The Orlando Sentinel from Orlando, Florida • 23

The Orlando Sentinel THURSDAY, September 23, 1993 Dow inches up 9.78 to 3,547.02, C-5. Dow Jones industrials, daily close S700 I I I I I I I 1 I I I I I 3650 3600 V- 3550 3600 1 340 3400 3350 3300 3250 3200 2 16 23 30 I 13 20 27 3 10 17 24 JULY AUg SEPT. F5) 0 Dusmes Primerica, Travelers talk merger THE MARKETS Dow Jones industrials 3,547.02, up 9.78 500 456.20, up 3.25 MidCap index 172.14, up 1.79 NYSE index 253.27, up 1.68 NASDAQ index 745.54, up 11.98 AMEX index 450.29, up 3.20 Primerica Corp. Headquarters: New York Chief executive officer. Sanford I.Weill Business: A financial holding company engaged in, through subsidiaries, consumer finance, insurance, investment and corporate finance services.

1 993 2nd quarter results: Revenue $1.3 billion Profit $180.3 million Source: Bloomberg News Service Travelers Corp. Headquarters: Hartford, Conn. Chief executive officer: Edward H. Budd Business: Through subsidiaries offers insurance, financial and health-care services. Also offers pension, investment and consumer banking services.

1993 2nd quarter results: Revenue $2.5 billion Profit $80 million Source: Bloomberg News Service based diversified financial services company that owns the Smith Barney, Harris Upham Co. brokerage, would exchange 0.80423 of its shares for each share of Travelers. "The merger, if consummated, would result in one of the largest financial services companies in America," the companies said in a statement Travelers employs more than 1,000 people in Florida. About 500 employees work in offices in Maitland and Orlando. Primerica's three main subsidiaries operate in Central Florida.

Its New York-based investment brokerage, Smith Barney Shearson, employs almost 900 stockbrokers in 41 branches across the state. Commercial Credit, a consumer finance company in Baltimore, operates Please see MERGER, C-4 If the two companies team up, it would create one of the nation's largest financial operations. COMPILED FROM STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS Primerica Corp. and The Travelers Corp. said Wednesday they were discussing a merger in a stock exchange that would create one of the largest financial services companies in the United States.

The deal would value Travelers, a life and property casualty insurance company based in Hartford, at $37 a share or $5.4 billion, Wall Street traders said. Under the merger, Primerica, a New York- Dow Jones bond index 108.91, up 0.02 Gold, Comex close $353.90, down $9.00 Silver, Comex close $4.04, down $0,146 Dollar, Fed index $92.44, down $0.44 Prime rate 6.0 Mortgages, 30-year 6.5-6.875 1-yr. Treasury index as of Sept. 20 3.38 Consumer Price Index, August 144.8 BREWERS ANHEUSER-BUSCH COS. said Wednes day it would trim its salaried work force by 10 percent and reorganize its breweries and bakeries as part of a restructuring aimed at cutting $400 million a year in costs by 199.

The company said the moves were necessary to stay competitive in a sluggish economy Computer screens and in the wake of increases in federal excise taxes and coming income tax hikes. The changes include reducing the salaried work Florida union chief unseated The longtime AFL-CIO leader will be replaced by Marilyn Lenard, who campaigned for change. By Jim DeSimone force 1,200 jobs and freezing the salaries ot employees for 1994 and modernizing Id save face breweries. Anheuser-Busch operates 10 theme parks nationally, including Sea World of Florida in Orlando. Programmers add RESTAURANTS BURGER KING CORP, the world's No.

2 some fun to the devices that protect PC screens. OF THE SENTINEL STAFF hamburger chain, has entered the Japanese burger war. The Miami-based company is joining in a 50-50 venture with seibu Hall ASSOCIATED PRESS ways Group, a major private railway com pany and real estate developer, to bring the flame-broiled burger to Japan. The first store opened Wednesday in Iruma, a suburb about an hour north of Tokyo. The interest in Ja pan's hamburger market, which has bal looned to $4.3 billion a year, is understandable, but making money won't be as easy as in past years.

