The Boston Globe from Boston, Massachusetts • 73

Markets DOW JONES INDUSTRIALS BLOOMBERG MASS. INDEX THE DOLLAR 30-YEAR TREASURY YIELD 7581.32 101.92 153.56 2.92 124.22 yen 1.19 6.20 0.02 THE BOSTON GLOBE SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 1997 Business "fr if Wr. teg I ft 1 I ft i H-P plans 1 to lay off 250, shut faculty Chelmsford jobs will be moved to Calif. I it i IUI-L 4 itt 7 i i By Jerry Ackerman GLOBE STAFF i II i i. If- All 27 Lechmere stores close; Montgomery Ward struggling Consumer electronics giant Lechmere disappeared yesterday.

After 84 years in Massachusetts and three months of shelf-clearing liquidation sales, 12 stores in Massachusetts and 15 more across the Northeast closed their doors for the last time as Lechmere's parent company, Montgomery Ward continued to struggle with its bankruptcy reorganization. Yesterday, a US bankruptcy court judge approved the closing of 47 Montgomery Ward stores in a cost-cutting move that could result in the layoffs of 3,800 employees. The Chicago-based retailer moved to immediately begin liquidating properties and merchandise across the country, a process expected to be completed by the end of the year. (AP) ft Legg Mason seen in talks to buy Brandywine Asset Management Legg Mason Inc. is in talks to buy Brandywine Asset Management Co.

for about $150 million in a move to beef up the brokerage firm's money management business, said ail investment banker familiar with the negotiations. Brandywine, which oversees about $7 billion in assets, hired the investment bank Goldman, Sachs Co. earlier this year to help tie firm's executives evaluate different options, including a possible sale. Officials at iegg Mason, Brandywine, and Goldman didn't return calls for comment. No agreement has been reached and the negotiations could break down, the banker said.

Baltimore-based Legg Mason has purchased several money managers in recent years, including Bartlett Co. in January 1996 for about $36.4 million of stock. rior to the Bartlett transaction, Legg Mason bought the London-based money-management subsidiary of Lehman Brothers Inc. and Boston-based Batterymarch Financial Management Corp. Legg Mason shares fell '3A to 49.

(Bloomberg) Three firms purchase Epsilon from American Express Travel American Express Travel Related Serv ices said it sold Epsilon, a Buiiington-based database marketing agency, to DMDA, a Dallas -data-base marketing firm, and two private AP PHOTO Traders work on the floor of the NYSE yesterday, where the Dow closed down 101, well above the 350-point circuit-breaker threshold. Hewlett-Packard Co. said it will lay off 250 software writers and managers in Chelmsford and shut, down operations at that plant by the middle of next year. The jobs, all in H-P's Internet Technology Group, will be moved to either Mountain View or Cupertino, both in the heart of California's Sili-. con Valley.

Layoffs are expected to begin I after Jan. 1. "We gave our employ-1 ees the word on Thursday," said al spokeswoman at corporate head-J quarters in Palo Alto, Calif. The group was the last Hewlett Packard unit occupying the six-, building, campus that H-P bought in 1989 from the informer Apollo Computer Corp. Hewlett-Packard's workstation! manufacturing and design oper-! ations also had been located in; Chelmsford but were moved last! year to Fort Collins, a loss of 200 local jobs.

A company spokesman, Bob jor, said the rest of the complex vacant and is expected to be put up; for sale. Major said all Internet Techno ogy Group employees will get ij chance to relocate and many will offered compensation to cover high' er West Coast housing costs. He said those who don't want to move can take up to four months to' find another Hewlett-Packard job, nr will ronoivo cpvpranpp nav pniinl NYSE chairman hints of circuit-breaker shifts Says members think threshold figures too low delphia Stock exchanges called yesterday for a loosening of the triggers and a regular review of those levels. The current rules, in an attempt to avoid panic selling by giving the markets a breather, halt trading for a half-hour when the Dow average falls 350, and for an hour when it falls 550. In 1987, the year of the stock market crash that prompted the rules, a 550-point drop would have cut 25 percent from the Dow; today, 550 points represents a 7.3 percent decline.

