The Record from Hackensack, New Jersey • 13

13. Rscord TUESDAY. JANUARY 17. 1984 13 2 7T77 FactoFie Faction; miming mnanmmiy at 79.4 capacity speaking: Manufacturer total 1967100 7 This i a weefciy coivnM focusina on of special interest in northern New Reader should investigate further on their economists said the slowdown is typical for this stage of the recovery. "These are good numbers.

Tbey reflect a moderation in the pace of the recovery that is to be expected and in some cases welcomed," said Gene Guill of Wharton Econometrics. Guill said increases faster than last month's could force companies to strain to meet demand, leading to higher prices. The latest report should ease fears that "the Fed might want to constrain the economy by tightening up on interest rates," Guill said. The 79.4-percent overall capacity rate was the highest since September 1981, when the recession was taking hold. Many economists feel that a rate of 80 percent to 82 percent signals a healthy economy with any higher numbers threatening to set off a new round of inflation.

The report said the rate for manufacturing increased only slightly in December, going from 79.3 percent in November to 79.4 percent Mines operated at 74.5 percent compared with 73 percent the previous month. Utilities operated at 86.2 percent last month compared with 84.2 percent in November, fleeting "toe unusually cold weather in December," the Fed said. Tilt AMKfcM Prttt WASHINGTON, Big industry last month operated at the highest level since the fall of 19S1 producing at 79.4 percent of capacity with automakers enjoying their best month in 4tt years, the government said yesterday. The operating rate for factories, mines, and utilities rose 0.3 percentage point in December, marking the 13th straight month of increases and putting the production level almost 10 percentage points above the rate when the recession was coming to an end in November 1982. The best news was posted in the long-depressed auto industry, which produced cars in December at 119 percent of capacity, the highest rate since June 1979.

The December figure represented a comeback of 48.1 percentage points for automakers from the low hit in January 1982. The Federal Reserve Board, which released the report said that while the operating rates continued to rise in the final quarter of the year, "the increases were less rapid than those recorded in the spring and summer." During that time, the monthly increases in capacity use were often three times higher than December's 0.3-percentage-point increase. But fr r8u- December J78 I 1 T76 1- p74- 4- 72 TnT own before making any investment aecision. EyUz Kaplan ButtaMSWrttv They crane from a variety of backgrounds Journalism, public relations, advertising, marketing. and finance.

They must feel comfortable with corporate finance and public markets and be able to communicate these subtleties to a broad audience of Wall Street orofessionals. institutions, and individual I 1 1 1 1 i el shareholders. JFMAMJJ ASOND 1983 They are investor relations officers, responsible for getting across a company's story to the investment community. These are the professionals who compile annual and quarterly reports, make presentations to analysts and money managers, monitor stock trading and institutional buying, and prepare Justices uphold drug-coupon ban assorted mailings for shareholders and brokers. Top court rejects challenge by CVS The policy adopted by the state Board of Pharmacy is based on a legal opinion by New Jersey's attorney-general that the ads amount to a form of unlawful rebates under state law.

The policy was upheld by a state trial judge July 7. The New Jersey Supreme Court dismissed Consumer Value's appeal Oct 24 but postponed the effective date of the coupon ban until Jan. 9. The pharmacy firm had sought in the request acted on yesterday to hold enforcement of the ban in abeyance until it files a formal appeal in the nation's highest court Compiled Iron Racord and win nrvfc reports The Supreme Court yesterday refused to let New Jersey pharmacies resume running advertisements containing coupons for prescription drugs. The justices, without comment left intact state court rulings challenged by Consumer Value Stores, which owns and operates 42 of its 500 pharmacies in New Jersey.

Justice William J. Brennan refused Dec. 30 to set aside the state court rulings, and the Consumer Value lawyers then sought help from Justice Harry A. Cyanamid cancer drug approved in Canada American Cyanamid Company of Wayne said its new anticancer-agent novantrone mitoxantrone, has been approved by Canadian health authorities for use as a single agent in the treatment of advanced breast cancer. Developed by scientists at Cyana-mld's Lederle laboratories, novantrone has undergone clinical studies for more than three years and has demonstrated activity in the treatment of advanced breast cancer, Blackmun.

