St. Louis Post-Dispatch from St. Louis, Missouri • Page 20

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH ThursdayL. January 20 2000 Dow Jones industrials 11483.36 Standard 4 Poor's 500 1455.90 Argent Nasdaq St. Louis composite -7UI 1009.93 4.54 4151i9 21.41 A 30-year Gold A. JF bond yield per ounce 0.76 (.716 289.700 1.05 SECTION 5 2) udget eife give ig ill 555 Washington Avenue may finally come to life 4th-quarter increase for jetliner builder is 52 percent Company predicts more profits Bloomberg News a 'Vr Sinclair sues to block sale of six area radio stations By Jim Gallagher Of the Post-Dispatch The planned sale of KDNL-TV Channel 30 and six St.

Louis radio stations has turned into a court battle with the current owner trying to kill the $366 million deal. Meanwhile, about 200 St. Louis employees are left wondering who their boss will be. The radio stations are KPNT, KXOK, WVRy KIHT, WIL, all FM, and WRTH-AM. Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns the stations, said Wednesday it filed suit in its headquarters of Baltimore.

Sinclair says the proposed buyer, Emmis Communications of Indianapolis, has no right to the stations. Sinclair also wants $40 million in damages from Emmis. Emmis chief executive Jeff Smulyan on Wednesday said he would countersue Sinclair for breach of good faith. "Given Sinclair's conduct during the past six months, it isn't surprising that they are seeking yet another way to avoid fulfilling their contractual obligations," he said. The suit involves a tangle of agreements involving Sinclair, Emmis and Barry Baker, the former owner of KDNL, and a raft of other stations.

Baker sold his broadcast business, Sinclair, in 1996 and went to work for the company. But he kept an option to repurchase KDNL and some radio stations. Baker left Sinclair last spring and sold his option to Emmis. Emmis in June announced that it was buying the stations. Since then, it's been trying to work out side issues to the sale with Sinclair.

Sinclair now says the option was too vague to be enforceable, and that Emmis wasn't a proper buyer under the contract. In its suit, Sinclair said Emmis wanted Sinclair to spend millions replacing Channel 30's transmitter and paying employee severance. Channel 30 is an ABC network affiliate, and Emmis wanted ABC to assign the station's affiliation agreement to Emmis without changes. Sinclair also noted that Emmis already owns stations in St. Louis.

Federal regulators would probably force the sale of some stations if the deal went through, Sinclair said. Baker was also named a defendant in Sinclair's suit. JERRY NAUNHEIM JR.POST-DISPATCH Owners of Digital Dimensions, a marketing and advertising firm located in Laclede's Landing, say the company will move into 555 Washington this spring. The building currently houses Zipatoni, an advertising agency. With both companies, the building will be more than half full.

SEATTLE Boeing Co. said fourth-quarter profit rose 52 percent as the world's biggest plane-maker shed jobs, cut research spending and slashed overtime in its commercial-jet division. Net income rose to $662 million, or 74 cents a share. In the year-ago quarter profit from operations was $435 million, or 45 cents. Sales fell 11 percent to $15.2 billion from $17.1 billion on a decline in jet deliveries.

The rebound prompted Boeing to raise its forecast for this year's profit margins and sales; After struggling in 1997 and 1998 with production bottlenecks, Boeing Chairman Phil Condit is focusing on boosting profit and backing away from a price-cutting war with European rival Airbus Industrie. "The main thing Boeing is striving for now is profitability it's not competing bare-bones on pricing like it had the past couple of years," said Ragen MacKenzie Group Inc. analyst Peter Jacobs. Boeing shares rose $2.56 14 to $47.56 14 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock rose 27 percent last year, better than any of the eight companies in the Standard Poor's Aerospace and De fense Index.

i. The earnings beat the analyst estimate of 68 cents a share in a First CallThomson Financial survey, the fifth consecu-. five quarter Boeing has topped; the forecast. Some unofficial estimates were as high as 73 cents. New leaders of the jet division named in 1998, led by President Alan Mulally, have simplified factory-floor procedures and introduced new measures that reward managers for selling unneeded buildings and cutting inventory.

The jet division earned $698 million on sales of $10 billion in the quarter, compared with just $54 million on sales of $12.3 billion a year earlier. The rebound helped allow Boeing to raise forecasts for profit companywide. Boeing boosted its projection for this year's operating margin, the percentage of sales left after expenses are subtracted, to about 7 percent from 5.5 percent to 6.5 percent. It forecast an operating margin of about 8 percent in 2001. See Boeing, C2 555 Washington Avenue Digital Dimensions plans to join advertising agency in building TRANS WORLD DOME Convention Plaza UNION I MARKET I 1 Lucas MISSOURI ATHLETIC i CtUB Washington 3 f3 i S'to SZ lis The Postal Service says it has a contract to sell the controversial building to Greater Missouri Builders.

By Charlene Prost Of the Post-Dispatch The future is looking brighter for 555 Washington, a largely vacant downtown building with a troubled past owned by U. S. Postal Service. Owners of Digital Dimensions in Laclede's Landing say they plan to move their growing, 6-year-old company into 555 Washington in the spring. Digital Dimensions' 25 employees will join about 220 employees at The Zipatoni an-other growing firm that specializes in creative advertising.

Together, the firms will occupy about 73,000 square feet, or more than half the 130,000 nj TI OQ Locust FAMOUS BARR lJ Ifh- POST-DISPATCH Transmeta unveils long-awaited chip that uses less power square feet of space available for office use on the upper five floors. David Morris, leasing agent for 555 Washington at Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, says he's been talking with other possible tenants as well. Among them is PeopleSupport.com in Los Angeles, an e-commerce support firm interested in 28,000 square feet. Morris said that firm could bring "200 to 250 people initially, and growth plans" if it moves into the building. Meanwhile, a Postal Service official confirmed Wednesday that Greater Missouri Builders, a commercial and residential real estate company in St.

