Tallahassee Democrat from Tallahassee, Florida • Page 39

0) Tallahassee Feb. 21, 1993 Mutual-fund listings, 2 Business meetings around town, 5 Auto classified ads, 6 Bruno's chain expands Bruno's nears deal to occupy ex-HQ spot in shopping center Pocket change Bruno's would join Office Depot and Blockbuster Video as tenants of the Gulf Wind shopping center. By Fred A. Schneyer Dsfflocrflt staff wrltsr A second Bruno's Xtl000" store will be part of the Center Village Shopping Center at Centervllle Road and Capital Circle A third Bruno's Is proposed for the Gulf Winds ro Shopping Center 5. ll The company's first local store is located near Thomasville Road in the Northampton area of northeast Tallahassee.

The Parkway Bruno's will be 45,000 square feet the same size as the one in the northeast. Whether the company actually builds at the Ap- alachee Parkway shopping center depends not only on finalizing the lease deal but on getting the re- quired city building permits. Bill Coleman, president of Engel Realty, the Birmingham developer that owns the center, said Bru- no's has signed a letter of intent concerning the Gulf Wind deal. Such a letter is often a prelude to completed negotiations. Coleman said the supermarket company will benefit from having three Leon County stores.

"They want a real presence in the Tallahassee market and I think they'll do well," he said. 7 He said his company started seeking the city permits but later put the process on hold because -Bruno's lease negotiations were taking longer than anticipated. Bruno's spokeswoman Catherine Byrd declined to comment on the Apalachee Parkway site late last Eastside residents may soon be able to do their grocery shopping and pick up a rented video and some office supplies all in one trip. That's because the owners of an Apalachee Parkway shopping center say they are close to finishing a deal with Bruno's, the Birmingham, supermarket company. A Bruno's would go in the space that used to be occupied by HQ, a Virginia home-improvement store that closed last summer when it pulled out of the Big Bend market The Bruno's at the Gulf Wind shopping center would be the Birmingham, company's third Leon County site.

Office Depot and Blockbuster Video also are Gulf Wind tenants. A second Bruno's location, a store, is scheduled to open July 1 at the new Center Village shopping center at Centerville Road and Capital Circle Northeast It will employ about 150 people. John RobergeDamocrat She Shoo Ms lit Jane Bryant I sdkwoid Lis Suafil With load funds, you pay now or. you pay later Jean Fugett isn't like his brother, but there's no doubt he is another leading figure sr 1 By Peter Alan Harper Associated Press Economist: Look to muni bonds for tax shelter By Fred A. Schneyer Democrat star) wrny Go for the tax shelters.

In a word, that was the investing advice offered last week in Tallahassee by Joseph Carson, national chief economist for the Dean Witter Reynolds investment firm. Carson contended that President Clinton's suggested tax hikes should make investors head toward tax-free municipal bonds and other investment vehicles designed to shelter income. Clinton announced the tax hikes and an economic-stimulus package in a speech to Congress last week. Carson met with Dean Witter clients and state pension managers last week. Carson said investors interested in stocks should consider companies such as Motorola and General Electric that should do well in a competitive global economy.

Also on Carson's recommended stock list are Louisiana-Pacific, a lumber, plywood and pulp producer that Carson said should benefit from strong home sales; strong retailers like Wal-Mart and Toys 'R' Us; and financial institutions such as Chemical Bank and Bank of America. Generally, Carson said Dean Witter recommends a portfolio mix of 60 percent stocks, 35 percent in bonds and 5 percent in cash. Endangered tortoises, plants Plans for a sixth Leon County Publix supermarket were temporarily derailed when permitting officials found gopher tortoises and endangered Bent Golden Aster plants on the store's proposed site. So, engineers are now trying to work around the tortoises and the Bent Golden Aster plants in their design for a shopping center at Crawfordville Highway at Capital Circle Southeast While the permitting process moves forward, Publix spokesman Bob McDermott said the Lakeland company is continuing its lease negotiations with the developer for a supermarket McDermott said the proposed store is the same size as the company's most recent location on U.S. High- way 27 North in Northern Leon County.

