The Palm Beach Post from West Palm Beach, Florida • Page 78

Sunday, April 28, 2002 The Palm Beach Post PalmBeachPost.com Section SUNDAY Market updates Instant stock quotes Breaking news Online at PalmBeachPost.com all LiS ii il KU Li 3 To combat sagging sales, the nation's third-largest department store operator is changing its strategy by offering discounted items and going head-to-head with retail giants Wal-Mart and Target. new deal. A bold move for prez-elect stirs up Bar Lawyer Lisa Small decided to think big when it came time to pick a new leader of a local attorneys group. So she stepped out of the succession line and ran for the job of president-elect of the Palm Beach County Bar Association. Small won the association's first contested election earlier this month, beating Yvette Trelles 306-258 votes.

Association elections used to be a snooze. The lawyer next in line on the association board ran without opposition for presidentelect But the rules have been changed to encourage any member to run. It-1 "XL) i -TTTmri-iiirr S- Trelles, who like Small serves on the association's board, was next-to be prez-elect. But Small didn't want to wait for her turn, so she jumped in and forced association members to choose between two popular candidates. Small and Trelles are litigators, and their contest was spirited.

E-mails and di-' iff i Mprtiri Alexandra Clough ic i i LJ1 ieci mailings weni uui 10 lawyers throughout the county. Each candidate spent $1,900 on adver-. tisements in the association's newsletter, Ex- ecutive Director Patience Burns said. Association members, many of whom know both candidates, were surprised by the ferocity of the battle for a job that carries some prestige but no salary. Some were amused; others were torn.

"It was a difficult time for everyone because Lisa jumped the ladder ahead of Yvette," a lawyer said. Attorney Greg Coleman praised the election, saying it'll encourage new people to get involved. Coleman is the association's incoming president, and President-elect Small will succeed him next year. l- i 1 i nA i i III' ..1.1 MMfcfc GREG LOVETTStaff Photographer bought 10 stores formerly occupied by Mervyn's. It now has stores in Boynton Beach, Wellington, West Palm Beach and Jensen Beach.

Sales associate Evelyn Hosinski (left) helps Shirley Scales at Dillard's in the Palm Beach Mall. Dillard's entered the local market in 1997 when it Sales rebound after two years of change Let's make a deal Dillard's Inc. has been making some changes, including putting more items on sale to lure shoppers and boost its bottom line. Net incomeloss $150million- The Dillards are very aggressive merchants. They march to a different DAVID LAMER retail analyst $100- $50 -r- Small and Trelles, both 35 and graduates of the University of Florida Law School, are active in professional and civic groups and are well-known throughout the county.

That helped each of them line up powerful law firms as supporters. Small says she knows the election upset some of the association's members. "But I was willing to take the chance because it's important who leads this Bar," she said. Her goal is to involve more lawyers in association activities. Trelles didn't return a phone call.

The Palm Beach Maritime Museum is fighting back against a company suing it for not making payments on a $1.6 million loan. The museum countersued ABS School Services of Arizona in Palm Beach County Circuit Court last week, in a bid to derail a foreclosure filed by ABS. The Arizona company lent the money to the museum and secured the loan with die museum's 45th Street headquarters in West Palm Beach, which could be sold if ABS wins. The museum says ABS didn't live up to a contract to manage a maritime academy. Also, museum court filings say ABS overcharged it The museum, in a February letter to ABS, says it racked up more than $446,000 in costs stemming from ABS' failed attempts to set up an academy classroom in Mangonia Park.

The museum says the $1.6 million loan should be correspondingly reduced. ABS' response: See you in court, said company lawyer Lee Schmachtenberg. West Palm Beach is looking into whether the beleaguered Arthur Andersen accounting firm should be kept as its auditor. But while it's weighing what to do, city employees will ask the city commission to pay the accounting firm $30,000 more for work done during the latest audit A contract called for West Palm Beach to pay Andersen $155,000 for the city budget KM it is also emphasizing its own labels, which are priced lower and generate more profit than the designer labels that were Dillard's hallmark for the past decade. A recent walk through the Dillard's in Hot Springs revealed plenty of de-! signer and house brand items at full price but also an assortment of jewelry and apparel marked down 75 percent.

Asked if any sport coats were on sale, a sales clerk said, "No," but volun-; teered that a sale was planned for June in Little Rock. Shoppers Pauline Hollomon, and her daughter Terri Nichols, both of Malvern, said they are regular Dil-, lard's shoppers and appreciated the changes. I "They always have Hollomon said. "When they put them on sale, they really put them on sale." Hollomon said she sensed that Dillard's is using deep discounts to keep its merchandise updated. "It: makes you want to go back," she said.

