: Pages 17B, 18B Business agging Ch. 25 to expand news staff Station Staffs Channel 5 WPTV, West Palm Beach Network: NBC Station employees: 1 33 News staff: 61 Channel 12 WPEC, West Palm Beach Network: CBS Total employees: 125 News staff: 60 Channel 25 WPBF, Palm Beach Gardens Network: ABC Total employees: 105 News staff: 58 Sources: WPTV. WPEC. WPBF By CHARLES ELMORE Palm Beach Post Staff Writer PALM BEACH GARDENS WPBF Channel 25, discontent with third place in local news ratings, plans to expand its news staff by 15 percent and complete a slick newsroom with $16 million worth of equipment by Christmas. The year-old ABC affiliate says it's spending the bucks necessary to challenge entrenched West Palm Beach rivals WPTV Channel 5 (NBC) and WPEC Channel 12 (CBS), ranked 1-2 respectively in local news audience.

"We're fortunate because we're new," said General Manager Bob Ware. "It means our equipment is the latest and best." Officials at Channels 5 and 12 pooh-poohed the expansion, saying new machines and more bodies don't necessarily add up to better news. Ware said the news staff will increase to 67 from 58, including more people in bureaus in Fort Pierce and Boca Raton. He also said the station is "considering" opening a two-person bureau in Vero Beach. Channels 5 and 12 don't have any bureaus in that city, though 5 includes a health segment from a Vero Beach-based doctor.

With 67 people, Channel 25 would apparently have a bigger news staff than that now reported by Channel 5 (61, with two positions vacant) and Channel 12 (60), both of which report larger total employment than Channel computer hookups, seven video editing rooms and a raised perch for an assignment editor. Competitors question how long Channel 25 can afford to maintain its expansion program. But Ware said the station's owners, Phipps-Potamkin Television Partners, backed by money from Potamkin car dealerships, are committed to making the station competitive. Ware declined, however, to disclose the station's financial results. Though its broadcast tower is in Martin County, Channel 25's main offices are in Palm Beach Gardens.

The station strives for a Palm Beach County identity with call letters WPBF, which Ware said stands for West Palm Beach, Florida. 25. "It depends on who you count as news staff," cautioned Channel 12 General Manager William Peterson. Night crews, graphics designers, directors and other positions may be classified as news staff at some stations and not at others, Peterson said. Though Channel 5 leads the market, its officials admit they don't have much space to put new people in their cramped studios on Flagler Drive in West Palm Beach.

"We're glad our station enjoys high ratings, but we can't afford to relax or coast," said News Director Frank Verdel. Channel 25's main newsroom, now under construction in Palm Beach Gardens, features 16 reporter cubicles with video and Sporting Clubs plans Boca site First American president resigns after 2 months 7m 0 i bilk-ft:) xr. 1 at'. V5 fmmut. ZSt-.

rVJ BOB SHANLEYStaff Photographer Mechanical harvester at Osceola Farms near Pahokee: Some depend on it more than others. Sugar cane cooperative replaces 900 field cutters with machines By JANE VICTORIA SMITH Palm Beach Post Staff Writer BOCA RATON Building owners in and around the Arvida Park of Commerce in Boca Raton will get a marketing boost next year when Sporting Clubs of America, a San Diego, health club chain, opens a $25 million, facility. The chain, which has seven clubs open and four under construction nationally, paid $1.67 million for a 4.43-acre parcel in the Sportland Condominium on Nov. 2. The land is on Yamato Road, west of Broken Sound Parkway.

"The presence of a health club certainly makes a business park more attractive and helps in marketing it," said Sudhakar Sharma, research director for RealData Information Systems a real estate research firm in Miami. The club will definitely help building owners in the area, agreed Robert Schmier, president of Commerce Park GP which had to set up a land condominium to sell the parcel. "It's no secret that the whole area has a lot of vacancy. The area was burdened by IBM's pullback." International Business Machines the Armonk, N.Y.-based computer manufacturer, has been decreasing its workforce and operations in Boca Raton for the past three years. Developers in the area had been counting on IBM to grow, attracting more high-tech businesses to the community.

Schmier also is president of Schmier and Feurring Properties a development firm that owns the nearby Yamato Office Center. That three-year-old building is only 33 percent leased. The 850-acre Arvida Park and most nearby buildings have been crippled by their zoning designation, which does not allow professional offices, such as lawyers and accountants. The park's developer, Tishman Speyer Properties of New York, has been trying to get the Please see SPORTING1 7B By WILLIAM HOWARD Palm Beach Post Staff Writer LAKE WORTH First American Bank Trust Co. said Friday that John T.