Environmental officials said the developer also has to work out a plan for storm-water runoff. The officials said the gopher tortoises are a problem because they are considered a "spe- cies of special concern" a half step from being endangered. Standardized cellular service Centel Cellular is among IS leading cellular telephone companies that have adopted the trade name Mobi-Link so customers who travel from region to region know that common service standards link the firms. Besides adding the brand name to their current identification, MobiLink companies will have standardized dialing codes, 24-hour customer-service representatives and 375 service centers throughout the nation and Canada, said officials from the companies. Al Boschulte, president of Nynex Mobile Communications said the companies serve 83 percent of the United States and Canada.

There are about 10 million cellular-phone users in this country who buy service from one of two competing companies in each of the 734 service areas established by the Federal Communications Commission. One of the cellular providers in each area of the United States is an affiliate of the local telephone company while the other is an outside firm. MobiLink is a group of the telephone-company affiliates including Centel Cellular. Centel Cellular provides Big Bend cellular service. Cellular One, the name used by most of the competitors of the local phone-company affiliates around the country, also offers Big Bend service.

-J v1 I LL I Ira BlockAssociated Press It's unclear to some outsiders how Fugett, 41, will carry on Lewis' vision for the food company, which is involved in distribution and grocery products. NEW YORK If you buy mutu-: al funds from a stockbroker or fi-: nancial planner, you're being sliced up to pay sales fees. It's entirely' proper to pay a salesperson for advice. But you may not realize how large your fees can grow over the years, or the damage that does to your investment returns especially in bond funds, where average returns aren't all that high in the first place. The National Association of Securities Dealers (NASD) will impose a new rule next July 7 to suppress the unregulated growth of mutual-fund sales charges.

But it's not going to save you a lot of money. The cheapest funds to own are the "no-loads" (those with no sales charges), which you buy directly from a fund organization. On average, no-loads do better than funds, because less of your money is! raked off for expenses. If you'd rather buy through a-broker or planner, however, here-are the various ways you might pay: (1) PAY NOW. The sales load is: subtracted, up front, from the mon-: ey you invest.

Loads typically run-from around 4 percent to 6.5 per--cent today, although they can go as high as 8.5 percent Many investors loathe up-front loads and avoid them when they can. But if you plan to hold for many years, this is usually the cheapest way of buying a load fund. (2) PAY LATER. There's no charge going in, but you pay if you sell within a specified number of years. For example, it might cost you 6 percent to leave after one year, 5 percent after two years, and so on.

Not until six years have passed can you sell at no Pay-later funds amount to fake, no-loads. An unscrupulous broker or planner will let you believe that-there's no sales charge at all. But. you do indeed pay, in the form or annual fees, even if you hold your shares longer than six years. (3) PAY FOREVER.

All "pay-later" funds and many "pay-now" funds add a second fee known as a 12b-l (named after a Securities and Exchange Commission rule). These 12b-ls have been running from 0.5 percent to 1.25 percent of the funds' assets, subtracted every single year. This is the nastiest charge of all. If you hold for many years, a 12b-l fee will cost you more than a front-end load. A growing number of load funds let you decide how to cover the fee.

When you make your purchase, your options are a front-end load plus a small 12b-l fee or no front-end load plus a large 12b-l fee, usually with an exit charge for selling too soon. Which choice is best depends on how long you'll hold. As an example, take two funds earning 11 percent before expenses one with a 4-percent up-front load and a 1-percent 12b-l, the other with no up-front load and a 3-per- Please see QUINN, 3D NEW YORK He makes his 6-foot-3 presence quietly felt You'd never guess Jean Fugett Jr. was a lawyer, broadcaster, former newspaperman, Super Bowl veteran and Amherst scholar. Nor would he likely volunteer he is the younger brother and successor of the late Reginald Lewis, one of America's boldest entrepreneurs who engineered the success of TLC Beatrice International Holdings by far the nation's largest black-owned company.