Please see DILLARD'S, 5F By Chuck Battels The Associated Press LITTLE ROCK, Ark. For years, Dillard's Inc. managed to fight off the competition posed by Wal-Mart and other discounters by focusing on tradition its history as a grand old department store. But tradition has been forced aside by reality changing consumer buying habits have prompted the nation's third-largest department store operator to embrace discounting and focus more on lower-priced private label merchandise to stop the flight of customers to other shopping venues. Like other department store companies that have seen their sales figures turn dismal, Dillard's has had to change its business, both on the selling floor and in back-room operations at its 300 stores in 29 states.

Locally, the chain has stores in Boynton Beach, Wellington, West Palm Beach and Jensen Beach. The changes appear to be helping. During March, the company's sales at stores open at least a year, a i i Q4 Ql Q2 Q3 Q4 2000 2001 fiscal year ends in January Stock performance Daily closes per share $26 $22: tlO widely-used yardstick of retail strength, rose a solid 5 percent, and children's clothing sales were up 21 percent. Dillard's had sales of $8 billion last year. "We feel our recent financial improvement is a direct result of our efforts over the past year or so to dramatically improve our merchandise mix," said Julie Bull, Dillard's director of investor relations.

Long averse to marking down merchandise, Dillard's is now moving items out by putting them on sale, sometimes at very deep discounts, like Federated Department Stores Inc. and May Department Stores $10-- MJJ AS0NDJ FMA 2001 2002 Sources: Hoover's Online; Yahoo.com; Commodity Systems Quote.com THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Tech firm provides online, on-demand TV INDEX RealNetworks Inc. Founded: 1995 Headquarters: Seattle Employees: About 800 -J Customers: More than 250 million users of RealNetworks' free RealPlayer and $29.99 RealPlayer Plus have registered to use the software. About 600,000 Internet users pay $9.95 a month for the RealOne Super-Pass subscription service. year that ended Sept 30, but auditors recently told the city they had to do more work than expected.

Andersen, facing a federal indictment for shredding documents related to its auditing work for the collapsed Enron wanted more than $40,000 extra. A city audit committee bargained the request down to $30,000. The city commission will vote at a meeting Monday. Corporate America can't seem to dump Andersen fast enough since it was charged last month with obstruction of justice. But the city's audit committee hasn't yet decided whether to keep the firm.

Andersen employs about 40 at its West Palm Beach office. "We've been happy and pleased with the local people," city Administrator Ed Mitchell said. "We feel for them." On the other hand, Mitchell says, he's aware the firm could be disbanded or sold, jeopardizing the city's next audit Mitchell says the audit committee plans to make a decision within the next 30 days. Alexandra Qough writes about business and the law. Site can be reached at The Palm Beach Post South County Bureau, 2915-H S.

Congress Delray Beach, 33444. Voice: 8203469 or 2723469; fax: 2654872; e-mail: alexandracloughpbpost.com. newest RealOne media player to click between video clips from a recent Detroit hockey game and stories about an upcoming NASCAR race. "This is like television, only much smarter." Once just the maker of a quirky piece of software designed to play audio over the Internet, RealNetworks is transforming itself into one of the leading new media companies on the Web. At a time when media and technology giants such as AOLTime Warner Inc.

are struggling to make money on the Internet, RealNetworks this month reported a $1 million quarterly profit and a 20 percent increase in subscribers. And while many companies are still trying to figure out how to profitably put video and audio on the Web, RealNetworks offers plenty. Did you miss Peter Jennings' newscast on ABC or Lou Dobbs' Moneyline on CNN? Subscribers willing to pay $9.95 a month for RealNetworks' RealOne Su-perPass can watch the programs in the middle of the night Want to tune into the Atlanta Braves game while you're stuck on business in Please see REALNETWORKS, 5F Seattle's RealNetworks is reporting a 20 percent increase in subscriptions. By Bob Keefe Palm Beach Post-Cox News Service SEATTLE The offices of RealNetworks in a shiny, low-slung building a block from the bustling waterfront, are typical of any tech company. There's a pool table in the company cafeteria.

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In a world where most Internet users PERSONAL TECHNOLOGY Travel plans have never been easier, thanks to new gadgets and the Web! STORY, 4F PERSONAL FINANCE Financial institutions are branching out; make sure you don't get tangled. JAFFE.2F wish they could just view simple Web sites quickly, RealNetworks wants to sell daily doses of CNN and ABC News, sporting events and other programming not through televisions, but through computers. "Our model is very much like that of a cable operator," Leslie Grandy, RealNetworks' consumer marketing manager, explained while using the company's.