Clark has resigned as interim president after two months on the job, citing health problems. Clark, the third president to leave the ailing Lake Worth bank in the past 14 months, replaced James Billmeyer, who left without explanation in September. Clark also resigned from the board of directors. First American, which lost $17.1 million in the quarter ended Sept. 30, also said its thinly traded Class voting stock no longer qualifies for daily listings on NASDAQ.

The Class stock lost half its value Friday, to close at 25 cents a share. Daily listings will continue for the bank's commonly traded Class A non-voting stock, which closed unchanged Friday at 31 cents a share. In a letter to shareholders, First American said it is still burdened by a large number of sour loans and a lack of capital. The shortage of capital money held as a cushion against losses has curtailed the bank's ability to make further loans. First American, which had $32.5 million in capital on Sept.

30 and a substandard capital-to-assets ratio of 2.37 percent, is under orders from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. to raise $65 million by next June. It must boost its capital-to-assets ratio to 5.5 percent by January. "As we noted last quarter, there is no quick or easy fix to these problems," the shareholders' letter said. "Capital infusions are needed if the bank is to survive as an independent institution." The bank, which lost $56.6 million last year, has proposed raising capital by selling its profitable Cenvill Development Corp.

subsidiary for $157 million. John T. Clark cited health reasons for leaving. But even if the Cenvill sale is completed as planned, the bank said it would need additional capital to meet the standards imposed by state and federal regulators. First American sold about $10 million in repossessed real estate during the third quarter and is negotiating the sale of other non-earning assets, including a hotel on Hilton Head Island, S.C.

The bank's non-performing assets including real estate and bad loans were $175 million on Sept. 30, unchanged from Dec. 31, 1988. Earnings from two primary subsidiaries, Associated Mortgage Investors and Cenvill, were "disappointing" during the third quarter, the bank said. Cenvill earned $119,000, or 1 cent a share, for the three months ended July 31.

AMI, which has been operating under the direction of First American Chairman William W. Landa since last October, lost $2.1 million, or 8 cents a share, in the three months ended June 30. sugar losses. "When you weigh the losses, the cost of using mechanical harvesters is about the same as using men to cut cane by hand," he said. But many sugar cane companies will continue to use the machines and hope the technology will improve.

"The foreign workers program has been under fire, so any cane farmer would be wise to have something to fall back on," Lee said. U.S. Sugar isn't ready to rely entirely on the machines, however. Said Lee, "The only way we'll go totally mechanical is if we're forced to go that way." About 35 percent of the 413,000 acres of cane that will be ground by the seven Glades mills is harvested mechanically. Talisman Sugar 17 miles south of South Bay on U.S.

27, is the only mill using no hand labor, going exclusively to mechanical harvesting after a 1972 labor dispute. The decision to invest so heavily in mechanical harvesters wasn't made lightly, Kramer said, and it means less profit in the mill and basic changes in virtually every other phase of cane farming. Hand-cutters produce cleaner cane, while me- Please see SUGAR1 7B By DEAN JONES Palm Beach Post Staff Writer BELLE GLADE Mechanical harvesters aren't for everyone in the Florida sugar industry, but they have replaced 900 British West Indies cane cutters over the past two years at Sugar Cane Growers Cooperative of Florida. General Manager Bill Kramer says the co-op expects to gather 66 percent of the 2.5 million-ton harvest this year with machines, up from 50 percent last year and 33 percent two years ago. "We've been experimenting with mechanical harvesters since the mid-1970s, and two years ago we decided to expand our mechanical harvesting," Kramer said.

"This was based strictly on economics. One problem in hand-cut cane is the expense of frivolous lawsuits. "The industry in the Glades has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars defending ourselves in cases when we thought we were right," he said. "We keep winning the cases and making small settlements, but the cost is enormous. It's a sledgehammer that can be used against us." The United States Sugar Corp.

uses mechanical harvesters for about 30 or 35 percent of its harvest, said Bob Lee, a company spokesman. He said mechanical harvesters pull out cane roots and add to the trash content in the mills, which leads to Eastern dns bankruptcy plan extension Siemens Communication names Jung as president 1 tion plan by the new Dec. 29 deadline, it would automatically receive a 60-day extension of the exclusivity period. The ruling counters a two-week stretch that breathed new life into the strike by pilots, Machinists and flight attendants. The pilots union has taken its fight to Europe, presenting financial documents critical of Eastern's reorganization plan to the chairman and union leaders of Scandinavian Airline System which owns almost 10 percent of Texas Air Eastern's parent company.

Two firms examining Eastern's rebuilding plan said the company was overestimating income and underestimating expenses to the tune of $100 million to $135 million. The accounting firm Ernst Young estimated Eastern's optimism at about $100 million, while the securities firm Goldman, Sachs put the shortfall at about $135 million. Please see EASTERN 17B By KEN IBOLD Palm Beach Post Staff Writer A New York City federal bankruptcy judge on Friday put some wind back into the sails of Eastern Airlines, granting a 45-day extension on filing its detailed plan for emerging from bankruptcy court protection. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Burton Lifland gave Eastern until Dec.

