The Atlanta Constitution from Atlanta, Georgia • 105

'V' ji 'V- TA' THE ATLANTA JOURNAL-CONSTITUTION TUESDAY, MAY 5, 1998 1 i.tiM!ii'lfc4 Moving ahead Today's Topic, F2 Dilbert, F3 Business R. Charles Loudermilk CEO of Breakfasts to go Grab-and-go breakfast products are going to be big on supermarket shelves, according to experts meeting in Chicago. Article, F8 a aron rents, isn letting age stana in tne i way of taking the company forward. 1 Earnings Maria Saporta's column, F3 Report, F8 sites tries DailyBriefing A quick look at today's business news. 1 to.

win friends in cable world EntreMed has cash backers in Georgia Money against cancer: Local investors played a significant role in supporting the small firm with the startling drugs. By Andy Miller STAFF WRITER Monday's results DOWJONES: 9,192.66 45.59 NASDAQ: 1,878.86 5.42 -ttPSOO: 1,122.07 1.07 30-year I TO I GAINERS: 1,567 490 LOSERS: 1,454 T-bond: Same as Friday 5. Lii GEORGIA STOCKS: AFLAC rises on earlier comments about GAINERS: 2,178 The small biotech firm that shook up Wall Street Monday with its promising cancer drugs has strong financial roots in Georgia. Two board members of EntreMed are metro Atlanta residents who invested substantially in the fledgling company in 1993. A third Georgian helped found EntreMed two years earlier.

Their shares skyrocketed 330 percent Monday after a New York Times article reported that studies showed the company's two new cancer drugs, angiostatin and endostatin, eradicated tumors, in mice. EntreMed stock was the biggest percentage gainer in U.S. markets and the second most active Monday, on volume of 23.5 million shares. Aarninm itlnoU UNCHANGED: 1,344 and after news of LOSERS: 2,096 a dividend boost and stock split. Article, F4 NYSE CONSOLIDATED VOLUME: 680,595,400 His Windows operating system is on 90 percent of all PCs in use.

He praised cable operators as leading the country in digital television and asked to join them in that effort. "Everything I've shown is here and now," Gates said. "I'd love to work with you to make it happen." Gates got a big vote of confidence Monday when Tele-Communications the largest cable operator, announced it would equip 5 million digital set-top boxes with Windows CE, a version of Microsoft's famous computer operating system designed to work with digital television. However, TCI will also allow the boxes to run applications written for a version of Sun Microsystems' Java programming language. Sun has emerged as Microsoft's chief competitor in supplying the new software to cable companies.

In coming to Atlanta Monday, Gates was selling more than software. He used his presentation also as a public platform to sell himself as someone who does not want to monopolize computers or cable television. "It's hard to keep a straight face when I hear people say I'm the gatekeeper," said Gates, responding to questions from moderator Jeff Greenfield of CNN. "It's the cable industry that is in the driver's seat with digital television." Asked whether Microsoft's move to provide software to the cable TV industry could heighten the Justice Department's antitrust concerns about Microsoft's role in the PC business, Gates said it would be difficult to top "100 percent wariness." By Charles Haddad STAFF WRITER Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates proved Monday the self-mocking joke is mightier than the zoomiest computer demonstration. He was in downtown Atlanta pitching the cable TV industry on using his software to control television in the coming digital age.

The industry is holding its annual convention at the World Congress Center through Wednesday. Several thousand cable TV executives watched quietly as Gates demonstrated at the convention's opening session how his software could use television to send electronic mail, order movies and surf the Internet. Customers will use set-top boxes for two-way communications, more processing power, and memory and graphics to enable video on demand, home shopping and phone calls on the Internet. Gates brought down the house when he showed a parody of the famous Volkswagen commercial featuring two bored kids driving around. In Gates' version, he and Microsoft lieutenant Steve Ballmer were the cruisers.