Because of a national recession, the hamburger market grew by less than 5 percent last year, after expanding almost 15 percent in 1991. AUTOMAKERS RESPONDING TO declining automobile NEW YORK Some creative programmers and artists are out to prove the most fun you can have with your personal computer is when you're not using it. They create "screen savers," those brief, varied displays that kick in when a computer is idle to prevent images from burning into the phosphors of a screen. And their work is getting more sophisticated, depicting everything from comic strip characters and old movies to national parks, as more people are turned on to personalizing their computer. A whole cottage industry has started around the idea with companies selling programs that make funny sounds, such as explosions or animal noises, when different keys are typed, and even cardboard "frames" that attach to a monitor with velcro.

"Employees who are allowed to personalize their work space actu sales, Peugeot says it will cut more than 4,000 jobs next year and Renault plans to reduce production by 100 cars a day. Peugeot said Tuesday the job cuts at six of its plants are necessary because of the drop in Euro Florida AFL-CIO President Dan-ny Miller tapped his gavel Wednesday trying to regain some of the authority he had just lost. In an unsteady voice, he called delegates of the union's biennial convention to order moments after learning his 16-year presidency was over victim of a movement for change that had swept the convention and the union's entire leadership from office. But the delegates of the labor organization were no longer interested in Miller. Most, with their backs to the podium, were looking for Marilyn Lenard, president of the Space Coast Labor Council in Brevard County, who took the presidency from Miller.

Miller, along with Executive Vice President Ken Cooper and Secretary-Treasurer Susan Wilson, were voted from office by wide margins in favor of Lenard's slate promising change. Lenard secured 65,747 votes to Miller's 41,923. "This represents the coming of age of the public service side of our union," said Lenard, who received strong support from the Florida Education AssociationUnited and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employee delegates. As a raucous celebration continued, old-line union delegates filtered through the crowd to shake Miller's hand and wish him well. Please see UNION, C-4 pean car sales and continuing efforts to im prove productivity.

MANUFACTURING THREE MAJOR Japanese manufacturers. strueeline with weak demand and a surg ASSOCIATED PRESS Cartoon character Opus shoots toasters in a computer screen saver program. ing yen, announced production cutbacks or job reductions Wednesday. Victor Co. of Ja- nan.

a laree audio-video maker, said it ex pects a $262 million loss this fiscal year ln-stpari nf the $10 million rjrofit it had nrevious- lv nredieted. The comrjanv. known as JVU said it will cut 2,000 of its 15.00U jobs by March 1995 through attrition and early retire screen savers for companies to use as a marketing tooL And Microsoft Corp. jumped into the market with screen savers depicting parks, paintings and space scenes. The niche faces a threat from newer monitors that are less susceptible to the damage screen savers were meant to prevent and from a drive for energy-efficient PCs, which turn off when idle.

But Chris Doner, president of Access Please see SCREENS, C-6 computer magazines have drawn hundreds of participants. Earlier versions of screen savers included kaleidoscopic shapes, shooting stars or scrolling corporate logos, but the latest ones go much further. For instance, Berkeley Systems has launched one featuring Disney characters. And Delrina Corp. has started selling one featuring Berke Breathed's characters from "Bloom County" and "Outland." One company is developing customized ally become more satisfied with work," said Pat Field, spokeswoman for Screen-ies, a Sonoma, company that sells 56 kinds of cardboard frames.

"There is a little more than fun to this." Several leading computer industry research firms say they haven't followed the accessory market because it's too small and dominated by just a few companies. But more than 1 million copies of Berkeley Systems "After Dark" have been sold, and screen saver design contests by ments. Hitachi Ltd. and Nissan Motor Co. announced they will cut back production in Europe because ot tailing demand.

I REAL ESTATE FLORIDA PROPERTY TRUST, a Tam pa real estate investment trust, plans to raise about $146 million by selling common stock to the public for the first time. The company filed with the Securities and Ex Smokers Express club still trying to get off the ground change Commission to sell 5 million common shares through NatWest Securities Ltd. and Wheat First Butcher Singer at featured. nnhlif sunnort. Federal regulations es an expected price of $18.50 to $20 a share, By Jerry Jackson according to the S-ll registration state OF THE SENTINEL STAFF ment.

