The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 43

The Palm Beach Post MONDAY, OCTOBER 1999 SECTION itiw awuWlf feaateifcy. jfc 1 Paul Owers estate Retail 1. THE BESTAVORST AUDIO BOOKS See D3le Dauten, Page 2D One broker, two buildings: Good or bad? Vying to ft 'pa i rM sell tuna vitamin 11 1 I State officials and maverick citrus broker Skip Clements will visit the 1.2 billion-person market. By Julie Waresh Palm Beach Post Staff Writer STUART Early next month, two groups of people seeking to sell Florida citrus to China will travel halfway across the world in pursuit of that mammoth untapped market It will be the first trip of its kind for a group of state officials, whose aim is to persuade China to make good on its April agreement to begin accepting fresh citrus from Florida this season. It will be the umpteenth trip for Henry "Skip" Clements, a Stuart citrus broker who has negotiated on his own for the past several years to try to put Florida orange juice and grapefruit on Chinese tables.

Each side is after the same thing, but it's unlikely they will ever work together. That's because while government types operate through "proper channels," Clements, 47, has gone and dredged his own. "The last thing they are going to admit is that some guy working out of a spare room in his apartment was able to crack the largest market in the world," said Clements, a brash former Defense Intelligence Agency adviser who says he tapped Washington contacts to gain access to high-level Chinese officials. Last month, Clements, the divorced father of two school-age daughters, sent his first shipment of fresh citrus to China by special permit a few hundred cases of oranges and grapefruit that were distributed at a Shanghai trade show. But he has yet to receive approval to ship fruit in commercial quantities to the retail distributors, hotels or institutions that serve China's 1.2 billion people.

How successful this rogue trade negotiator has been is a highly charged topic of debate among members of the citrus industry, most of whom Clements says have refused him help at every turn. They all seem to have an opinion on Clements, but few are willing to state it on the record. For example, Doug Bournique, executive vice president of the Indian River Citrus League, whose members stand to benefit most from any deal to export grapefruit to China, said he wanted no part in a story about Clements. "We have no comment," said Bour- is "-s -lb A FEW MOMENTS WITH Dan Ivancevic Occupation: Owner of Regency Party Rental Known For His West Palm Beach -showroom that offers more than 2,000 Halloween costumes for rent along with "everything for any kind ofa party, but the food" and that includes a Wild West setup complete with an authentic-' looking Main Street with a jail, drugstore, saloon and post office. The Halloween costumes run the gamut from Marilyn Monroe to Snow White, with gangsters, Southern belles (complete with requisite umbrella and gloves), clowns, monks and just about everything in between.

"We've got sexy, scary and funny," Ivancevic said. And if you don't see what you like, the on-site dressmaker will make you a costume. Age: 62 Residence: West Palm Beach What did you want to be when-you were little? "I wanted to be a school teacher. They used to be somebody to look up to not like today. It used to be a position of What's your favorite Halloween costume? A gangster costume.

"I almost always wear those. People love it It's nice to feel different for a night" What is your favorite hobby? Chess, tennis and a little bit of -golf. What is your favorite Halloween candy? "I don't really eat much candy." What is the best business advice you ever received? "To think about business the best I can, not about money. They told me to do that and that the dollars will follow. It paid off.

Most of our business is repeat business." What is your favorite quote? "A friend of mine told me this and I say it to lots of people: 'In America, to be successful you need extraordinary talents, or you need to inherit money, or you have to work hard." The, first two don't apply to me sq had to go with the last one." Who do you admire most? "My three sons." Do you pick out your own I costume? "Yes. I just find something on the rack that I like." Linda Haase INSIDE BANK ON IT: Banks are robbing you blind, and it's getting worse PAGE 4D II MAKING MUSIC: Meet the woman in charge of the Big Bands PAGE 6D DECISION TIME: Business ethics in a cyberspace world PAGE 12D One real estate broker represents two buildings competing for the same tenant. It's not illegal; it happens all the time; but it makes some people awfully uncomfortable. v- Here's the latest example: Fleming Haile Shaw, a prominent local law firm, is considering a move from Golden Bear Plaza in Palm Beach Gardens when its lease expires next year. The firm, which needs about 10,000 square feet, has two buildings in mind: 3801 PGA Blvd.