29 to file a financial disclosure statement, which details how the company will repay creditors. The deadline had been extended twice and was scheduled for next Monday until Friday's ruling. Company officials had asked for a 60-day extension because of the complicated nature of the business. "We're pleased with the extension. We don't think we'll have any problem meeting the deadline," Eastern spokeswoman Karen Ceremsak said.

Eastern also had asked Lifland to extend its exclusive right to submit a reorganization plan until Jan. 12. The judge told Eastern's attorneys that if the airline files its disclosure statement and reorganiza the company completed a five-story headquarters in the Arvida Park of Commerce. Jung, 50, is president of a subsidiary, Siemens Public Switching, which makes telephone switching devices and employs 1,100 in Boca Raton. He replaces Herb Asmus-sen, 59, who leaves his position with Siemens Communication to be a director of GEC Plessey Telecommunications a London-based company taken over by Siemens earlier this year.

Both changes are effective Dec. 1. Please see SIEMENS1 7B By ALEXANDRA CLOUGH Palm Beach Post Staff Writer BOCA RATON Siemens Communication Systems on Friday announced two major executive changes, including the promotion of Volker Jung to president. Nearly 2,000 people in Boca Raton work for three companies owned by Siemens AG, a West German electronics manufacturer with more than $33 billion in annual sales worldwide. Siemens is Palm Beach County's third largest employer behind Pratt Whitney and International Business Machines Corp.

In March, Volker Jung will retain Siemens Public Switching presidency. Another Arby CEO fired Markets At A Glance Development panel seeks 'someone in the community' as new president INDEXES: Dow Jones Industrial Avg. 2625.6 1 2 1 .92 American Stock Exchange 371.47 1.06 Standard Poor's 500 339. 10 2.53 NASDAQ Composite 456.19 2.12 Toronto Composite' 3943.68 12.18 NYSE: 187.90 1.15 Volume: 131.80m Gainers: 901 Unchanged: 494 Losers: 557 COMMODITIES (New York Commodity Exchange): Gold: $386.80 -30 Silver: $5.236 TREASURY BILLS, MONEY RATES: 3-Month: 7.96 6-Month: 7.97 1-Year: 7.81 30-Year: 7.89 Fed Funds: 8.4375 Prime: 10'2 FOREIGN EXCHANGE (quotations equal U.S. $1): St.

Louis, could not be reached for comment Friday. Management problems at Arby's came to a head in September, when Posner fired Leonard H. Roberts, the chain's longstanding head. Posner then replaced Roberts with New York real estate and food-franchise mogul Irving Riese who never showed up for the job. Sources said Cortez was dropped after widespread complaints from Arby's management and franchisees.

"He was universally disliked," one source said of Ccrtez, while another said, "Hiring Cortez was like throwing fuel on the fire." Roberts now heads a drive by Arby's 42 largest franchisees to buy the restaurant chain despite repeated refusals by Posner to sell. The Associated Press MIAMI Arby's newest chief executive was fired after only a week on the job, the third head of the fast-food chain dismissed since September. Tom Cortez was fired late Thursday by Miami Beach industrialist Victor Posner, who had placed Cortez in the job a week earlier. Cortez's dismissal was confirmed Friday by Renee Mottram, senior vice president of DWG the Posner-led company that controls Arby's. "We failed to reach agreement on his job description and responsibilities," said Mottram.

"We are in the process of interviewing very credible candidates." Cortez, who worked 20 years for Arby's franchisees in Denver and By KEN IBOLD Palm Beach Post Staff Writer WEST PALM BEACH The Executive Committee of the Palm Beach County Development Board on Friday began its national search for a new president a position it hopes to fill in six to eight weeks, the board's chairman said. i'Eight to 12" local residents have applied for. the job, vacated Nov. 3 by Ron Simmons, said Mike Mitrione, chairman of the 260-member group. The board will continue to accept applications for the next month, then will begin narrowing the search.

preference is to go with someone in the community if we can find someone who's qualified," he said. "It's easier to get com fortable with someone if they know the community and people here know them." Although starting pay for Simmons' replacement is negotiable, Mitrione said it would probably be similar to the $62,500 annual salary Simmons accepted when he took the reins in March 1988. The Development Board, founded in 1982, is a non-profit organization charged with keeping businesses from moving away and recruiting new ones. The county contributes about $300,000 toward its $840,000 budget. Its members include companies and business leaders who contribute money in the hopes that the organization's recruiting efforts will bring jobs and other investment into the area.

British Pound: Canadian Dollar: Japanese Yen: W. German Deutschemark: .6347 .0024 1.1695 .0023 143.40 0.35 1.8670 .0172.