Florida Property plans to acquire 10 multifamily apartment communities in Florida, including two in Orlando. RETAIL working to launch the airline. Earlier this year, Smokers Express projected a launch date for the charter airline to coincide with a national Smokers Rights march on Washington on Saturday. The march is still planned, but Smokers Express won't be flying there or participating. The airline still has no airplanes, no certificate of operation and no airport property lease.

Richardson, a smoker, said the concept of Smokers Express has generated Richardson said the operation has sold "between 5,000 and 6,000" memberships. Karen MacFarland, director of the state Division of Consumer Services, said Smokers Express has not registered with the division or posted a $25,000 bond as a travel seller as required by law. "We will be contacting them," MacFarland said. Please see SMOKERS, C-6 sentially ban smoking on domestic flights, leaving many smokers hot under the collar. To get around the restriction, Smokers Express is selling $25 "club memberships" to people older than 21, with the promise that it will operate as a travel club rather than a regular airline.

Such public charter travel clubs are exempt from the smoking restrictions. Richardson said flights to casinos in Reno, and other cities would be KMART CORP. and Wal-Mart Stores A proposed airline that would cater to smokers is still more smoke than fire. But a Brevard County businessman involved in the start-up venture said this week that the project is making progress. "We're hoping to be in the air in late November," said George "Mickey" Richardson, a Cocoa Beach businessmen Inc.

said Wednesday they are not selling In Utero, the new release from the grunge rock group Nirvana. The compact disc isn't being sold in their combined 4,300 stores, apparently because of concern over the CD's cover art. It features an anatomical diagram of an angel that resembles the blood-flow diagrams in biology textbooks. The back cover shows embryo dolls often used in science classes. A Kmart spokes 3 woman said the chain decided the album New wireless phones may become a threat to cellular industry ASSOCIATED PRESS might offend the chain's "general audience." A Wal-Mart spokeswoman said the CD was "under review and that it might be a week or more before a final decision is made on whether to carry the recording.

I ACROSS THE STATE IBERIA SA, Spain's state-owned air line, is likely to shut its hub operation in i 1 1 i rm. Miami, which is losing Mercedes alters lines, challenges Japanese By Richard Truett OF THE SENTINEL STAFF German automaker Mercedes-Benz announced Wednesday it would position two new car lines to go head-to-head with Japanese luxury cars in the U.S. market. The move marks a drastic change in the luxury carmaker's marketing strategy. Wally Anderson, Mercedes-Benz general manager for product management, said the company's strategy "aligns our products with the marketplace." Anderson said that before Toyota's Lexus division entered the luxury car market in 1989, Mercedes had little competition and the company could charge whatever it wanted for its cars.

The new cars, unveiled at a press conference in Washington on Wednesday, carry prices that are same as 1993 models or drastically less than the 1993 models they replace. Mercedes' least expensive model, the C220, has a base price of $29,900, the same as the outgoing 190. Please see MERCEDES, C-6 pff Ufl $7.66 million a year, the amine new managing director Juan Saez said Wednesday. Iberia runs FLORIDA 'Mill PHELAN M. EBENHACKSENTINEL a network of U.S.

and Latin American routes NEW YORK The cellular telephone, one of the most revolutionary developments in communications, may be on its way to becoming obsolete. The Federal Communications Commission will announce guidelines today for establishing a new form of wireless phoning known as PCS, personal communications services. The most ardent promoters of PCS say it will sound better, cost less and draw more customers than the cellular phone industry, now used by 12 million people just a decade after it started. Some analysts say PCS could be used by that many people in three years, emerging with an important role in what is often described as the converging world of communications and computers. But others say PCS will simply supplement cellular by allowing smaller, less powerful wireless Please see WIRELESS, C-6 through Miami.

The air line has just found a partner in Miami-based Carnival Air Lines, which will take over the Miami-Los Angeles link Iberia Jazzing it up The Don Scalleta Trio and special guest Bobby Pick-wood perform before guests at the new Pleasure Island Jazz Company at Walt Disney World. The establishment's grand opening is set for Oct. 8 with the Ripping-tons. See On Tourism, C-5. was flying.

Compiled from staff and wire reports 4-.