They pick up a beat-up chair with a computer off the street made by archrival Sun Microsystems. They drive off but soon dump the computer as smelly and keep the chair. The video was part of an elaborate hour-and-a-half show designed to portray Gates as user-friendly. He assured the group there was no need "for paranoia," despite his billion-dollar investment in Comcast and reputation for ruthless domination of the software industry. EntreMed rocketed from 1 2.06 Friday to $85 Monday before closing Monday dose: $39.75 $50 KIMBERLY SMITH Staff "There's no need for paranoia.

In fact the cable industry is a confident industry and that makes it a pleasure to work with." BILL GATES To cable TV executives in Atlanta, on his involvement in the industry Today Gates will lead a rally in New York with other technology executives, including Compaq Computer Corp. Chief Executive Eckhard Pfeiffer, to warn of the dangers of delaying Windows 98 software as the threat of government antitrust lawsuits looms. The group will cite the economic impact of delaying the May 15 ship date of the next version of the Windows operating-system software for computer makers, software developers and retailers. For more on this report, see afccom Other convention highlights F8 Dow sets a record; broader market lags Big gains in a handful of blue chip stocks highlighted an otherwise unremarkable session Monday for the Dow Jones industrial average as the market showed signs of what analysts said was a slowdown. While the Dow set a closing record, its first since April 21, the barometer's gain overstated the strength in the market.

The Standard Poor's 500 index rose just 0.09 percent, while the Nasdaq composite added 0.29 percent. "I wasn't surprised to see the market run into a little resistance," said Richard Cripps, vice president of research at Legg Mason. Judging by several technical indicators, "this market appears to have lost a little momentum." Dow jones News Service The Rockville, Md. -based firm added almost $500 million in market value in one day. Georgians contributed a substantial amount of the 1 8 million invested in EntreMed prior to its going public in 1996, said Sam Dunlap of Gainesville, a board member and one of the investors.

"There are an awful lot of new millionaires in Gainesville, Atlanta and Chattanooga," Dunlap said Mon $10 0 Jan. Feb. March April May 1998 Source: Bloomberg News PAIGE BRADDOCK I jtaff Hard-to-squash bug A new name for Holiday Hospitality By Matt Kempner STAFF WRITER Atlanta by another name might sound like high-tech When outsiders hear "Atlanta" the word conjures many things, from the pitching of the Braves to the digs of Scarlett O'Hara. So advocates looking to boost the area's technology sector are looking for a label that will help them to sell the region to people who can bring business, money and skills to Georgia. A committee from business, academia and government, chaired by entrepreneur Bertram Ellis and Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, plans to pick a name by May 28.

Manhattan's Silicon Alley and Austin's Silicon Prairie have sought to imitate the stunning success of Silicon Valley, whose name has become synonymous with high-tech. Michael Kartell day. Dunlap also was a founder of CytRx and 'a former executive at Elan Pharmaceutical Research in Gainesville. Atlanta financier Steve Gorlin helped found EntreMed in 1991, along with John Holaday, the current chief executive officer, and a physician, Dr. Bart Chernow, now of Johns Hopkins University.

Gorlin had a role in founding two other local medical companies, Theragenics and CytRx, both based in Norcross. Needing a cash infusion, EntreMed in 1993 raised $7 million in a private placement. The handful of investors included Atlantan Wendell Starke, also a director. He's chairman of Atlanta-based Invesco, a mutual fund company. A Marietta resident, John Thomas, is EntreMed's secretary-treasurer.

The latest company proxy, filed a year ago, showed' Starke held 282,336 shares, including 88,984 options; Starke's family members hold another 40,761 Dunlap held 432,567 shares, of which 364,999 were options. Up-to-date information was not immediately available. y. An investment banker, Dunlap has a personal as well as a financial stake in the battle against cancer. "I lost my father and my father-in-law to he said.

"I'll just be real happy if the company helps people." Dunlap says he invested in EntreMed when Tsaw a genuine, collective effort to make a difference in entrepreneurial medicine." That's how the name was derived: EntreMed, for entrepreneurial medicine, he said. In the Times article Sunday, Richard Klausner, director of the National Cancer Institute, called the company's drugs the "single most exciting thing on the horizon" for cancer treatment. The drugs were discovered by Dr. Judah Folkman, Federal Reserve governor to return to academia Federal Reserve Gov. Susan Phillips will resign effective June 30 to become dean at the George Washington University school of business and public management in Washington, the Fed said.