He referred the request to the full court CVS, a division of Melville Corporation of Harrison, N.Y., called the New Jersey ban on coupon-bearing ads an unconstitutional infringement of free-speech rights. SSreailiTalEs 1 Doughnut imitator I HOB ART 1 winds up with hole A lv i ji By Amy Dunkin Business Writ Since 1979, the Dutch Mill Baking Company of Wyckoff has been making all-natural, whole milk Dutch Mill Donuts that it sells through tristate area food stores in a blue cardboard box. On Dec. 27, 1983, the Viking Baking Company of Hartford, introduce 4 all-natural, whole milk Dutch Made nuts packaged in a similar blue caid-board box. Dutch Mill's owners thought the similarities in packaging and name could damage their business by causing customers and retailers to confuse the brands.

So tbey went to court On Jaa 9, US. District Court Judge Dickenson Debevoise in Newark temporarily restrained Viking from marketing bakery products under the Dutch Made label in boxes that infringe upon Dutch Mill's trademark. The Connecticut company was also given 10 days to remove its doughnuts from store shelves. John Sandfort, vice-president of Dutch Mill, said Viking will probably agree to cease production of doughnuts under the Dutch Made name. "They tried to copy our box and they also tried to copy our product What they ended up with was a product that was very greasy and one with obvious shortcuts having been taken," he said.

He cited a letter from one customer who assumed Dutch Mill had sold out to another bakery which "is not continuing your adherence to the quality product you strived to put out" Sandfort noted that Sam and Mark Ja-cobson, who own Viking, used to distribute Dutch Mill Donuts in New York City This hybrid profession has undergone radical changes since General Electric pioneered the field in the late 1950's. During the stock market boom of the late 1960's, the field was dominated by people with a corporate press relations background whose orientation was often unabashedly promotional. Chastened by the market's collapse in the early 1970's, companies began delegating investor relations duties to those with finance backgrounds. This dryer, more conservative approach helped restore credibility, often at the cost of communications skills, say investor relations specialists. The balance was out of whack," says Win Nielson, senior vice-president of D.

F. King and Company a New York firm that specializes in proxy solicitations and shareholder communications. A balance has been struck, he says, between the need for financial understanding and good communications skills. The field's coming of age has been presided over, and encouraged, by the National Investors Relations Institute. The association has a key role in training, especially since there are no formal educational program for investors relations.

It has about 1,400 members and has been growing at the rate of 10 percent to IS percent each year, says Nielsen, who also serves as the institute's, vice-president of planning and manpower. "It's important to know your says Arden Melick, one of the founders of the New Jersey chapter and its first president "Each has his own tniniezpertise. Investor relations people tend to move among different industries, so this is a way of sharing knowledge." The educational function is particularly important because "everyone in the New Jersey chapter does so many other things" in addition to their investor relations duties, says Phil Cocco, current chapter president As vice-president of communications and marketing services for Research Cottrell in Somer-ville, Cocco is also responsible for marketing services, employee communications, advertising, and corporate public Cocco's greatest challenge in investor relations came when Research Cottrell entered the energy field in the late Seventies with the acquisition of several small oil-field service companies. "Since 1912, we had been an environmental control company involved in the design and manufacture of pollution control Cocco said. "It was a challenge to get the financial community to look at us as something else." The company "went on the road," arranging regional meetings with analysts and brokers to explain the shift Cocco also helped prepare a film presentation, literature, and a 25-week advertising campaign in The Wall Street Journal.

Based on a survey conducted before and after the campaign, "we think it worked," said Cocco. Ms. Melick was so effective in her last position that it cost her her job. When Mark Anton, chairman of Suburban Propane Corporation, asked her to set up an investor relations department at the Morristown-based company in 1979, be was concerned about the firm's low profile. "The company was not perceived as exciting," she said "He wanted shareholders and the Investment community to know more about us." Under her direction.

