The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 134

D6 WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1991 LOS ANGELES TIMES TRW, Elsevier Merge Real Estate Information Operations existing services to geographic areas not currently served. Our third order of business will be to create and introduce new services." On-line tax and title services offered to title insurance companies by TRW would not be affected by the joint venture, he said. FAXES FROM $395 PLAIN PAPER FAXES PRICED RIGHT TOOI TOO MANY OPTIONS TO LIST data organization since it consolidated its Southern California operations in July, 1990. The company will provide a variety of real estate data including housing and commercial property sales statistics and information about liens and other encumbrances to title companies, appraisers, realtors, brokers, construction and mortgage lenders, and other clients, and claims a combined total of 40,000 customers in 35 states. Setzer said that most services will remain relatively unchanged for now.

"We are going to concentrate first on the job of combining the two companies into one smooth-running, profitable organization. Second, we plan to roll out 'Edwin P. Setzer, previously vice president and general manager of TRW Real Estate Information Services in Anaheim, has been appointed president and general manager of the new company, which employs about 1,400 people in 29 offices throughout the country. A spokesman for the new company said Monday that some overlapping positions will ultimately be eliminated through attrition and layoffs but said that the number of jobs to be cut won't be known until a companywide review is conducted. TRW, the Ohio-based aerospace, defense and information services firm, will be majority partner in the venture through its real estate information services division, Information: Joint venture will be headquartered in Riverside.

Gompanies cite high costs of developing new, business. By JOHN O'DELL STAFF WRITER RIVERSIDE-Citing the high developing new business in today's economy, TRW Inc. and Elsevier N.V. said Monday that they have combined their real estate information operations in a new joint venture, TRW Redi Property Data, headquartered in Riverside. which employs about 90 people in Anaheim.

The spokesman said there are no plans to close the Anaheim office, although some employees are expected to be transferred to the new Riverside headquarters. Elsevier is an international technical and professional publishing company based in Holland. It is placing three operating units into the partnership: Damar Real Estate Information Service in Los Angeles, REDI Real Estate Information Service in Ft. Lauderdale, and Sanborn Map Service in Pelham, N.Y. The joint venture company selected Riverside for its administrative offices to make use of an existing facility that has served as headquarters of TRW's property "HARD MONEY" $50,000 IN 5 DAYS NO INCOME NO CREDIT DIRECT LENDER $500,000 BASED ON REAL ESTATE EQUITY INTERBRANCH DKRLDR 714-990-5400 800-535-1G00H 7'ffl FIXED FIRST TD LOWEST FIXED Dlroct Dank Funding Credit Problomi OK Mortgage Lotos OK ASICS: Firm Gets Foothold in U.S.

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Main Most Asics shoe models feature priced offering from Reebok and Nike, stands helplessly on the sidelines trying to pump up his shoes. After trying to use a bicycle pump and a compressor, he never makes it to the court before the spot ends. Asics offers technological innovation of its own. Asics shoes are lighter and have gel cushioning silicone-compound-filled pads placed in the arch and heel of many of its most popular shoes. The cushioning dissipates the impact of running on hard surfaces and works well in hot or cold weather, the company says.

While marketing a full range of shoes, the company has gained a reputation as maker of some of the best shoes available for specialized sports such as wrestling and volleyball. But it is better known for having one of the more popular lines of running shoes. "They are doing a very credita The 22 bondholders expected to testify in the criminal case lost S1.8 million. They are part of thousands of small investors who lost more than $250 million in the 1989 collapse of Keating's financial empire. One of those bondholders, Rob- 1 ert N.

Bowlus, 52, of Rancho Palos Verdes, testified Tuesday that he knew that he was buying an uninsured bond. But he said Lincoln employees told him and his wife that "next to being federally insured, (a bond was the safest thing we could invest in." He paid $110,000 for bonds in JEWELRY EXCHANGE hit, he said, and Asics' gel cushioning is considered more practical and less "touchy feely" than pump-up shoes, Horan said. Asics was founded in Kobe, Japan, in the late 1940s by a Japanese veteran of World War II under the brand name of Tiger, In 1977, it merged with a Japanese knitwear maker and sporting goods manufacturer. The new company was named Asics after the Latin phrase anima sana in corpore sano a sound mind in a sound body. Today, Asics Tiger is a SI.

1 -billion worldwide sporting goods conglomerate. Besides the shoes sporting its familiar intertwined stripe design that looks like a stylized tick-tack-toe board, the company produces apparel and accessories ranging from ski wear and running suits to its own line of sunglasses and kneepads. While its products are considered of high quality some thought to be technologically superior Asics once had trouble spreading the word. Conservative Japanese business practices were not translating to higher sales. Realizing the deficiency, the company brought in an American marketing team several years ago.

Colors and fashion details were left to the U.S. team; technological development remained with Asics' Japanese design center in Kobe. U.S. advertising and promotion for shoes and apparel was greatly increased and now runs at more than S10 million a year. That is enough to air television spots during sporting events and place full-color spreads in sports magazines but is far shy of the saturation coverage that a company like Nike can afford.