The Nasdaq Stock Market has suggested that circuit-breakers," which halt trading on all US markets, be moved to a percentage basis. Many Wall Street executives have complained that the cireuit-breakers unnecessarily interfered with trading on Oct. 27. Richard Lindsey, the market regulation director for the Securities and Exchange Commission, told the Florida conference yesterday that he opposes any switch to use CIRCUIT BREAKERS, Page D2 By Neil Roland BLOOMBERG NEWS points. Securities firms say that scared away investors who might have jumped in to buy.

In talks with member firms, "the sentiment I'm getting is that 350 and 550 points are too low," Grasso told reporters at the Securities Industry Association's annual conference in Boca Raton, Fla. Grasso, who in the past has resisted loosening the circuit-breakers, is the securities-industry leader on this issue, and the other US stock markets tend to follow his example. The chairmen of the Pacific and Phila BOCA RATON, Fla. New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso suggested the Big Board may be ready to change the often-criticized circuit-breaker rules that halted trading last w'eek. US markets shut down twice Oct.

27 after the Dow Jones industrial average fell 350 points and again when it declined 550 House to vote Monday on utility deregulation plan By Tina Cassidy GLOBE STAFF iu a minimum ui aiA muiaiis pay. 4 The Massachusetts Software! Council said H-P employees who don't move will easily find work in the area as the state continues to suffer a shortage of trained software engineers. Hewlett-Packard said a few jobs may be available at the company's medical devices manufacturing facile ty in Andover for those who do not I want to move, and some employees may be able to continue working for the company from home. The Internet Technology Groups-was formed only a year ago to devel- op corporate intranet and external Internet applications. Major said.

He said the work advanced so quickly that the group is being dissolved and its positions redistributed to other -company divisions that are heavily Internet-dependent. All those divi- sions are in California. Environmentalists said while they were happy funding had been restored for energy-efficiency programs, or demand-side management, they were angry that the $140 million industry would be cut 24 percent over the next five years. The last version of the bill, however, nearly phased out demand-side management completely. Some Massachusetts utility companies, who had threatened to sue the state if an automatic 15 percent rate cut was mandated for March 1, were pleased with the reworked bill.

The utilities argued they could not afford the steeper discount until they sold their assets, and intimated they may have to shed jobs to meet the rate cut, according to Representative Paul Haley, Wrays and Means Committee chairman. "Fifteen percent was very aggressive and possibly unattainable," said Haley, a Weymouth Democrat Also, electric companies looking to enter the state's marketplace once deregulation occurs said the legislation makes it easier for them to compete with companies already established here. DEREGULATION, Page F2 The House will vote Monday on whether to give consumers a 10 percent cut in their electric bills by March 1, a discount that would rise to 15 percent when utilities sell off their plants as the industry undergoes a massive restructuring. The legislation, released from the House Ways and Means Committee yesterday with several changes from a previous version, would restore some funding for energy-efficiency programs. It also provides retraining and other help for those who might lose their jobs when the marketplace becomes competitive next year.

The bill was immediately denounced by consumer groups for being more considerate of utilities than their customers. Jerry Oppenheim, an attorney for the National Consumer Law Foundation, said he "can't believe" the bill phases out discounts for the poor. "And nobody had proposed that before." equity firms, Greylock and Bain Capital. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but American Express TRS said it will assume minority interest of 20 percent in the new company, which will merge the operations of DMDA and Epsilon and do business under the Epsilon name. No jobs will be lost at Epsilon, which employs about 800 workers, including 450 in Burlington.

Bob Drummond resigned as Epsilon's chief executive. DMDA chief Bob Mohr will assume the role of Epsilon's president and chief executive. CHRIS REIDY V. Bright Horizons shares rise 31 on first day after IPO Bright Horizons Inc. shares rose 31 percent in the first day of trading amid rapidly increasing demand for the type of educational and child-care services the company provides to businesses.