"Those things have to be forced out of him," said Lee Archer a TLC Beatrice board member. "He's a real down-to-earth guy." That earthy modesty seems to stand in sharp contrast to the driving ambition of Lewis. Yet the brothers were close friends, partners and confidantes. Qualified for the Job So when Lewis learned he had brain cancer at age 50, it made perfect sense for him to prep Fugett as the next leader of TLC Beatrice. He made Fugett vice chairman days before he died two months ago.

Then the board made Fugett chairman. "This was not a gift to him. Of all the people in the organization, despite Reggie's dominance in TLC, there is still no one who was more in line to accept the chairmanship than Jean," Archer said. Nonetheless, Fugett (pronounced Fu'-get) now faces the biggest challenge in a 41-year-old life already unique with remarkable achievements. It remains unclear to outsiders how he will carry on Lewis' vision for TLC Beatrice, which Lewis transformed from a food-distribution business into a privately owned investment conglomerate.

Fugett declined to be interviewed. But conversations with a range of acquaintances portray him as almost universally liked and respected, with a subtle, forceful and quick mind. Making his own way "He was not a yes man," said Archer. "He didn't always agree with his brother." Others depict Fugett as a quiet person who always had something extra going for him: the football player who was a newspaper intern, the football player attending law school. A broadcaster.

A man with concerns willing to sacrifice his livelihood. A man who made friends. "We were pals," said Ben Bradlee, who was executive editor at The Washington Post when Fugett, then a tight end on the Washington Redskins, applied for an intern opening. Bradlee hired him. Fugett and Lewis grew up in working class Baltimore.

They have different surnames because Fugett was born after their divorced mother remarried. Both brothers were standout athletes, particularly Fugett, who attended Amherst at age 16, played football and basketball and became executive editor of the school newspaper. A leading figure He graduated with honors four years later in 1972 and was recruited by the Dallas Cowboys, where he played for four years including Super Bowl which Dallas lost to Pittsburgh. Fugett played for Washington until 1979 and attended George Washington Law School after practice. Dr.

Asa Davis, who directed black studies at Amherst while Fugett was there, said he then regarded Fugett as a leading figure among the young black intelligentsia. His contemporaries included writer Ralph Ellison, jazz man Yusef Latif, a promising basketball player named Julius Erving and a poet named Sonia Sanchez. "It does me great pride that all these guys were honor students," Davis said. "We could see that he I mi i S. is" 'v HZ 1 Fugett was hired as an intern at the Washington Post in 1979 while playing as a tight end with the Washington Redskins.

Low', the North Carolina home-improvement company with two Tallahassee locations, recently announced its sales tor the week ending Feb. 12 were $72 million, a 33-percent increase over last year. MHI Group the Tallahassee funeral and cemetery company, recently reported its earnings for the nine months ending Jan. 31 were just over $4 million, more than double last year. Revenue was $12.5 million, up about 7 percent from $1 1 .7 million last year.

CMSDATA the Tallahassee computer company, recently reported revenues for the six months ending Dec. 31 were $7.9 million, up 10.3 percent on earnings of $282,900. The earnings figure compared to a net toss of $158,800 for the same period last year. Democrat news services contributed to this report. rookie from Amherst finished it impromptu.

A friendship began. Wide range of interests "He wasn't a guy who lorded his intellect over anybody," said Hill, now a vice president with the Baltimore Orioles. Fugett also was known for the range of interests he held while playing football He hosted a jazz radio show, "Flight Time," and became a players' union representative who fought race and wage discrimination in the workplace. Please see FUGETT, 6D would be a big success in business or law or administration." Jim Ostendarp, who retired last year after 33 years as coach of the Amherst team, said Fugett "was probably the best tight end we had." Calvin HilL who played for 13 years in the National Football League including two Super Bowl teams, was already at Dallas when the guy with the French-looking name from Amherst arrived. "I wasn't sure what we were getting," Hill said.

One day in the locker room, Hill recited a passage from "MacBeth" and the.