Tampa Bay Times from St. Petersburg, Florida • 45

Dow 30 industrials 500 A Nasdaq 1 Russell 2000 30-year U.S. bond A Gold A Dollar vs. Yen A Dollar vs. Euro 4.57,1,865.62 Unchanged, 5.29 $0.40, $293.60 0.95,122.52 BUSINESS TO CONTACT US: By phone: (727) 893-8160 or (800) 333-7505, ext. 8160 By fax: (727) 892-2327 By e-mail: biznewssptimes.com SECTION -WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER II, 19 9 8 THE TIMES- Damfa contribute to ECodak layufis Danka is Kodak's biggest copier customer.

Danka's financial problems result in job losses for 300 Kodak workers. It ,1 t-S. 4 By AMEET SACHDEV Times Staff Writer Kodak sold its copier sales and service operations to Danka two years ago but kept the assembly part. The deal resulted in financial problems for Danka, which leases space in Kodak's Elmgrove, N.Y., facility. i i morale and high anxiety among the workers in this upstate New York city.

Fears are running high that a new round of deep cost-cutting at Danka will result in layoffs, especially among the administrative staff in Rochester. The company has acknowledged that there is still some overlap between operations at headquarters in St. Petersburg and Rochester. For veterans, the gut-wrenching uncertainty is an ugly reminder of the not-too-distant past. Before transferring to Danka, these employees suffered through almost annual downswings at Kodak in the late 1980s and early '90s.

Kodak employs about 30,000 people in Rochester, about half the work force of 15 years ago. The Danka buyout in 1996 brought a sense of relief to some Kodak workers weary from the constant restructurings. Please see COPIER 6E to Danka two years ago for $588-million and agreed to continue supplying copiers and parts to the St. Petersburg office-equipment distributor for up to 10 years. But Danka has failed to meet aggressive sales goals because of woes stemming from the integration of the Kodak business.

In the past year, the culture clash of the operations has gutted profits, led to massive management turnover and trimmed the company's market value by Indeed, Danka is expected to post a loss for its second quarter ended Sept. 30 when it releases its earnings Thursday. Now, about 1,000 Danka employees in Rochester who moved over from Kodak after the acquisition are waiting for the other shoe to drop, according to interviews with several current and former Danka and Kodak employees. They paint a grim picture of soured ROCHESTER, N.Y. Problems at Danka Business Systems PLC in the Tampa Bay area are rippling through Eastman Kodak hometown, which already has been battered by several rounds of layoffs at the world's biggest photography company.

Kodak said Tuesday that it eliminated 300 jobs at its copier-manufacturing division in Rochester because of slowing sales to Danka, its main customer. Kodak sold the division's sales and service operations Special to the Timet sfe will diress up As it does in other cities, Saks will sell waterglobes featuring Tampa's skyline for $35. BUSINESS TODAY PRODUCTIVITY RISES: Worker i productivity accelerated in the I third quarter, offsetting an in-' crease in labor costs and giving Federal Reserve policymakers room to cut interest rates again if they see a need to give financial markets a boost Productivity, which measures the time and effort needed to produce goods and services, rose at a 2.3 percent annual rate from July through September after increasing at a 0.3 percent rate in the second quarter, the Labor Department said. The average nrotn lri1 Vrwi 1 nni'r'ont rwrtzv Gates dismissed antitrust scrutiny In 1995, the Microsoft chief predicted "this antitrust thing will blow over." He also suggested changing the company's e-mail policy. upscale dud toy airea gum nuu v-u J.

yv.i win uv-i the past year and about 1 percent for two decades. WHOLESALE INVENTORIES UP: Wholesale inventories regis- Associated Press tered their largest gain in seven months in September as crop I stockpiles expanded to their highest level in almost a year. Wholesale inventories rose a larger-than-expected 1.2 percent to after ris- ing a revised 1.1 percent in Au- i gust, the Commerce Depart- i ment said. Wholesale inventories account for just un- der a third of all U.S. stocks; factory and retail inventories WASHINGTON Microsoft chairman Bill Gates, now fighting a government antitrust case built partly on e-mail evidence, told Intel executives in 1995 that he might change his company's policy on how often to destroy internal e-mail.

Gates, according to notes from the meeting made public Tuesday, also dismissed the scrutiny by federal regulators at that time. "This antitrust thing will blow over," he said, adding: "We haven't changed our business practices, at all." Gates, the world's richest man, never changed the Microsoft policy that governs how long employees may keep e-mail messages before they are routinely deleted. Company attorneys suggested Tuesday that Gates may have been joking. They noted that even today the compa- Please see MICROSOFT 2E llllUUMUUI U1C1CBU IOMEGA SUED: Iomega Corp. customers are suing, saying Times photos- KEN HELLE Liselotte Gonzalez, left, and Carol Abbeduto hang stock in the designer salon of the new Saks at West Shore Plaza.