Suburban Propane began to be noticed by the investment community. In 1982, it suddenly found itself the takeover target of a bevy of suitors, including the Bass family of Texas and the Be lz berg family of Canada. It was acquired by National Distillers ar.d Chemical Corporation last January. Tm sorry that things didn't work out so that Suburban Propane could remain Independent" she says. "But I do believe the best deal was struck." acute leukemias, and lymphomas, with less side-e2ect problem than most other cytotoxic drugs, the company said.

Cyanamid of Canada Lac. plans to launch novantrone next month, American Cyanamid said, and a new-drug application will be filed with the US. Food and Drug Administration in the spring. International banking at first National State First National State Bank has formed an international banking facility to serve overseas customers out of its Newark headquarters. Such facilities, authorized, by the Federal Reserve Board as separate branchlike entities, are limited to taking foreign deposits and to making loans outside the United States.

Vyquest says it will redeem debentures Vyquest Inc. of Clifton said it will redeem all its outstanding 8-percent senior subordinated convertible debentures due Aug. 1, 1987. The redemption date will be Feb. 29.

The face amount plus accrued unpaid interest will be paid for debentures surrendered to the indenture trustee, J. Henry Schroder Bank Trust Company, Vyquest said. The principal amount debentures outstanding totals about $309,000. The debentures may be converted into Vyquest common stock at debenture principal amount for each share of stock. Beginning Jan.

20 the conversion price will be 3 per share, to reflect a 2-for-l split of Vyquest stock pay- -able on that date. Treasury-bill rates keep on sliding Yields on short-term Treasury securities fell in yesterday's auctions, declining for the second week in a row, oScials said. The government sold about 12.8 billion in new T-biib half in three -month bills at an average discount rate of 8.82 percent (down from 8.S2 percent) and half in six-month bills at an average discount rate of 8.S2 percent (down from 9.1 percent). Yesterday's yields were the lowest since the Nov. 14 level of 8.91 percent for six-month and the Nov.

21 level of 8.81 percent for three-month bills. The new discount rates Enderstate the actual return to investors 9.17 percent for three-month bills and 9.5 percent for the six-month bills. Compiled from Record end wire serx-ice reports own pnoiB wf rfnr Monstcs Dutch Mill Vice-President John Sandfort with both the Viking Baking Company doughnut box, at right, and his own firm's box. tended that the two packages were significantly different "I see no passing off here," be said. "I see very clearly that there's a different name stamped here on the Dutch Made box I there's no windmill, the number of doughnut types manufactured are different" See DUTCH, A-16 and on Long Island through a company they own in Brooklyn.

Details on the two packages differ, but they resemble each other in general appearance. Both are blue, have similar border graphics, use much of the same language, and contain eight doughnuts. Most varieties of both brands cost 81.49 a box. Viking's attorney, Irving MandeU, con Grand Union to sell Ela D.C. holdings By Tht Record's staff Grand Union Company will sell its supermarkets, discount grocery stores, and distribution facilities in Florida and suburban Washington, D.G, the Elm wood Park chain said yesterday.

Just last week the company said it was ending operations in its Weingarten chain in Texas and Louisiana. Of its 70 stores in that region, Grand Union sold 46 to the Safeway supermarket chain, 14 to other buyers, and closed 10 for which no buyers were found. The properties being put up for sale in Florida include 43 Grand Union supermarkets, six discount stores known as Basics Food Warehouses, and a distribution center in Hialeah. In the Washington area, the company is selling 24 Grand Union supermarkets, 10 Basics Food Warehouses, and a distribution center in Landover, Md. "We are withdrawing from these markets to allow us to concentrate our resources in stronger market areas," said a statement issued from the company's headquarters.

Grand Union has maintained operations in the Florida and Washington areas for more than 25 years, Vaillancourt said. The Florida operations employ approximately 3,000 people and the Washington-area business has about 1,800 employees. All Grand Union properties in the two areas will be offered for sale through an auction to be conducted by mail, the company said. Information on the properties has been sent to "all interested parties" and firm bids are to be returned by Feb. 3..