Daily News from New York, New York • 364

p''a-'-p "gyr fs $76.69 $42.00 $63.87 88.37 108.31 Unchanged -iU" Unchanged I E3mi WALL STREET BDqqdd tmdl Sod Duane Reade has big plans for its IPO: It's looking to raise $92.5 million. It wants to open up to 40 new stores citywide. It's fighting off a strong invasion from competitor CVS. speak about the offering was at a disadvantage. In the mid-'90s, it had expanded too fast and run tight on cash.

In 1996, it brought in Pathmark President Anthony Cuti to help fix the problems, No telling what the future holds Even psychics will miss an important event now and then. Inphomation Communication, which operates the Psychic Friends Network, has filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors. Founded in 1990 and owned by Baltimore businessman Michael Lasky, Inphomation pioneered the use of "900" number phone lines, where customers pay by the minute, and backed them with infomercials that starred Dionne Warwick promoting a network of about 2,000 self-described psychics. Inphomation had estimated revenues of $125 million in the early '90s, but that is said to have plunged to less than $30 million in the last two years. Hard at work Online job-listing service CareerMosaic and Yahoo! New York, the local version of the Internet directory, have teamed up to create a virtual job fair on Yahooi's site (http:newyork.yahoo.com).

The online event includes a PC giveaway and features Citibank, UPS and Memorial Sloan-Kettering. Stronger signal towell (Bud) Paxson added eight TV markets to his planned broadcasting empire, including an Albany station. He now has 74 stations including WPXN-Channel 31 here reaching 72 of the country, and plans to launch his family-oriented network Pax Net in August. That's the breaks The New York Stock Exchange has approved new circuit-breaker rules that will close the markets only in the most extreme circumstances in deference to objections to an earlier proposal by the Securities Exchange Commission. Under the new rules, trading halts would be triggered by 10, 20 and 30 declines in the Dow.

It must be approved by the SEC. Taking charge Alice 0'Rourke, an executive at the Empire State Development will head the New York New Media Association, the leading Silicon Alley trade group, beginning Feb. 16. An immediate priority is to develop educational programs for new media entrepreneurs. It all ads up Kraft Foods, Grey Advertising and TCI are teaming up to develop ways to deliver ads to specific households and eventually different ads to viewers of different target audiences in the same home through TCI's digital cable network.

The little shop that could and last year Donaldson, Luf-kin Jenrette poured $350 million into the chain. Today, the $414 million chain is more efficient and is opening more stores though it remains saddled with more debt Then the pendulum swung against Duane Reade. Faced with heated competition, it expanded too fast and ran tight on cash. Last May, Donaldson Lufkin Jenrette invested $350 million and Duane Reade's execs set to turning it around. And the Cohens? Eli's sons, Ronnie and Leon, have set up a new health-and-beauty operation, called Price Depot, with two Manhattan locations.

Amy Feldman 92.5Mgain isRxfor expansion By AMY FELDMAN Daily News Business Writer Duane Reade, the city's biggest drugstore chain, is slated to go public today in an estimated $92.5 million stock offering. The drug retailer, which has 67 stores here, wants to use the money to pay off debt and then expand by rolling out another 30-to-40 stores. For Duane Reade, the IPO is the latest step in a turnaround effort that has fixed many of the chain's travails of the past Now, with heavy-hitters like Rite-Aid and CVS which are many times larger than local Duane Reade battling for the lucrative city market, the company is ready to join the fray. "There's increasing competition from Rite-Aid and CVS," said Wayne Stefurak, an analyst at Standard Poor's. "But the stores that are going to feel the most difficulty are the independents that Duane Reade and the other large chains can take market share from." Already, Rite-Aid has made a dramatic push into the And CVS recently announced plans to add 200 new stores in the area.

As competition for new locations has increased, bidding wars for the best sites has broken out, according to local real estate brokers. Until recently, Duane Reade which refused to REAL ESTATE Lrouad GM Building (I.) to fetch 700M. 'III Mi uhA'h ill- jifl LMMlMl 'i'i ROBERT ROSAMIUO DAIIV NfWS than many of its competitors. With money from the stock offering and a related $80 million bond deal, Duane Reade will significantly increase its local presence in the next two years. At least half of the new stores are expected to be in Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx, where Duane Reade now has just eight "This is their town, and they own the drugstores in this town," said Faith Hope Con-solo, a retail broker at Gar-rick-Aug Associates.

For other local firms that may hope to go public, how Duane Reade fares will give a sign of what to expect "Anything that has notoriety in the New York market takes on a different demeanor in the IPO market," said David Men-low, an analyst at IPO Financial Network. "It's like there's an unspoken loyalty." area. The company is hoping to increase the value of these properties by transforming the area into a new entertainment district with a sports theme. Vornado's interest in the GM Building shows the company's intense interest in the area around the Plaza Hotel, which commands some of the highest office rents in the city. Vornado already owns the old Alexander's department store on Lexington at 58th St, where it is planning to build a huge apartment and retail tower.

Vornado also is buying the Architects Designers Building across the street on 58th for about $120 million. "When they go into a market, they like to obtain critical mass," said Stephen Siegel, president of real estate giant Edward S. Gordon Co. to (buoy (EM MySinig For drug chain Duane Reade, it all started with a little store on Broadway between Duane and Reade streets in the shadow of City Hall. In 1960, Eli Cohen and his brothers Jack and Abraham opened a 10-by-13-foot shop there, and over the years the family operation prospered.

In 1992, in a bid to expand, the family sold out to Boston-based Bain Capital for more than $200 million, and gradually left the firm. irevvDinig imp By PETER GRANT Daily News Business Writer Voracious Vornado Realty, which has been buying up huge swaths of urban America, is eying its biggest Big Apple buy ever: a $700 million deal for the General Motors Building, sources said. Vornado, which just last month purchased a huge portfolio from the Kennedy family, is negotiating to buy the 50-floor tower on the southeast corner of Central Park from investment firm Corporate Property Investors. Vornado also has opened up a second avenue in pursuit of the prize, talking with the Maryland-based Rouse Co. Rouse has been angling to buy all of Corporate Property Investors for about $4 billion.

"There are intense discus sions going on," said one source close to the talks. Rouse is mostly interested in Corporate Property's shopping centers, so even it would be willing to unload the trophy GM Building to Vornado, sources said. Officials at the Saddle Brook, N.J.-based Vornado and Corporate Property declined comment David Tripp; a spokesman for Rouse would only say, "There is a lot of talking going on." In the past year, Vornado has become one of the most active buyers in Manhattan. Last month, it bagged Chicago's giant Merchandise Mart in a huge $625 million package deal with the Kennedys. Until now, most of Vornado's New York City deals have been in the Madison Square Garden.