Payday lender fees slammed Two groups want Florida to get tough with the lenders who charge excessive interest rates. The tony store's arrival shows flash-and-dazzle merchants think the area has grown sophisticated. 4 By MARK ALBRIGHT Times Staff Writer ft 1 iP. By HELEN HUNTLEY Times Staff Writer computer disk drives have a fa-I tal flaw known as the "click of i death." A lawsuit filed in Dela-! ware Superior Court in Wil-1 mington says the defect dam-; ages Zip Drive storage disks beyond repair after clicking I noises begin. The lawsuit says the flaw affects drives made after January 1995.

The number of affected drives has not been determined, but millions of Zip Drives have been sold since 1995. Iomega, of Roy, Utah, denies the claims. CARGILLT0 BUY OPERATIONS: Cargill Inc. of Minneapolis is buying the worldwide grain operations of rival Continental Grain Co. in a deal that would solidify Cargill's position as the nation's biggest grain exporter.

Cargill will acquire Continental's grain storage, transportation, export and trading operations in North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. Terms were not disclosed, but USA Today said analysts estimated the price could exceed $300-million. Continental, of New York, is changing its name to ContiGroup Cos. Inc. NEW BANK TO BE FORMED: The former chairman of a bank that once was the Tampa Bay area's largest wants to open a new community bank based in Tampa's Westshore business district.

A. Bronson Thayer, once chairman of First Florida Bank and a former Lykes Co. executive, heads a group of eight organizers trying to raise as much as $15-million for Bay Cities Bank. According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Thayer, 58, would be chairman of the bank as well as chairman and CEO of the bank's holding company. First Florida in 1993 merged with Barnett Banks, Jwhich is now part of the BankA-Hmerica Corp.

conglomerate. Higher-end retailers in the Tampa Bay area hope Saks' elevation of the region's sense of style will bring them more business. shoppers in the Tampa Bay area with the right taste level loday or we would not be here," Saks spokeswoman Jaqui Lividini said. Saks came to that conclusion after extensive lifestyle survey work. It also kept track of the thousands of local clothes horses who for years have been stocking their closets at Saks stores elsewhere on business trips, vacations and weekend shopping excursions.

To date, Tampa Bay's department stores have stuck to goods in the "moderate to better" range in the lingo of the women's apparel trade. Liz Claiborne, for instance, is a moderately priced brand at about $125 to $150 an outfit. A cut above that is Claiborne's Dana Buchman line, which goes for about $250. Buchman is a so-called bridge line, a price and quality level created by apparelmakers to fit between the moderately price garments and the designer labels that go for $450 to $2,500 an outfit. Tampa Bay's department stores don't venture above that bridge level, which also includes Ellen Tracy.

DKNY and Vittadi-ni. carries most of the same bridge, then goes up and up Please see SAKS 6E TAMPA A few essentials for Tampa Bay shoppers drawn to Thursday's grand opening of Fifth Avenue's first store in the area: The upscale bastion of New York fashion prefers to be called a specialty store, not a department store. Saks charges the same $250 or so for an Ellen Tracy dress as Burdines or Dillard's. But if you are willing to fork over five or even 10 times as much money, they've got a store brimming with options new to the market. FUR FIGHT: Animal rights activists to protest Saks' plan to sell furs.

6E How about a tropical weight $350 cashmere and silk scarf? A $1,050 Fendi handbag? A gold-rhinestone studded evening dress with a $2,900 price tag? As those items and their price tags suggest, Saks' arrival signals the beginning of some Two consumer groups on Tuesday urged the state of Florida to crack down on payday lenders, who they say exploit consumers by charging interest rates as high as 573 percent. 'The payday loan industry is the modern day equivalent of loan sharking," said Mark Ferrulo, director of the Florida Public Interest Research Group in Tallahassee. Payday lenders accept postdated personal checks from borrowers who pay a hefty fee to have use of the money for one to two weeks. Often their fees violate state laws, according to the Florida research group and the Consumer Federation of America in Washington. The two groups said 10 of 19 Florida lenders it surveyed charged more than the 10 percent permitted under the state's check cashing laws.

Three Cash Cow and EZ Cash outlets charged 22 percent for a 15-day loan. Officials of those companies could not be reached for comment. Please see PAYDAY 2E than the to department stores anchoring the biggest local malls. It is the same size as Saks' stores in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando and its Atlanta flagship store when it first opened 30 years ago. The Atlanta store has twice been expanded, most recently to square feet.

The store's arrival is confirmation that the nation's flash-and-dazzle merchants think the area has grown sophisticated enough for a big-time upgrade. "We are convinced from our research that there are enough dramatic changes in Tampa Bay's retailing landscape. Until now, upscale shopping locally meant department stores, plus Jacobson's and a handful of specialty shops. Since Saks decided to oix-n a full-line store in West Shore Plaza, a parade of other high-end retail chains have lined up to follow. Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus and Lord Taylor all plan to open their first Tampa Bay stores in 2001 at the proposed International Plaza a mile north of West Shore Plaza.

At 100,000 square feet, the new two-story Saks is smaller.