O.C. EARNINGS Higher Sales for Quiksilver NEWPORT BEACH Quiksilver one of the county's largest surf wear makers, reported slightly higher sales but lower earnings in the third quarter, blaming the slow economy. The Newport Beach-based company said net sales for the quarter ended July 31 were S25.9 million, up 5 from $24.6 million in the same period a year ago. Net income was $2 million, or 32 cents a share, down 30 from $2.6 million, or 41 cents a share, in last year's third quarter. For the first nine months of the fiscal year, sales were S77.3 million, up 6 over $72.6 million in the same period last year.

Net income was $6.4 million, down 16 from last year's $7.6 million. CirilCO The Costa Mesa manufacturer of plastic components posted net earnings of $289,671, or 10 cents per share, for the first quarter of fiscal 1992 ended July 31. For the year-earlier period, net income was $375,808, or 12 cents per share. Sales were up 17, to $17 million from $14.5 million. rCELLLLQDLL ROBERT LACHMAN Los Angeles Times a gel cushioning in the soles.

ble job," said John Horan of Sporting Goods Intelligence. "Asics has done the best job of any in finding a niche the performance running business." Mark Anderson, a footwear buyer for Covina-based Chick's Sporting Goods, said Asics competes with Nike as the best-selling running shoe in Chick's chain of six stores, including three in Orange County. "Asics is a good company to work with," Anderson said. "The customers' response currently is strong. They are a major player in the running category.

When you go to races, you see a lot of people in them." Anderson said that Asics' popularity results from a good-quality product and smart marketing. The style of the shoes, much of. it designed in Fountain Valley, and the color selections have been a four separate transactions in 1987 and 1988 and renewed two of them before the company went bankrupt and the whole amount was wiped out. He acknowledged under cross-examination, though, that much of the negative information he said he never knew about was indeed' contained inside two prospectuses he received with his initial purchases. He said he had tried to read the documents, which were aimed at disclosing the risks inherent in the bonds, but found it "somewhat frustrating" and "very difficult to understand." Van de Kamp determined that the combination would violate state antitrust law.

In June, American Stores sold its Alpha Beta stock to Pood 4 Less Supermarkets Inc. for $251 million. Food 4 Less is owned by Clare-mont-based Yucaipa which had already owned the other chains, including Market Basket; it operates Marina Market in Marina del Rey. The Los Angeles office of Bozel a New York-based ad agency, had previously handled the Alpha Beta account. Continued from DS Asics' running shoes are some of the industry's most highly regarded products.

The gel cushioning in thelsoles of most of its shoes has won plaudits from athletes and industry analysts alike. And the company's success is reflected in a rapidly escalating sales curve. In "footwear alone, Asics' sales have' increased to $110 million in 156 over $43 million in 1986,) according to Sporting Goods Intelligence, a marketing survey company in Glen Mills, Pa. The company presently has a 2 share of U.S. athletic footwear sales.

Overall, Asics expects $175 mil-liwiin U.S. sales this year on its full line of shoes and apparel, a '45 increase over last year, according to H. Peter Goehrig, an Asics vice president. What makes that accomplishment even more impressive is that it comes in an otherwise stagnant market for athletic footwear, Goehrig says. As a result, Asics has to count on increasing market share by stealing it from competitors.

"What we have tried to do is take away from competitors we most respect," he said. That means Nike and Reebok. Practicing the fine art of guerrilla warfare as it applies to marketingtrying to make a big splash on a limited budget Asics has produced a series of television advertisements that poke fun at its larger rivals. In one, for instance, the basketball player wearing the Asics gel-cushioned shoes makes drive after drive to the basket. Another player wearing shoes that have to be inflated, just like the latest high- KEATING Continued from D2 chairman of Lincoln's parent company, American Continental Corp.

in Phoenix, said that he relied on top lawyers and accountants in setting up the bond sales and that regulators approved the sales. WESTERN Continued from D5 Conner Peripherals began shipping 85-megabyte drives for the notebook market in large quantities this quarter. Seagate, Quantum Corp. in Milpitas and International Business Machines Corp. are expected to start shipping similar products soon, according to Michael, Murphy, editor of the California Technology Stock Letter in Half Moon Bay.

"It's an important product for Western Digital," Murphy said. "I don't think the company lives or dies by it, but it's important if they want to remain a player in the disk-drive business." For the Record Western Digital A story Tuesday incorrectly stated that Western Digital Corp. is discontinuing all of its 20-megabyte and 40-megabyte disk drives. The company is discontinuing only its 20-megabyte and 40-megabyte Centaur drives in the 3.5-inch format. AK1 ll0l Ill IO fl CASH-BACK! AT UNBELIEVABLE PRICES! "gag" ADS: Team Wins Key Account i MOTOROLA Flip-Phone (714) Ofw oood jou pu'cr-aH UnM one thorn Bl "tJ uief No deal Continued from D5 green awnings.

The electronic media ad campaign will be an important one for the Alpha Beta chain, which spent almost three years in limbo because the state attorney general's office opposed its merger with Lucky Stores. In 1988, Salt Lake City-based American Stores, which owned the Alpha Beta chain, bought the rival Lucky Stores chain for S2.5 billion. The deal was held up, however, when former Atty. Gen. John K.

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