Phillips, 53, whose term expired Jan. 31, stayed on at the central bank for a transitional period. Bloomberg News DOUG MILLS Associated Press Holding up: Volkswagen's New Beetle protected passengers better in crash tests than any other small car did, says Brian O'Neill, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, which performed the tests. Article, F2 Please see ENTREMED, F7 For the second time in less than a year, the former Holiday Inn Worldwide is changing its name to highlight the company's expansion beyond the world's largest hotel brand. Chairman and CEO Thomas R.

Oliver announced the new corporate moniker, Bass Hotels Resorts, Monday to nearly 3,000 hotel general managers and owners at a company conference at the Cobb Galleria Centre. The name replaces Holiday Hospitality, which took the place of Holiday Inn Worldwide last August. But the change won't affect the names of the hotels themselves Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza. Oliver said the move is intended to spotlight the name of the company's London-based parent, Bass PLC, to investors and to change Holiday Inn's image as a dowdy, midscale, U.S.-focused franchise operation. "It became apparent that our previous corporate identity no longer reflected the diverse nature of our global brand portfolio," Oliver said.

In March, the company bought the Inter Continental hotel chain, a brand that has its largest presence outside the U.S. It is also expanding its limited service hotel brand, Holiday Inn Express. Franchisees were unfazed by the change of the corporate name, and they predicted consumers won't notice. Said Arthur Lussi, owner and general manager of a Holiday Inn in Lake Placid, "It would bother me if they were going to change the Holiday Inn name on my sign." Republic to buy Jonesboro auto dealer Buffett renders his advice at shareholders meeting Berkshire Hathaway Inc. held its annual shareholders meeting Monday in Omaha, and Chairman Warren Buffett had a lot to say about a range of subjects: On whether Berkshire Hathaway will ever invest in big technology companies "The answer is no.

I don't want to play in a game where the other guy has an advantage over me." On what's important to Berkshire "Insurance, as far as the eye can see, will be the most important business at Berkshire. It obviously got a big leg up with the purchase of the rest of Geico." On Buffett's greatest concern "We really don't worry," Bloomberg News By SheliaM. Poole STAFF WRITER The acquisition wheels keep turning at Republic Industries. The Fort Lauderdale, company announced Monday it plans to buy Steve Rayman Pontiac-Buick-GMC Truck in Jonesboro, making it the fifth such acquisition in the metro area. The company also owns AutoNation used-car superstores.

Metro Atlanta "is certainly one of the larger auto retail districts for Republic," said spokesman Jim Donahue. "We're clearly tapping into the demographics and growth trends. There is also an availability of high-quality dealerships. Everything is right." Steve Rayman, 44, said he will receive Republic stock in exchange for the dealership group, which he started in 1988. A Nissan operation was sold in 1995.

Republic shares closed at $27.25 Monday, down WA cents. "I'm really looking forward to being with the biggest and the best," said Rayman. "With the economics of scale, we will be able to step up to a whole new level." Last year the group had $80 million in revenue. Rayman will remain in charge of day-today operations. The company's 100 employees will not be affected, he said.

In addition to the Rayman deal, Republic said Monday it has agreed to buy three other dealership groups for an undisclosed price. Combined, the four auto groups had $500 million in annual revenue. The deal includes B.J. McCombs Chevrolet, PontiacGMCJeepHyundai and Toyota and the Hendrix GMC and Isuzu Truck franchises in Austin, Texas; Peyton Cramer Ford and Peyton Cramer Infiniti of Torrance, and Bob Townsend Ford of Cincinnati. This accord is just the latest part of a buying binge by Republic, which reported 1997 revenue of $2.93 billion.

Within the last 18 months, Republic has bought or agreed to buy more than 270 dealerships. Additionally, Republic operates three AutoNation stores in the area. A fourth is planned for Douglasville this summer..