Charles, has a contract to buy 555 Washington. The official declined to give the selling price. But the Postal Service's original asking price was $4.2 million. "The building is under contract, and we plan to close next month," said Judy de Torok, a spokeswoman for the Postal Service in Washington. Kent Evans, a vice president at Greater Missouri Builders, said the company has a sale contract.

But he declined to elaborate until a sale is completed. Developers James J. Dwyer Jr. and Kimble Cohn, also an architect, spent three years in the mid-1980s renovating and reconstructing the building, then known as the Dollar Store. In doing the $22 million, award-winning renovation project, they combined ultra-modern, See Building, C8 Microprocessor, designed by big names, can give longevity to laptops 1.

Missouri jobless rate remains low; said Transmeta CEO Dave Ditzel, who founded the company after designing chips for Sun Microsys-t and Bell Laboratories. Microprocessors, or computer chips, are the US Li people to connect to the Internet for longer periods of time from laptop or tablet-style computers than is currently possible. Behind the project are 200 employees in Santa Clara, as well as in Taiwan and Japan, including superstar designers like Linux creator Linus Torvalds. Investors consist of industry barons like Microsoft Corp. co-founder Paul Allen and billionaire financier George Soros.

Analysts who headed to a historic and posh estate to watch Transmeta's glitzy rollout said they were impressed by the new Crusoe chips, but that a lot of their success will depend upon what devices they end up in. Features of the Crusoe chips named after the literary Robinson Crusoe to connote images of travel and adventure include the ability to make batteries last about twice as long as their Intel counterparts. They are also the first chips that are software-based, Transmeta said. The software makes it possible for the processor to "learn" about an application while it runs and use that experience to extend battery life. The postage stamp-sized processors sell for between $65 for a 333 megahertz model to $329 for a 700 megahertz model.

Those prices mean the processors can be used in small computers that will eventually cost consumers between $500 and $2,500. Transmeta said their low-end processors are available now. Robertson Stephens analyst Arnab Chanda said Transmeta has targeted the perfect niche See Chip, C2 Ditzel Says microprocessors must go mobile brainpower of personal comput By Martha Mendoza AP Business Writer SARATOGA, Calif. A high level team of computer chip designers rolled out a new line of processors Wednesday they say will help untether the Internet. The dong-awaited and much-hyped jannouncement by the secretive! Transmeta Corp.

came after five years of research and about $100 million in funding. "Computing is going mobile, and microprocessors must too," ers and many handheld devices. For the past two decades, the chip market has been dominated by Intel which has rolled out a series of processors, each more powerful than the last. The new chips by Transmeta, however, are designed to allow In Other News HelpHome PASSWORJWjVERLOADi Fed says economy here is growing By Jim Gallagher Of the Post-Dispatch The St. Louis unemployment rate held at a record low 2.7 percent in November as the region added 3,400 jobs during the month, the state of Missouri reported Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve said that the region's economy is growing steadily, despite a slowdown in real estate and farming. The St. Louis jobless rate remained for a second month at the lowest level since at least 1973, when the state government began its current way of estimating employment. The November job gains were strongest in retail, where Christmas hiring was in full swing. Local governments also hired 1,600 temporary workers for elections.

Manufacturing added 200 jobs as automakers geared up for the new model year and metals industries responded to new demand from overseas. The region has added 13,700 jobs over the past year, a 1 percent increase. The jobless rate came down from 3.5 percent to 2.7 percent over 12 months. In its latest "Beige Book" report, the Federal Reserve found the economy growing steadily in a region from eastern Missouri and Southern Illinois to Arkansas See Fed, C2 WiiAfslP Today: Earnings will drive the market Big name companies that beat Wall Street analysts' estimates in late earnings releases Wednesday included: IBM, Apple, AMD and AOL. Look for their stocks to rise today.

Trading in other companies' stocks will be in anticipation of some key reports due after the close today, among these are Lucent, Sun, Ex-citeHome and Gateway. Bridge News Warner-Lambert Co. asks Procter Gamble the biggest U.S. maker of household goods, to consider a combination that would also include American Home Products, says a person familiar with the situation. C2 U.S.

construction of new housing surges in December as builders nail down their best year since 1986, government figures show. C2 America Online, the No. 1 Internet service, says its fiscal second-quarter profit beat analysts' forecasts as holiday advertising surges and it gains 1.8 million new subscribers. C2 Yoii: Sunday's HelpHome offers relief for password overload You need a password to get money from an ATM. Ditto for checking your phone messages.

If your home is protected by a security system, you may need a password for that, too. And computers? Don't even try to count the number of passwords related to the Web. You need them to sign on, open e-mail, shop online, track your mutual funds and make an investment. Having the same password for everything is like leaving a skeleton key where a burglar could find it. In Sunday's HelpHome section, find out what's being done to safeguard passwords and new systems that will reduce the need for memorizing all those numbers and phrases.

1 -ft ST hnsfm 1 --5f -a Burl F- s. Hwa: jar i jj, -a. ij. tn. vsx Money News to Use 1999 Roth IRA contributions can be made until April 15 If you haven't yet funded your Roth IRA for 1999, you have until April 15 to do so.

It's a good time to make your $2,000 Roth contribution for 2000, too, so you can benefit from the tax shelter for the entire year. If you're not sure of the Roth rules, plenty of help is available on the Internet. Quicken (www.quicken.comretirementRIRAplanner) offers a questionnaire to determine whether you're eligible for a Roth. Articles and explanations are available at these sites: www.rothira.com www.savewealth.complanningretirementroth.html www.fairmark.comrothiraindex.htm www.rothirainc.com.