Shares rose 4 to 17 after a $38.6 million ijiiitial public offering of 2.97 million shares. Bright Horizons operates about 140 child development centers for corporate clients in 25 states and Washington, D.C., providing services ranging from child care to elementary schools. Demand for these services is expected to keep rising as more women enter the work force, analysts said. The company sold 1.35 million shares and stockholders sold 1.62 million at $13 each, at the top of the expected price range of $12 to $13. The IPO, which was expected to total 2.7 million shares, represents a 55 percent stake in Bright Horizons.

(Bloomberg) Fidelity plans Jan. launch for two new sector funds Fidelity Investments plans to add two new sector funds to its existing lineup of 37 Select Funds early next year. The Fidelity Select Business Services and Outsourcing Portfolio and the Fidelity Select Medical Equipment and Systems Portfolio are expected to be launched Jan. 19, according to a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The business services and outsourcing portfolio will invest in stocks of companies engaged in such businesses as data processing, market Research, advertising, and photocopying, the ling says.

The medical equipment fund will fo-jus on stocks of firms "engaged in research, development, manufacture, distribution, supply, or sale" of medical equipment and related technologies. A manager has not yet been named to either fund, the filing says. (Dow Starwood Lodging fires off new bid in war for ITT Sun accused of cheating on Java performance test A Effort to make system the standard is hurt ft? Firm looks to top latest Hilton offer By Hiawatha Bray GLOBE STAFF tle to take over ITT's board on Wednesday, he will quit the contest altogether. That vote is set to take place at ITT's annual meeting in New York, where the firm is based. Starwood, a Phoenix-based real estate trust brought into the fray by ITT chairman Rand V.

Aroskog last month, yesterday hiked its offer to $85 a share from $82. As part of the offer, Starwood raised the cash portion of its bid to as much as 30 percent, or $25.50 per share, from $15 previously. Starwood chairman Barry Stern-licht called the bid "clearly superior to the Hilton bid." He also said Starwood reserved "the right to offer again" if Hilton raises its bid. Hilton's last offer for ITT on Monday was $80 a share, of hich 55 percent was to be cash. Late yesterday ITT said it was setting up a panel of four indepen- GLOBE Fll PHOTO this, each type of computer must be equipped with Java software called a "virtual machine." SunT and other firms design virtual ma-, chines that will run Java pro-t grams as fast as possible on many, different types of computers.

In late October, Sun -an- nounced it had created a Java'vir- tual machine for computers using' Sun's Solaris operating system. The company claimed the new" software meant a Solaris comput-t er could run Java programs up to -50 percent faster than computers I using Microsoft's Windows NT op-" erating system. The claim was based on a widely used test called Caffeine-Mark, produced by Pendragon Software, a small firm in Libertv- SUN, Page F2 1 By Jerry Ackerman GLOBE STAFF With five days left before a proxy showdown, Starwood Lodging Trust yesterday took ITT bait and raised its offer for ITTs worldwide collection of hotels and casinos. ITT, which on Thursday encouraged Starwood and Hilton Hotels Corp. to increase their bids, said in a statement yesterday that it now expects Hilton to boost its bid as well.

Hilton, based in Beverly Hills, had no immediate response. But Hilton chief executive Stephen Bollenbach, ho started the bidding war with a hostile offer for ITT last January, said earlier this I week that if he loses his proxy bat Efforts by Sun Microsystems Inc. to make its Java computing system a popular worldwide standard may have suffered serious damage this week because of claims that Sun may have cheated on a test designed to measure Java performance. Sun officials say they've done nothing wrong, but rival software firm Microsoft Corp. and Java programmers alike say the charge against Sun raises disturbing questions over whether the company can be trusted.

Java is a computing system that makes it possible to run the same program on many different types of In order to do Stephen Bollenbach, chief executive of Hilton Hotels Corp. dent directors to consider the Starwood and Hilton bids, and was eliminating an earlier agreement with Starwood to give present ITT management four seats on Star-wood's dual boards of directors. ITT said the moves ere aimed at ITT, Page F2 I.