better known as Abe Gosman's former Medical Mall The Towers, a six-story building on U.S.I south of PGA Staying at the six-story Golden Bear also is a possibility. tl Broker Mike Walters of WaltersGottlieb Partners began representing Golden Bear last month. He also handles leasing for The Towers, which is less prestigious than Golden Bear. Fleming Haile has its own broker and did not ask Walters about available space, but some question how he can fairly represent both buildings for two different owners. Walters did not return phone calls, but others in the industry are ready with an Opinion.

i "I don't see how you meet two masters," one broker said. Wouldn't you think that The Towers would get better representation if he was representing that building alone?" Not necessarily, said West Palm Beach broker Tom Burst. "You represent both ings to the best of your ability," Burst said. "You disclose the situation up front to the owners. Then you let the chips fall where they may." How's this for evidence that we're in a seller's market: One property in the Jupiter Park of Commerce recently drew seven offers and might get an eighth.

The owner, a corporation in Miami, still is sorting through the bids for the office-warehouse and its 1-acre site, broker Rebel Cook said. The asking price is $1.2 million. "This is a terrible position for brokers to be in," Cook said. "They don't like to say a A bigger Saks Fifth Avenue in Palm Beach debuts next month, in time for the all-important holiday shopping crunch. The store in the Esplanade on Worth Avenue will be more than 50,000 square feet 11,000 square feet larger when developer Murray Goodman completes the project in mid-November.

The store has stayed open during the expansion and renovation. Goodman also says the Neiman Marcus store, across Worth Avenue from Saks, is on schedule for a fall 2000 opening. The town granted Goodman an exception to its rule banning building on Worth Avenue during the winter so the store can open next year instead of 2001. Paul Owers writes about retail, commercial real estate and construction. E-mail him at: SHERMAN ZENTStaff Photographer Ross Bibb, genial contractor fdiSaks remodeling, checks on a problem with display lighting.

The challenges of providing China with citrus products are daunting. i 1 1 "We had people here that Tallahassee couldn't get here," said Clements, president and chief executive of Stuart-based Clements Citrus Sales of Florida. "It created a lot of ego problems with the good ol' boy network." Such hubristic statements coupled with Clements' unflattering characterization of the second- and third-generation Indian River growers, whom he refers to as the "Vero Beach boys," haven't helped matters. Nat Roberts, general manager of Callery-Judge Grove near Loxahatchee, Please see CLEMENTS, 13D cash in their shares, the increased spending must come from additional borrowing. The private savings rate has now turned negative.

For the first time in recent history, households as a whole are spending more than their incomes. There is nothing inherently wrong with this if the wealth is real. In addition to the individual investor, U.S. corporations play a key role in this. Firms make decisions to invest in growth-producing real assets with money we leave in the stock market.

They also borrow some of the money, contributing to the need for higher future payoffs before cash in the form of dividends can find its way back to the stockholders and into consumption. Please see STOCK, 13D "i 1 -V 4 i -v. .1... "mmm DAVID LANEStaff Photographer Stuart citrus dealer Henry 'Skip' Clements negotiated a deal with the Chinese, using government contacts he cultivated as a Washington businessman. El Whether the rising market is because of a bubble or a fad is not the most important point.

In either case, a correction is inevitable, and it is the unwinding of the process now generating the apparent wealth that will have serious consequences. David Sturges Ever-expanding market creating new problems nique, spokesman for the growers in the Indian River District, which stretches roughly between West Palm Beach and Daytona Beach and produces about one-third of the world's grapefruit Clements says he asked for help from district growers as well as from the Florida Department of Citrus when he was getting started in 1997, but was turned down by everyone he approached. He pressed on with money from investors, and early last year managed to bring a group of 14 Chinese diplomats to Florida for a tour of a Treasure Coast citrus grove and packing house. Analysis cits to surpluses, an impressive and continuing growth in jobs at a time of low unemployment and, last but not least an unprecedented rise in the stock market Yet it is the role of the stock market that is probably least understood, least appreciated and, therefore, most worrisome. We know that as apparent wealth in the form of stocks and real estate increases, consumption increases.

Since consumption is the largest component of our economy's total demand, increases in stock prices and, more recently, real estate prices, have contributed to steady growth. But since investors are reluctant to By David Sturges The U.S. economy continues to defy what most economists previously believed to be well-established laws. This has prompted optimists among us to declare that the soul of the economy has escaped the earthly constraints of past business cycles. I doubt this is the case.

There is certainly some evidence to support the claim that Sturges we have entered a new era: declining and then stable inflation since 1990, steadily increasing investment in growth-producing capita a loYig-awaited surge in productivity a passage from federal government defi- I. 4.